Parish of St. Ignatius of Loyola; Chestnut Hill, MA
9 November 2014, 5:30 p.m. mass
Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome
Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9; 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17; John 2:13-22
Today’s feast, the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome,
is one of only three celebrations of church buildings on the universal calendar,
the others being the Dedication of Saint Mary Major, on August 5,
and the Dedication of the Churches of Peter and Paul,
on November 18. That’s just nine days from now.
Mark your calendars.
These are the church’s four so-called “major” basilicas, all still alive and well in Rome,
and the Lateran Basilica, the one whose dedication we recall today,
is the most major of the majors.
It is the pope’s cathedral, the site of the cathedra, or seat of authority,
even if we usually think of St. Peter’s Basilica as the pope’s liturgical headquarters.
The Lateran is a beautiful building, and if you wish to learn more about it,
there is no shortage of books you can read or web pages you can visit.
Heck, you can go to Rome and visit it in person –
just present your receipts to Fr. Bob for full remuneration.
Today, however, I would like to reflect with you on
why we celebrate the dedication of that church, by thinking about why
we celebrate the dedication of any church,
including the very church in which we find ourselves tonight.
It is good that we do this for the grandiose major basilicas of Rome,
our comparatively simple parish church here in Chestnut Hill,
and any other place where the community gathers to hear the Word,
to break the bread, to pour out the wine,
and to become ever again the Body of Christ.
Why? Because when we remember the day that a building became a church,
we remember the days that we became a church.
I wonder, has anyone here ever participated – as a minister or
a member of the Assembly – in a liturgy for the dedication of a church?
I myself have not.
It is likely that there are people alive still who attended the dedication of this church,
which occurred on July 31, 1949 – the feast of St. Ignatius just over 65 years ago.
Imagine with me the night before the dedication, the night of July 30, 1949.
Imagine what the church would have looked like that night:
this wooden predella and the altar were still decades away from their birth;
a communion rail would have been here;
and I am guessing that our lovely, iridescent St. Ignatius banner was yet to be made.
When I try to think about the church that night,
I am reminded of a line from the novel Brideshead Revisited,
in which one of the characters, a young woman named Cordelia,
reflects on the status of a beloved chapel after it ceased to function
as a place of worship:
“Suddenly, there wasn’t any chapel there any more,
just an oddly decorated room.”
On the one hand, that is what could have been said about this space on July 30, 1949.
And, mind you, it looked the same the next night, the night of the 31st,
but it wasn’t “just an oddly decorated room” anymore.
It was a church;
it was launched on a journey of 65 years and counting of becoming a church.
Is not the same true for us?
The night before a child’s baptism, and the night after it;
the night before a couple’s wedding, and the night after it;
the moment before a man walks into a confessional, and the moment after he leaves;
the split-second shift between a woman holding her hands like this
to receive the Eucharist, and like this to bless herself.
The child, the couple, the man, the woman?
They look the same before and after these moments.
But they are not.
Something has changed.
Some sort of journey has been launched or re-launched.
Now, this is certainly not magic, some sort of supernatural zapping.
But, then, what is it?
Let us return again to imagining the liturgy of dedication of this church,
or even better, imagining what it would look like
if this very church were being dedicated today, as it appears now,
iridescent St. Ignatius and all.
At one point, the bishop, or maybe Fr. Bob, would take chrism,
the sacred oil used in baptisms, confirmations, and ordinations,
and pour it on the altar.
He would work it in with his hands,
almost as if he were kneading dough.
The wood of the altar would absorb much of the fragrant oil;
the altar linens would be stained and marked with the chrism.
That is what happens when an altar gets dedicated:
it and everything that comes into contact with it get marked;
that is what happens when you and I
come in contact with the altar, with Christ –
in baptism, at a wedding, in confession,
by receiving the Eucharist, in so many other ways.
The mark placed on us never goes away. Ever.
The mark remains because our lives are no longer purely our own,
they are lived in the context of the community, of the church.
The same was true for this church, when, on July 31, 1949, it was marked.
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It was no longer just “an oddly decorated room.”
It made a claim on us; and we on it.
Brothers, sisters, when we remember the day that a building became a church,
we remember the day that we became a church.
Our attention turns to the Lateran Basilica today because
it is “the mother and head” of all churches.
It is, in a manner of speaking,
the first church dedicated, the first church marked.
But if we have one eye trained toward that church in Rome,
the other should be looking at this church –
yes, at the stones, the stained-glass, the wood;
but also at the flesh and bone of the people here with us right now.
At all the people who have sat here, knelt here,
wept here, rejoiced here for 65 years.
Today is our feast. The feast of the church.
May God give us all that we need to become the church evermore.
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