March 10, 2007: Saturday of Second Week of Lent.

PURITY

During the intercessions of Morning Prayer, the leader prays to God:

May we keep our bodies pure,

and the others respond:

as temples of the Holy Spirit.

Matter matters to a Christian. Human bodies matter to a Christian. Why? Because they’re temples of the Holy Spirit? How could that be if human beings evolved from an ancestor we share with chimpanzees?

Matter is what God created to be the stuff of our bodies, and the stuff of the bodies of chimpanzees and asteroids. Matter is not a mistake of God’s, as some pagan religions had it. It is what God intended to create and it flows with the Almighty’s creative energies.

The stakes were raised when the Son of God took on human flesh, made of carbon and oxygen and various other ashy elements. Becoming our brother, He raised the value of our lives above that of other creatures. He didn’t do this to allow us to exploit those others creatures but rather for us to stand with Him, to stand with God in a loving relationship to each other and to all of God’s creatures.

The human body of our Lord Jesus Christ was a Holy Temple of God from His conception in the blessed womb of Mary. We must begin to think of ourselves in these terms if we are to be Christ-like. We might not reach that state until our resurrection, but we must start imitating our Brother now. Jesus Christ was sinless and pure. We’re certainly not sinless and not pure but we’re to do our best to reach a state of purity and pray that God will resurrect us and finish the job.

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