Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
The man is temple of God
Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy. Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool so as to become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God, for it is written: “He catches the wise in their own ruses,” and again: “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.” So let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you, Paul or Apollos or Kephas, or the world or life or death, or the present or the future: all belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God. 1Cor 3,16-23
Paul, in this Letter to the Corinthians, after having mentioned himself as an architect who has erected the community of Corinth over sound foundations, on which other apostles have constructed, today describes the building erected by him. He remembers with love to the brothers of that community that they are an holy thing for the Lord, consecrated by the power of the Spirit: “ Do you not know that that you are temple of God and that the Spirit of God inhabits in you?”. The Christian reaches a mature faith because several people have participated to the construction of the temple of God which is inside him, and which no one can be allowed to destroy, risking on the contrary the same destruction: “If someone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him”. Every man is sacred to the eyes of God. This image of the construction of our interior temples which Paul offers to us causes us to think to the importance of the family. It is in fact within the family that the foundations of the temple which is inside each man are erected: some are strong, some others somewhat less. Some temples are built-up on the rock of Jesus Christ, others are erected on small houses built-up on the sand of human simple values – or not values –, as the honesty or the cunning, the active behavior or the opportunism, the frankness or the lie, the respect or the not respect of the given word. In every family foundations on which others or the life itself will construct over other structures exist. No one, however, can criticize the work done by others, in particular the work in the family, because the identity of the person is heavily jeopardized. This is what happened in the Corinth community, where a certain preference for Apollos, an apostle arrived there after Paul, was born. Paul consider it not right and dangerous: “Paul, Apollos, Kephas, the world, the life, the death, the present, the future: everything is yours! But you are of Christ and Christ is of God!”. It happens also today, in particular because of certain pseudo-psychologists, to shoot to built-up again the persons, starting to destroy what the parents have built-up before them. The identity of the persons themselves is destroyed. It is necessary that everyone has to consider as sacred what the others have construed basing upon the rectitude of intentions.