Growing up in Nashua, New Hampshire, my family’s spring cleaning took place during April school vacation. My mother ran a pretty tight ship overall, but spring cleaning was very different to the daily or weekly chores we all had. Closets and cupboards were completely emptied out, vacuumed, washed with Pinesol, and reorganized. Worn-out or outgrown clothing and shoes were donated or discarded. Floors, baseboards, and all woodwork were wiped down with Murphy’s oil soap. Kitchen chairs were disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled. My father went to work repairing, repainting, or replacing what was worn, worn out, or no longer working as it should.

Later I came to realize that in my parents’ eyes, spring cleaning had a significance far beyond hygiene and maintenance, just as our home was far more than a place we lived. Thorough cleaning, addressing misplaced items, and eliminating anything unsuitable were ways of asserting ownership and pride in every corner of our home, ensuring it was ready and welcoming for us. As members of the family, we shared the responsibility and the joy of dwelling there.

In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus cleans the temple, his Father’s house, driving out moneychangers and livestock. We read that: “Zeal for his father’s house consumes him.” While Jesus overturned tables, he zealously drove out whatever was unfit, eliminating anything unsuitable and whatever was not holy and consecrated to God and his service.

Those shocked at Jesus’ forceful and spirited acts asked for a sign of his authority. Then something profound happens. Jesus replies, cryptically, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up”. John the Evangelist tells us that Jesus was speaking of his body, which would be destroyed on Good Friday but raised up, gloriously, on Easter Sunday.

Jesus identified himself as the temple, the true temple that will be destroyed and then glorified. He declares that his person is the fulfillment and culmination of the Hebrew Scripture, the true repository of God, the only valid and worthy object of worship, the original and forever embodiment of the temple.

At your baptism, you became a member of Jesus’ family. Therefore, like Jesus, you embody the temple, consecrated forever as a place where God dwells, is worshipped, loved, and treasured. From the beginning, humankind was created to be the resting place for God, the temple where the Word of God resides, where sacrifices of praise are made to God, and from which sacrifices for others are launched. 

Jesus, our Emmanuel, God with us, longs for intimate communion with us both individually and as his Church. The Word made flesh doesn’t just want to be “among” us but to reside “within” us. Therefore, remember your elevated dignity: to live a life in union with God. God’s design is for us to become genuine tabernacles of God, akin to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who carried within her womb the embryo of our Savior.

As members of Jesus’ family, we share the responsibility and the joy of God’s house. What are the consequences of being a living temple where the Word dwells? 

For one, the temple we become is not meant to be a static reality. We are constantly growing, constantly reforming, constantly rebuilding, and being more fittingly adorned as a temple of God’s presence. Historically, Herod’s temple would not be completed for another three decades after the time of Christ and would then be torn down by the Romans only a few years later. We must not settle on being a ‘good enough ‘ temple. God wishes for a properly prepared temple. The temple you build will continue to serve him far beyond our death.

To be a living temple of God is to make sure God is always a welcome guest, keeping the temple of our body and soul pure and clean, a fitting house of worship for him. Sometimes we desecrate our temple. We can neglect or take advantage of the vulnerable and turn our back on the smallest among us. We can degrade what should be a place of God into a place of scandal.

If then Christ enters, overturns your tables, and drives out impure things, rejoice in understanding that the same loving zeal that led him to purify the temple also motivates him to expel anything that doesn’t belong in the home and temple of God that you are. Zeal for his house, zeal for our salvation, still consumes him, and not only should we be grateful for his zealous love but share in that zeal. 

To be a living temple of God comes with the great joy and staggering realization that God chooses to dwell within us. He comes to live in us, to make his home with us, to strengthen us, to help us, to fill us with his joy, and to make our joy complete. This reality changes sadness into joy, darkness into light, suffering into deeper union, and even death into life. How can we, like Mary, not burst out in a Magnificat at how the Lord makes it possible for our souls to magnify him within and our spirits and bodies to rejoice in the presence of God our savior?

To be a living temple of God is to make sure that the temple is put to good use in the worship and service of God and others. The Father’s house is meant to be a house of prayer. It’s so sad whenever we see a closed or run-down parish. It would be infinitely sadder to allow ourselves to become spiritually dilapidated. We are intended to be a house of worship, where Jesus’ word resonates, centers where the fruit of prayer and charity bloom, holy places in thought and deed, sanctuaries where God is at the center and adored rather than ourselves or various idols. When we miss this ideal then perhaps the zealous healing anger of Jesus is just what is needed. 

Jealously guard the cleanliness of God’s temple. When through sin we’ve desecrated the temple of God’s presence, God himself seeks to clean it through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to clean and to reconsecrate it through a good confession, restoring your soul to its baptismal beauty. 

We become ever more the temple of God, the dwelling place of the Most High, when we receive God within during Holy Communion. Every time we receive the Eucharist it is a rededication of the temple we became at baptism. God the Father gives us the grace to become an ever more worthy resting place for Emmanuel, God living within us.

Just as in spring cleaning our family worked with fervor and dedication, zealously clean and maintain your temple, knowing that your efforts are never in vain. Zealously guard the sanctity of your temple, as a center of worship and service to the Lord. Invite the Lord Jesus to drive out whatever is unfit, whatever is not holy or consecrated to God and his service.