Daily Reflections Feb 5, 2018

1 Kings 8: 1 - 7 & 9 - 13; Mark 6: 53 - 56.

May I put faith in the truth that brings me closer to Thee. May I cause my body to remain sanctified and my heart pure as a place that you may have an abode. May my actions give witness that it is you who lives through me. Let my body be thy spiritual temple through which my soul shall sing Thy praises.

In the book of 1 Kings 8: 1 - 7 & 9 - 13, when King Solomon completed the construction of what he called a ‘magnificent temple’ for his father’s God, it was still merely a building of stone; a well-structured heap of stones like a mountain with a well-designed cave in it. It had no spirit; it was still a building like any other man-made structure of stone whose walls were adorned with all forms of carvings and precious stones. It was beautiful to the perception of the eye, but void of any divinity. It became the Temple of the Most High God when the Lord’s Ark of the Covenant was brought into it and placed in the innermost sanctuary. It was only then that God’s Spirit filled the temple’s inner walls in a dark cloud and sanctified the place FOREVER.

The same is with our bodies. God designed our bodies to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit. But our ever re-occurring sinful nature corrupts the sanctity of this body taking it closer and closer to its final destruction in our physical death. Along with the destruction of our body, sin corrupts the character of the soul by purging goodness from the heart through malicious intentions, corrupt thoughts and evil desires. But through the sacrificial death and resurrection of our Messiah and God’s Son Jesus Christ our Lord, the establishment of a new covenant of mercy leading to the Salvation of mankind was possible. In this new covenant and through the Gospel of Mark 6: 53 - 56, Jesus commands us to partake in His Holy Body and His Holy Blood through the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The body and Blood of Christ offered to every Christian at the Holy Mass are food and drink for nourishment and inner healing of the soul. Nevertheless, it is important that the partaker of this sacrament co-operate through the sacrament of reconciliation with repentance and confession for all sins committed. This is paramount to escape condemnation and be assured of spiritual protection unto the salvation of the soul when Christ will raise these Holy Souls on the last day. For till then, it is God’s plan that we partake in this spiritual food and spiritual drink that comes from Heaven, so that Jesus Christ may continue to live in us, just as the Father Lives in Jesus ETERNALLY.