Loving the Stones

I prayed Psalm 102 today during the Liturgy of the Hours, and finally recognized its beautiful application:

You will arise and have mercy on Zion: for this is the time to have mercy,
yes, the time appointed has come
for your servants love her very stones, are moved with pity even for her dust ...
Let this be written for ages to come that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord ... (Ps. 102: 13-14, 18)

Today we Christians pray this Psalm as members of Christ's Body, the New Temple (Jn 2:21).  As St. Peter wrote, "like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house [a temple], to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet 2:5; see also Eph 2:21).

The stones we love are our brothers and sisters in Christ - the Church triumphant in heaven, undergoing purification in purgatory, and still slugging it out on earth!  We are the very stones of the New Jerusalem which will descend from heaven when our Lord returns!  (See 1 Thess 4:15-5:2 and Rev  21:9-11)  This is our love for the Communion of Saints, the cells of Christ's Mystical Body.