One of the proofs that Christ is truly human was shown during the moment when he cleansed the temple. He drove out the merchants and moneychangers outside the temple and overturned their tables. It was an almost violent reaction to the desecration of the house of God. The temple was supposed to be a house of worship, a place where we must feel the presence of God. We consider places like this to be sacred and we believe that every church is a place of worship, a place where our God can be found because it is a house of God. It is a pity, though, that even during the time of Christ, there are already people who do not give the utmost respect to sacred places.

 

In these modern times, there are a lot of merchants who are selling their goods near famous churches like the Quiapo Church, the Baclaran church, St. Peter’s Parish, and the Binondo church. We can understand why they sell their goods near these churches because there are a lot of people who go to these churches. The sad fact is that, aside from these hardworking merchants, we can also find some illegal trades within the vicinity of those churches. You can easily find branded but cheap gadgets there offered by snatchers. There are also drug pushers doing their illegal trade in those areas. Even those who are selling illegal abortifacients are also present there.

 

If Christ will only see all these illegal trades, he will do whatever it will take just to restore the dignity and the sanctity of these places of worship dedicated to God.

 

However, much importance is given to the temple, which is our body, the temple of the Holy Spirit. We make decisions every day, and our bodies engage in those decisions. I mean, if we do something that is against the will of God, we need our bodies to help us do what we want to do. Thieves need their minds to plan out their evil scheme, and they also need their bodies to realize those plans. People are tempted to enter an illicit relationship because they entertained what their eyes have seen. In our every decision to commit what is forbidden by God, we commit sin, and we cannot commit sin without the cooperation of our bodies, the temple of the Holy Spirit. So, to sum it all, our bodies participate in our every action, good or bad, and the dreadful things that we do make our bodies dirty and desecrated temples of the Holy Spirit.

 

During this Lenten Season, we are encouraged to meditate on the sufferings of Jesus for the sake of our salvation. He was savagely beaten, he carried the weight of the cross on his shoulders, and he was nailed on that same cross for our salvation. He did not mind the terrible pains and the wounds inflicted on his body because it was his mission. He died on the cross for our salvation by offering his very self for the atonement of our sins. We know the gravity of his sufferings and death, and we know that we are the reason for his death on the cross.

 

My dear friends, we are also reminded that our salvation cannot be real without our cooperation to the sacrifice that Christ did for us. We must also do our part in making the temple of the Holy Spirit, our bodies, pure enough to accept the grace and blessings from God. We must do our part to rip off every evil desire and fight every worldly enticement that are in front of our sight. We all know that there are times when we give in to the natural tendencies of our bodies even if we know that, doing so, can lead us to commit sin. We have carnal tendencies as part of our sexual nature. We are also tempted to enrich ourselves anchoring on the thought that the meaning of success is to be rich and powerful.

 

This Lenten season invites us to purify ourselves and go beyond our bodily and human limitations. Let us, therefore, pray for wisdom and guidance so we can make the right choices and embrace even our pains and sufferings as our sharing in the suffering and death of our Lord just to save us.