Who Dwells in You?

​A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, November 9th, 2025:
The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica 

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John
2.13-22
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​The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.

Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

They then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Doesn’t it feel awkward to picture Jesus as angry? It’s completely understandable – we don’t see our Good Shepherd filled with holy indignation very often. But maybe we should make space for that reality in our understanding of God. Here’s why. 

If your Bible has headers before different sections of the Gospel, you may see this section called “The Cleansing of the Temple.” The Jewish Temple, going all the way back to the one built by King Soloman, was the dwelling of God with His people. It contained the Holy of Holies and the Arc of the Covenant, which in turn contained the staff of Aaron, the tablets with the Ten Commandments, and a jar with the manna from the desert. All the symbolic and true physical items of God’s presence dwelled here, and God Himself promised to reside upon the “mercy seat” over the Arc as a dwelling. It was destroyed nearly 600 years before Christ’s birth and the Arc was lost, but it was painstakingly rebuilt by His people 70 years later.

So when Jesus tosses out the money changers and then proclaims, “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will rebuild it,” the implication likely horrified his listeners. What kind of prophet would dare speak of the destruction of the Temple?

But as we know from the benefit of hindsight and directly from John’s Gospel, “He was speaking of the Temple of His body.” The dwelling place of God is no longer a house of stone, no matter how marvelous. God’s presence among humankind is Jesus Christ Himself; God with us. 

And not just God WITH us. God IN us.

Let’s turn back to the second reading for this week: Saint Paul says that you live in Him, and He lives in you. “God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:17). 

You are the dwelling place of God. 

The ramifications of this simple statement boggle the mind. The baptized Christian lives with the indwelling Trinity present at all times, while he or she is in a state of grace. So your body, your work, your marriage, your sex life, your mission in this world, your daily choices – these are done in the living presence of God. Your life matters deeply, in part because He is in you.

Not to mention the coworker that you can’t stand, your spouse, your kids when they’re driving you crazy (just me?) – each Christian you encounter is the radically holy dwelling place of God, as sacred as the Temple of old. And even non-Christians have a dignity in the new creation Jesus ushered in; each of us has an immortal soul with infinite value and great capacity for Him.

In your best moments and in your worst, in your joys and sorrows, in the mundane and the tiresome and the frustrating parts of life, the Father, Son, and Spirit reside in you. You are the temple of God, because God has come to be with humanity and destroy every barrier, every sin, and even death which tore us away from Him.

So as Jesus cleanses the Temple, know that His righteous anger toward anything that defiles the dwelling of God applies now to anything in your soul that is not of Him. 

It is at times slow and painful work to be cleansed by Jesus, to have our vices driven away and our sins undone. This work is usually done in the confessional and in the quiet, consistent life of interior prayer. 

So this week, let’s see the truth of Jesus’ anger – let us submit ourselves to the cleansing of our own temples, each of us individually and all of us as one Church, so that the Lord’s presence may dwell ever more powerfully and with greater purity in each immortal soul He has made.




​Becca O'Hara

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