Dedication of the Lateran Basilica 2020
Water Flows from the Temple
There are few feasts quite as confusing as today’s commemoration of the dedication of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, a church in Rome. But it’s not just “a” church in Rome, it is the church in Rome. If I asked a thousand Christians what is the Pope’s home church, probably nine hundred fifty would say “St. Peter’s Vatican basilica” or something like that. But that’s not true. The Pope is the bishop of Rome, who also happens to be the primate bishop of the whole Catholic Church. His home church, if you will, is where his cathedra or chair is kept, and that is at St. John Lateran. It’s been that way for about seventeen hundred years, although the buildings may have been different.
But the important thing about this feast is to ask “what is the importance of this or any other church building”? Any Catholic church is not important of itself. It is only important because of the person it symbolizes, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the people who gather there, which is the Body of Christ, and the actions done there, the sacraments, especially the Eucharistic celebration. Just look at today’s Gospel: Jesus at His righteously angriest. The Jewish Temple was supposed to be a beautiful gathering place for right worship, not just for Jews. There was, in fact, a “Court of the Gentiles” which was like the outer court of the Temple. Gentiles were supposed to come, pray, learn and be then joined to the Hebrew community. But the Sadducees, who controlled the Temple, had in their greed leased it out to money changers and sellers of animals for sacrifice. Isaiah prophesied that God’s temple would be “a house of prayer for all nations.” But Jesus adjudged it to be, in the Sadducee setup, a house of trade. And the disciples then remembered the psalmist’s words, sung from the heart of the Jewish temple, “zeal for Thy house has consumed me.”
But defending the ancient meaning of the Temple was not enough for the New Law, just as maintaining the sacrifices of sheep and goats and oxen and pigeons was not ever enough to expiate the sins of the world. To the request for a sign, Jesus predicted that the Jews would “destroy this temple.” He might actually have been pointing to His own heart with those words. He continued, “and in three days I will raise it up.” Of course the Jews had no idea what Jesus meant–that with their murder of Jesus, His sacrificial death on the cross, they would set up Jesus for His conquest of Satan and His Resurrection from the dead. We, by our baptismal faith, become one with Jesus in His life, death and resurrection, and nourished by His Body and Blood as He taught later in John’s Gospel. And to complete the imagery of the Temple mount, His sacred heart would give forth both the blood of the eternally effective sacrifice and the water of life that would by the Church’s ministry wash anyone in the world from the stain of sin. So even we, two thousand years later, can understand the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s promise. Jerusalem is on a series of hills, and water has to be brought into the city from elsewhere. But the real Temple of God, the Precious Body of Christ, is the source of living water that heals and purifies the world. Our Lord in His life, death and resurrection, finally gives some sense to the psalmist’s words: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.” It seemed to the Jews to have to be Jerusalem, but Jerusalem was many dozens of miles from any river. The water of life from Jesus is the stream that makes glad the city of God, the communion of saints.
So we return to the question of what makes the Lateran basilica or any Christian temple significant? The foundation of the Church, as Paul teaches, is the only possible foundation–Our Lord Jesus Christ. The course of stones laid upon it is the apostles. It is a living Temple built in the image of Our Lord, millions and billions of souls animated by the Spirit of God.
Today there are many people, many organizations who are intent on destroying the Church. We Christians have long memories. We remember Roman Emperor Diocletian, who with his henchmen gave the empire a nine-year persecution of Christian churches, the bloodiest in history. We remember the Muslim invasions that destroyed so many Christian churches in the Middle East and Africa and almost overran Europe in the aftermath of the Protestant revolt, and is picking up today in places like France. We remember Napoleon’s determination to eradicate Catholicism from Europe. Jesus Christ promised us as He departed earth that He would always be with us, the positive side of the coin that promises divine resistance to any Diocletian, or Mohammed, or Napoleon or anyone who would destroy Christ’s Church.
