Your body is a Wonderland

Sunday's readings were about the body as a Temple, a dwelling-place for God that must be kept pure. When Jesus drove out the moneychangers, what he was really demanding was purity. We should never treat our own bodies as commodities, as things to possess or control, not even by ourselves. We should respect our bodies and reverence them. We should reverence the Body of Christ, which is the Church, all of us who have been washed fresh in Living Water.

We should respond to the Tempter with the same zeal as Christ, enthusiastically banishing evil from our cognizance and presence.

What a difference the Church would make if we all shifted our paradigm: I am only a steward of the gift of my own body, just as I am only a steward of all gifts God bestows, including money. My body is not mine to possess, but God's to possess, or else I invite the possession of Another. Perish the thought--

Lord, take me!