Third Sunday of Lent, Year B John 2,13-25

You all know the old saying: “The mouth speaks out of the heart.” Indeed, each of us reveals what his insides are filled with – his heart – with his gestures, spoken words, or actions. And so the heart can be a sanctuary from which the actual value of words, thoughts, and deeds radiates. But it can also be a market source of anger, dislike, and disorder about oneself and one’s neighbor. Dear brothers and sisters! So what should our heart be, the inside? The Lord Jesus shows us this in today’s Gospel when he very clearly and emphatically reprimands the salesmen for their actions: “Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace” (Jn 2:16)!

Jesus enters the temple. The temple is supposed to be a meeting place between God and man. Jesus first cleaned the temple and threw out the unclean idols; he remained and taught in their place. Those who listen to him become living stones of the new temple. Jesus was not only interested in making order in the temple. It was a prophetic act by which Jesus manifested himself as the Messiah, who took over the temple according to the prophecies. This practical external cleansing also requires internal cleansing. Jesus cleaned the temple and gave it a whole new meaning. It should not serve sacrifices but prayer, not external ceremonies, but a personal relationship with God. For us, the temple is Jesus himself. Faith in him makes us the temple of his Spirit, the abode of the Father and the Son. The New Testament people of God discover the need for a temple, a sacred place because there is a shrine. He requires a place that helps him listen to God’s word, concentrate on prayer, and establish and nourish the connection with the Lord through the sacraments. For all the people of the New Testament, the temple is Christ himself. The holiness of the temple depends on the holiness of the God who dwells in it. So, for all of us, the temple is Christ himself.

Lent is a challenge for us to clean the temple of our soul. Only after purification can our soul be a worthy temple of God. Even for the new temple, the danger remains that it will turn into a den of Lothians. Even in this case, it does not depend on the temple, but on how we enter it and what fills our hearts. Let’s try it through the nearest St., notice the mass, and spotless inside. Let’s follow where our memories or plans fly to “catch” what moves our feelings. Whether we listen to God here or negotiate and buy with him, watch how human considerations affect us.
We are fearless in answering. Ask ourselves why we came here first, what we want to be thankful for, and what to ask for. It is essential to clarify and sort it out in our soul sometimes or let Jesus come in to clean it up for us. We are in the temple where the living Jesus Christ is present. Are we also willing to prepare our hearts so that the living Jesus is present in them? Let us cleanse our temple in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Let’s gather strength so that when we leave, the temple of our soul is not threatened. Let’s take God’s word for ourselves and talk about it with others. Do we also understand these words of Jesus: “Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace”? It is where the most beautiful and sincere conversations with God take place with us who love him. The sanctuary is the house of God, the place of our actual encounters with God. Let’s protect those places. Let’s be grateful to him for that. Let’s keep them clean. We live in the belief that this place is truly a link between heaven and earth.
Pollution reigns in our souls when we carry heavy sin. Who among us would be happy with such a state of affairs? When we realize the misery of such a state, do we not desire to purify ourselves? The soul is purified by repentance. We will make this inner return through perfect repentance and the determination to confess the regretted sin in holy confession. After such an inner return, our soul is perfectly purified and becomes a worthy temple of God. This joy, that we are in the arms of the Heavenly Father, that there is a warm personal relationship with God in our soul, surpasses all worldly joys and all the pleasures of sinful life. It is the greatest happiness of human life.

The belief that the Christian soul is the temple of the Holy Spirit was self-evident to the first Christians. After all, St. Paul emphasizes to the Corinthians: “And do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Holy Spirit dwells in you?”

The Alexandrian Christian Leonidas, when he learned that he was denounced for Christianity and that he would be judged, the night before his imprisonment, goes to the cell of his beloved child Origin and kisses the sleeping child on the breast because there, in his soul, resides the Holy Spirit. In his thoughts, he begged for the light of true faith and persistence in it for his son. And Leonidas did not beg in vain. His son became the greatest theologian of the Eastern Church.

The Holy Spirit caused it because only He gives the light of higher knowledge; a person enlightened by him lives a whole life in God, and without him, the spiritual life cannot be led at all. What the soul is to the human body, what the eternal light in Christian temples is, the Holy Spirit is to us and to our body, which St. the Apostle called the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Lord, you said: “Do not make my father’s house a marketplace” (John 2:16)! You address these words to each of us: “Do not make your interior a home of disorder, sin, blasphemy. Disrupt us with your Holy Spirit so we never feel comfortable in sin. So that we are never left with a broken relationship towards you and our neighbor for a long time and carelessly, help us to understand that we will achieve true peace of heart when we are a living tabernacle. We want to be the bearers of your love, peace, and joy. Lord, with your help, let us remain beautiful on the inside for as long as possible.