The Temple of God

   “You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.  I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works. (Psalm 139: 13-14)

   I have had the occasion to observe an Echo-Cardiogram as it was performed.  It is an amazing show of the wonders of our body.  We know what our heart does but to actually see it in action is incredible.

   During the test you can see the heart as it contracts and relaxes with each beat.  You watch as the valves open and close, allowing the blood to flow in one direction only.  The ventricles contract and then relax forcing the blood through the valves on the way to the lungs to be filled with life-giving oxygen.  It truly is a miraculous thing to watch.

   In a lifetime the average heart will beat about three billion times pumping about one million barrels of blood.  That’s enough blood to fill three super tankers. The arteries and veins in our bodies are over sixty thousand miles long.  This is just one of the miraculous systems God built into us.

   There are web pages where you can see a series of sonograms of a baby from the moment of conception to birth.  You can see the various physical attributes as they begin to form and grow to completion.  Imagine the miracles occurring inside that tiny human as they develop. He does, indeed, form us in our mother’s womb.

   “Jesus answered them and said, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”  (John 2: 19).  Jesus wasn’t referring to the building in Jerusalem He was referring to His own body.  Just as Jesus’ body was the temple of God so are our bodies.  St. Paul told the Corinthians, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own.  For you have been purchased at a price.  Therefore glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor 6: 19-20).

    We are the temple of God.  God lives within us.  We have a responsibility to honor God’s creation.  Our bodies, from conception to natural death are gifts of God.  We must give them the loving care and respect they deserve as God’s dwelling place.