November 5, 2025

Fr. John Riccardo

Brothers and sisters: you are God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But each one must be careful how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy (1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17).

I must admit, I’ve always read this passage as though Paul was talking about us, individually. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God?” I’ve always prayed with that and used it as an examination of conscience about what goes on inside the temple that is me. And, to be sure, there is much truth to this. I am — you are — a temple of the Holy Spirit, and we should carefully consider what thoughts, words, and behaviors simply do not coincide with being such a sacred place.

That said, that’s not the context of this passage. At all. Instead, the context has to do with the community of believers in Corinth. They, as a body, are the temple Paul is talking about. Paul is writing to a Church that is divided, filled with jealousy. This becomes clear by reading what comes immediately before this passage and what comes immediately after.

In this jealous, divided community, some are saying “I follow Paul,” while others retort, “I follow Apollos” (cf. 1 Cor 3:4). As a result, Paul tells the Christians in Corinth that he has to speak and write to them as if they are infants in the faith, still too immature for solid food (cf. 1 Cor 3:1-2). Immediately after this excerpt Paul writes, “So let no one boast of men… whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas” (1 Cor 3:21-22).

Unity is of utmost importance for Paul. In letter after letter, Paul stresses that God has done something unheard of: by the death and resurrection of Jesus, the dividing wall of hostility has been smashed — the wall that had previously separated the human race, dividing people into “us” and “them” (cf. Eph 2:14-17). “Here,” in the Church, the body of Christ, “there is not Greek and Jew, cirumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all in all” (Col 3:11). This unheard of new human family needs to constantly safeguard and maintain the unity the Spirit creates (cf. Eph 4:3), and to watch out for those who cause divisions (cf. Rom 16:17).

Paul’s words to us this week, on the feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome — the Cathedral of the Church in Rome — afford us an opportunity to reflect on our own communties today. The mission of the Church, whether a diocese or a parish, is nothing less than to rescue, renew and transform the human family into the family of God. Ours is an age of increasing demonization of the other, often, though not always, along poltiical lines. This leads to the cancel culture, and much worse. The Church is to be a beacon in the midst of this divided and angry culture, holding out another way of living, one that can only come about by the power of the Holy Spirit, and in response to what Jesus has done for the human race by defeating the powers of Sin, Death and Satan.

Given all of this, let’s reflect this week on what we can concretely do to better safeguard the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace in our communities. Let’s make it a point to examine our consciences with regards to unity, and where we can get better, especially in how we speak about one another. In his powerful hymn to love, Paul writes that love “throws a cloak of silence” over the shortcomings and failures of another. Do I? Do you?

The world is longing for what only God can give — unity in the midst of division, healing in the face of pain, forgiveness where hurt has been done. And God does this through the Church, the body of Christ, broken, frail and sinful as we all can be. This means we must be different than what we see, hear and read all around us. We cannot imitate the mentailty of the world that divides us up into “us” and “them.” I for one am convicted by the Word of God this week. Let us strive to build wisely on the foundation stone that is Jesus, and pray that those around us, living the nightmare that is life apart from God, will see something different in us, and want to join.

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