From the beginning, God’s original plan for humans was based on nakedness without shame as Genesis says, “The man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25) which means they saw each other as they were with all the peace of the interior gaze. However, after the Fall, shame entered human heart in which sexual desire or self-seeking love prevails. So St. Paul says, “We groan within ourselves as we wait for the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:23). Here we are now, battling between love and lust, trying to understand we are ultimately embodied spirits, and looking forward to the resurrection of the body in the end.
One of the most shocking scenes in the movies to me is from Schindler’s List directed by Steven Spielberg. When eight million Jews were forced to move in the concentration camps, and eventually gassed to die, the Nazis piled the bodies like rubbish. The piles of the bodies in black and white film brought about an eerie emotion to me. Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman in Holland who was later gassed by the Nazis in Auschwitz, had a deep sense of the value of each person as the “home” of God. At one time, when she was in Westerbork, waiting with other Jews for their final hour of deportation to Auschwitz, she wrote that her only desire was to help others to discover the treasure of their personhood, that each person is called to be the “home of God”: “And I promise you, yes I promise you, my God, that I shall try to find a “home” and a roof for you in as many houses as possible. There are so many empty houses, where I will bring you in as guest of honor.”
Today we seem to have lost a sense of the role and place of our bodies. Many of us are not aware of the sacred space within us, the place where we can reflect and contemplate, the space from which wonderment can flow as we look at the mountains, the sky, the flowers, the fruits and all that is beautiful in our universe, the space where we can contemplate works of art. This place which is the deepest in us all, is the place of our very personhood, the place of inner peace where God dwells and where we receive the light of life and the murmurings of the Spirit of God. It is the place in which we make life choices and from which flows our love for others. This is the church of God that we celebrate in the name of St. John Lateran Basilica today, the dwelling place of God. You are holy because you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you. You are the home of God where self-giving love flourishes. Remember, Home of God is you.