Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9,
Dedication of Saint John Lateran Basilica
Zeal for the Temple
Today we celebrate the feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, the first church ever known to have been built, and the church of the Pope himself (not St Peter's Basilica). The church operated for about 300 years without any church building. Fanta, the wife of Emperor Constantine, gave her Lateran palace to Pope St Miltiades. Pope St Sylvester consecrated it on 9 November 324 AD. This was the first public consecration of a church. This Basilica was dedicated to the Saviour, to Saint John the Baptist and to Saint John the Evangelist, and is considered the mother of all the Churches. Afterwards, it became the residence of the popes and venue of many ecumenical councils.
The feast of its dedication reminds us of our calling to live in deep communion with the successor of Peter, the rock on which Jesus built his Church, and the one who confirms us in our faith. Therefore, today throughout the world we celebrate the Church, and especially Jesus, the Founder and Head of the Church. Today we celebrate the unity of the Church, her authority in Christ (Mt 16:19), and Jesus’ special presence in the Church. We celebrate more than a building, for the interior of this Basilica is beautiful and awe-inspiring so as to point us to the unimaginable beauty of the Church Herself, which is the Mystical Body of Christ.
In the gospel of today, we have the incident of Jesus cleansing the Temple of Jerusalem, an incident which John puts at the beginning of Jesus' ministry while other gospels almost at the end in his journey to Jerusalem. When asked for a sign to prove what he had done, he tells them to destroy the temple so that he can build it for three days. The temple he meant here was not a physical temple but his body, a prefiguration of his resurrection. By his resurrection, and then ascension, he sent us his Holy Spirit, to animate his Church, his body but more still to make our bodies the temple where God can be praised and worshipped from. We should therefore keep our body holy, pure and cleansed of all sin because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.
Today's readings help us understand that all baptised members of the Church are called to be the temple of God, and to bear fruits of charity and holiness for the good of all humankind. When Jesus, in the Gospel, spoke about destroying the temple of his body, the Jews misunderstood it to be the physical temple. His puzzling saying about building the Temple anew in his body was at last understood by his disciples to mean the Temple that was his Body, the Church. The material building which had been the centre of worship was no longer important.
Remember the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well when Jesus said, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father… But… when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him” (John 4:21-23). In this way Jesus not only prophesied about the destruction of the temple but showed that the worship of God would no longer be limited to a particular location. Henceforth all worship would take place in any place, but within the Christian community. The community – or the Church – was now the place of sanctification and of prayer to God.
Jesus by cleansing the temple fulfilled the prophecy of Malachi who foretold the coming of the Lord unexpectedly to his Temple to "purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, till they present right offerings to the Lord" (Malachi 3:1-4). Jesus' disciples recalled the prophetic words from Psalm 69: "Zeal for your house will consume me" (Psalm 69:9). This action thus showed the zeal for the house of his which burnt in him. How zealous are we for the house of God, first to the physical Temple, and above all to our bodies, which are the temples of the Holy Spirit? Do we try by all means to keep our bodies clean and sacred as the temple of God? Jesus is always zealous to clean our bodies as his temple, but since he won for us freedom from God, we have to accept him to clean us, otherwise, the Holy Spirit will go away from our temples, because the Holy Spirit does not stay where evil has been allowed to dwell.
Now, when we speak of the church, we mean the community of believers, whom the Holy Spirit guides, enriches and sanctifies, and we her members are the individual Temples of the Holy Spirit. This is clearly shown by Paul in the second reading of the feast of today. All of us, each as a temple of the Holy Spirit, form a big community, the church, with Jesus as the cornerstone. St Paul uses the image of a building. Each stone makes its own contribution. Pull one out and the whole building may collapse! Every stone rests on another and forms the basis for a further stone. But it isn’t the building of stone and metal, the solid Basilica, that matters, but the living stones which make it functional. The point of this building is that it is a living and breathing building, heaving and bursting with life, each stone winking at each other and breathing in unison, because it lives with the life breathed into it by the Spirit of God. Individual temples therefore must be zealous and cooperate to build the universal temple as we all march to heaven.
Since, this living building is composed of living stones, so the building must communicate life. However, for the building, the church, to communicate life, it's constituent stones, us the members must communicate life too. Therefore, today's readings encourage us to be the channel through which life flows, through which the Spirit flows to enrich others as we have seen in the first reading. Water which flowed from the temple gave life to all living creatures, plants and animals and everything it touched.
As a representative of the Church, am I seen as enriching life, a messenger of good news? How zealous are you for the temple of God? Are you recognising daily that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit and thus allowing the Spirit within you to flow to others while bringing life to them? Pray that the Lord will always help us to be instruments and temples through which life flows to everyone and everything.
Let us Pray
Lord Jesus, My Lord, take my body and my life. Dwell in every chamber of my heart as your temple and make me into a sign of your presence in this world. Amen.
Be blessed
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