A pilgrim's afterthought

Yesterday's gospel saw Jesus thundering against the traders in the temple and hurling at them this accusation, "My Father's house is a house of prayer. You have made it a den of thieves."

It might be easy for us to think this has nothing to do with us - we would never be so crude and sacrilegious, would we? But then my thoughts turned towards the fact that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. If any man loves me, Jesus tells his disciples at the Last Supper, my Father and I will come to him and make our home with him. This spiritual reality is reflected in so many icons and in early religious paintings in which the nose and eyebrow of the saint depicted take the form of a Romanesque column, evoking those very words of Jesus. God dwells within. Maybe the story of the traders ejected from the temple does have a meaning for me after all!

How, for example, do I keep this temple within me? Is it actually a place of prayer? How many tables for trading have I built in my imagination, memory, mind and will? Is my temple also spoiled by the din of constant exchange, as I imagine or remember the good or the ill my neighbours have offered me?

I wonder also if these questions becomes even more complicated in the age of social media which multiplies the channels of information that disgorge themselves in our inner temple of God. Poring over our ever-present phones, we are filled with the din and clamour of a thousand irrelevant or malicious debates. God dwells within us, but do we even reflect on this reality? Or are we keeping our inner temples like the money changers kept the temple of Jerusalem? Ultimately, are our souls full of sound and fury, signifying only our own carelessness - the neglect of those who bury their treasure and let it lie sterile?

If our souls were returned to being the dwelling place of the Trinity, then I wonder also if it would be easier to recall the purpose of God's indwelling. My delight, says the Lord, is to be with the children of men. And when we contemplate the joy that the Lord has in us, we can begin to grasp, as Colwelians must, what the inner joy of Mary must have been like. 

O Mary, teach us always to say 'yes' to the Lord. O Mary teach us always to rejoice in the Lord, to rejoice and return to God the joy that He intends to share with those He comes to dwell in.