FROM THE SANCTUARY TO THE PEOPLE

DEDICATION OF THE LATERAN BASILICA, FEAST

Ezek 47:1-2,8-9,12; Ps 46:2-3,5-6,8-9; Jn 2:13-22

The Dwelling Place of God

The feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica is about the consecration of a physical building constructed by Emperor Constantine on the Lateran Hill in Rome in about 324. It is the mother and head of all the churches of the City of Rome and the western world. It is the Catedral of the See of Peter, as the Bishop of Rome. But it is more than just a celebration of a physical building. It is the celebration of God’s dwelling among his people. It is an opportunity to meditate on the vocation each of us has received to be a dwelling place of God. The physical building is holy to the extent it serves the purpose of aiding the holiness of those who worship God in it. Our holiness consists in God dwelling within us. So, the end of the physical building is the holiness of the worshippers. The church building is holy because it houses the celebration of the sacred mysteries, our liturgical celebrations geared towards the glory of God and the sanctification of man. The liturgical celebrations are not sacred ipso facto. They derive holiness from the faith of the faithful who participate in the celebrations and instantiate the Church of God by the same faith. Our faith in God is the essential element that makes the presence of God in our liturgical celebrations efficacious and redemptive.

God is everywhere by his divine essence and limited by nothing less than his will. But he is present in our liturgical celebrations in a redemptive manner to bring about the salvation of those who faithfully implore his mercy and grace. The redemptive grace is everywhere but made available to any who implore with faith in spirit and truth as our Lord revealed to the Samaritan woman. He is present even more so when the faithful gather and pray in spirit and truth in the liturgical celebrations. The prophecy of Ezekiel confirms this understanding of the outflowing of the grace of God from the sanctuary to the people. “The water flowed from under the right side of the Temple, south of the alter. He took me out by the north gate and led me right round outside as far as the outer east gate where the water flowed out on the right-hand side. He said, ‘This water flows east down to the Arabah and to the sea, and flowing into the sea it makes its waters wholesome.” The grace of God flowing from the Word and Sacraments into us, individually and collectively, making our thoughts, words, and actions wholesome. The graces we receive from our liturgical celebrations in the church purify and enable us to bear heavenly fruits and minister salvation, or Jesus Christ, to others. Hence, the feast celebrates God’s presence for our sanctification and salvation. Thus, the Psalmist testifies: “God is for us a refuge and strength, a helper close at hand, in time of distress, so we shall not fear though the earth should rock, though the mountains fall into the depths of the sea.”

The action of Jesus Christ at the Temple in Jerusalem confirms our explanation of the purpose of the physical church. The Temple is a sacrament of God’s dwelling among his people; the sacrament of the mystical Body of Jesus Christ. It is also a sacrament of the individual Christian called to be a dwelling place of God. These shades of the sacramental nature of the physical church are visible in the encounter at the Temple in Jerusalem. When he drove out the traders in the Temple, the Jews wanted to understand why he did so. “Jesus answered, ‘Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.’ … But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said.” Our Lord referred to his own body, thereby using the Temple and his sacred body interchangeably in the mystery-ladened interaction between him and the Jews. Another important teaching from the interaction is that God builds his Church, not man. From the sacred body of our Lord Jesus Christ, his mystical body that is the Church, the individual members of the Church constituting his body, to the physical building, these are God works, we are only instruments in the hand of God. The Lord passed this truth to the Jews when he said: ‘Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.’ There is nothing holy which God has not constructed. What belongs to us, in our sinfulness, is destruction only God constructs a holy house.

Let us pray: O God, who from living and chosen stones prepare an eternal dwelling for your majesty, increase in your Church the spirit of grace you have bestowed, so that by new growth your faithful people may build up the heavenly Jerusalem. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.