HUMAN DIGNITY.

DEDICATION OF THE LATERAN BASILICA IN ROME. YEAR A
Sunday, November 9, 2008
(First Reading: Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12)
(Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17) (Gospel: John 2:13-22)


HUMAN DIGNITY.

What is human dignity? Is the quality of excellence and supremacy of the human being over any other being. That is to say, there is no higher being in creation than the human being.

Why does the human being have this dignity? Because Man is the temple of God. Says Saint Paul: "Man is God's building" (1 Cor 3:9), the house where God lives, where God makes himself at home.

Man is the temple of God both individually and collectively:
1. Individually. Each human being, as an individual person, possesses the fullness of God. Saint Paul says "the Spirit of God dwells in you" (1 Cor 3:16). When a person acknowledges God's presence in him, he is recognizing the fullness of God's dignity in himself.

2. Collectively. The dignity a person sees in himself, he also sees in other human beings.

The presence of God in a person enables such person to realize that God is also present in the aggregate body of all human beings. Man becomes aware that human life grows and develops in the collectivity of all human beings. The temple must be the result of a collective effort if the building is to be solid and stable. The temple is the responsibility of all human beings.

Does Man Respect Human Dignity - The Dignity of the Temple?
The gospel shows men profaning the temple by turning it into a marketplace.
Similarly, man profanes the human temple - human dignity - whenever he degrades other human beings, whenever he treats them as inferior beings, whenever he exploits them, whenever he wages wars, whenever he deprives others of their means of subsistence.

Jesus demonstrates zeal for the house of God - "Zeal for your house will consume me" (John 2:17). The zeal is more intense when the profanation of the temple occurs on a very special occasion: The Passover, occasion when the reverence for the temple should be greater.

Similarly, man's zeal for the human temple - human dignity - should be greater whenever man possesses more talents, more resources.

But in our world the opposite is true:
- Modern man has accomplished unprecedented scientific and technological advances, but instead of using them for the betterment of all human beings, he uses them to produce the most destructive and sophisticated weaponry history has ever known.

- Achievements in medical science and technology become commodities whose cost is prohibitive to the majority of people in the world.

- The advances in science and technology seem to be designed to deepen the gap between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, with the resulting harm to human dignity.

Human dignity - the temple of God - is, therefore, under attack in our world. Saint Paul warns us "If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, and you are that temple" (1 Cor 3: 17)