The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
November 9, 2014
10 AM Liturgy
Our liturgical calendar can sometimes create strange
juxtapositions. Only two weeks ago I was busy offering an exegesis
from old Star Trek episodes in order to convey the book of Exodus
injunction against mistreating aliens. Then last week our regular
Sunday celebration was bounced in order to celebrate The Faithful
Departed. That provided an opportunity for a discourse on the
theological significance of Purgatory. (You at the 10 Am were
lucky to miss that since I only presided at the 4 and 5:30 liturgies.)
And here we are again today being usurped by the
celebration of a building. And it is a feast day to boot! Feast days
come very high in the hierarchy of liturgical celebrations. Feasts
are just one step away from solemnities, the highest form (as in
last week’s Solemnity for the Faithful Departed). Other Roman
churches, like St. Mary Major or the Basilica of Sts. Peter & Paul, get
optional commorations, but no other building gets its own Feast
Day! What’s up?
After my Star Trek homily I was urged, humorously I trust, to
return to doing Latin and Greek etymologies in my homilies. So
here goes. Today is a first-class Feast Day because of this
inscription dating back to the early 4th century: St. John Lateran is
described as “Omnium Urbis et Orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput.”
It is the mother and head of all churches of Rome and the world.
St. John Lateran is, as I’m sure many of you already know, the
Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome. It is where the papal cathedra, or
chair, is located—not in St. Peter’s, which has taken over most of
the fanfare since the 15th century.
In fact, the Bishops of Rome both lived near and presided in
the St. John Lateran church until the Pope left for Avignon in
France in the 14th century. The provenance of the spot dates all the
way back to Constantine himself in the early 4th century. The
property was a gift of the Laterini family to Constantine who
promptly re-gifted it to the Bishop of Rome. Since that time three
different churches have stood on the same spot.
The church is considered the “parish church of all Catholics
throughout the world.” Hence the Feast Day! I hope you
appreciate the irony today as much as I do. In only three weeks I
have offered homilies from old Star Trek episodes, through
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Purgatory, right up to the bricks and mortar of the “mother
church” of Christendom. And there ends our history lesson.
But our readings suggest a far more challenging
interpretation. The Prophet Ezekiel brings us back to the
extraordinary place of a building for our ancestors, the Jewish
people. For that building, the Temple, was the dwelling place of
God from which all life and freshness flowed. Even the so-called
Dead Sea would teem with life, with animals and fresh vegetation.
And John’s gospel takes us into the new epoch wherein, once
again, the Temple of God remains the only source of life for the new
Christian community. But that Temple is now Christ himself; that
Temple is the Godhead itself.
Psalm 46 provides a marvelous transition in its final stanza:
“Come behold the deeds of the Lord, the astounding things he has
wrought on earth.” And St. Paul crowns the new Temple with an
even more astonishing claim. “Brothers and sisters: You are God’s
building!” “Do you not know that you are the Temple of God, and
that the Spirit of God dwells within you?” Paul asks that question of
the new community at Corinth. Paul also asks that question again
today to the community at Chestnut Hill. “Do you not know that
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you are God’s building? Do you not know that you are the Temple
of God”?
My friends, my brothers and sisters, it is that Temple we
remember today as we honor the memory of St. John Lateran
Basilica. The Lateran Basilica provides a marvelous occasion for
celebration with its storied history through seventeen centuries.
But it is finally the new edifice, the new Temple, us, this very
community gathered here today, whom we really celebrate and
honor. Here’s the take-home: Let us then honor each other more
regularly and more conspicuously. It is after all a First-Class Feast
liturgically.
With nods of gratitude once again to St. Augustine, let us
really be who we are, and become ever more conspicuously, God’s
permanent and life-giving gift on earth—for each other and for our
world. Thank God for strange liturgical calendars. They too can
surprise. Peace!
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