Today we celebrate the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, the cathedral of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. The readings help us understand that all baptized members of the Church are called to be the temple of God, and to bear fruits of charity and holiness for the gift of all humankind. We give thanks to the Lord for his gift of wholeness and grace, symbolized by the water coming from the temple, and we pray that the Church may be the sacrament of salvation for all the peoples of the world. Today in a special way we praise the Trinity for the call we have received to be God’s temple, chosen in Christ and sanctified by the Spirit. – from the lectionary.
Most people think of St Peter as the cathedral of Rome but in fact it is another glorious Church called St John Lateran. It is built on land donated to the pope by the emperor Constantine. The land had once belonged to the Laterani family, hence the second part of the name of the basilica. The Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome, consecrated in 324 AD, is the oldest public church in the city and the official cathedral of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. The basilica has been rebuilt and restored many times and was dedicated firstly to Christ the Savior, and then subsequently to St. John the Baptist, and St. John the Evangelist. Hence the name St John Lateran. Known as the “Mother and Head of all Churches,” it is the highest-ranking papal basilica and holds great historical and spiritual significance for Catholics worldwide.
The significance of this celebration is that it reminds us that we are part of a church which has as its head the Bishop of Rome, and that we need to be united with him in faith and love if we wish to call ourselves ROMAN Catholics. To be clear, we do not have to like the bishop of Rome, and we do not have to agree with any of the things which he says, unless it is a doctrinal teaching. We do owe him our respect as the successor of St Peter, and we have an obligation to engage in good and charitable faith with what he says, rather than simply dismissing it out of hand because we think the Pope, whomever it is, is too liberal or too conservative. One of the scandals of the American church is how many bishops blatantly defied Pope Francis, and how some “right wingers” were praying that he meet his eternal reward sooner rather than later.
This is part of the reason why, in our bulletin and the intercessions, I include the Pope’s prayer intention. A good and necessary first step to being united with Peter and his successors is to be united with him in prayer, to make his prayer our own. When our proclaimers says “we pray with Pope Leo for… ” we literally are uniting our prayer to his. This is a great show of our respect for the wishes of the Pope who invites us to pray with him. If you haven’t discovered the website yet, I can highly recommend https://www.popesprayer.va where you can find information about the pope’s prayer network and the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as well as other resources such as “click-to-pray” and “The way of the heart.”
I first entered the Archbasilica of St John Lateran as a young man in the Christmas of 1994, attending a concert of sacred music. I was blown away by the beauty and majesty of the building and its artwork, and the music simply reduced me to tears. The cathedral was doing its job. The beauty of buildings and liturgy and music are designed to lift our hearts heavenwards, to give us glimpses of what eternity may look like, and to encourage us to build God’s kingdom in the here and now of our ordinary lives. And it’s what we are called to do here at St Martin de Porres, to allow the beauty of building and liturgy to speak to the hearts of people. And not simply the building of brick and mortar but the church of living stones that make up our community.
