“And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Luke 19:45-46 KJV).
The temple is a sacred place, and we should behave differently in it than we do in other places. Our church building is our temple. It is a place of silence and respect, not a place to greet friends and converse with them, as so many do today.
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are” (1 Cor. 3:16-17). “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” (1 Cor. 6:19).
If we are temples of God and are therefore holy and if our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, it is therefore important how we live. We are not to live in just any way. We are not to imitate the secular lifestyles that we see around us. As we should behave in a different and special way inside a church in which the Blessed Sacrament is present, so should we also behave all the time in a special way since we have been bought and redeemed by Jesus Christ and are now temples of the Holy Spirit. Every aspect of our life should be changed by this fact. It should affect our way of eating. Our food should be simple, plain, and unadorned, not spiced up and doctored up for pleasure. It should rather be wholesome and healthy so that we can focus on God with an undivided heart, and not be distracted and divided by the pleasures of the world.
The fact that we are temples of God should affect how we use our time. What is our daily schedule? At what time do we get up? What do we do in the morning? How do we use our free time? It should also affect our dress. Do we dress simply and modestly? If we are priests or religious, is our dress appropriate to our state in life, and not simply an imitation of the secular world around us, which so much needs our witness? Our new lifestyle as temples of God should also affect where we go, knowing that gadding about is not only a waste of time but also a great distraction to our spirit. This is why contemplatives live within an enclosure—to concentrate on the one thing necessary. This is why they choose to live in deserts, or mountains, or in a monastery— to reduce the distractions of the world, in order to focus on God and love him with an integral and undivided heart.
If we are a temple of God and of the Holy Spirit, we also need times and places of silence, not speaking indiscriminately at just any time and place, but rather observing silence at certain times and in certain places. Monks give us a good example in this. They have times and places in which they do not speak, and with good reason.
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