Monday, November 9, 2015

Homily: Nov 9 2015 - Dedication of St. John Lateran - Beautiful churches for beautiful souls



Today we celebrate the dedication of what the Christianity calls “the mother and head of all the churches in Rome and around the world.” After Christianity was legalized in 313, St. John Lateran was the domicile of the Pope for a 1000 years--the place from which he taught and guided the Church for a millennia. November 9 is the date that John Lateran was dedicated in the year 324. 

Now, there is no Saint named Saint John Lateran, of course. The title Lateran, is not the last name of a Saint, but a geographical location.  The whole area where the basilica was built was owned by a Roman Senator, Flavius Lateranus.  And so, the full name of St. John Lateran Basilica is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the Lateran. Now you know why we abbreviate the name.

Today, we recall the importance of the Pope in Christianity, for St. John Lateran is the Cathedral of Rome, the place of the Pope’s Cathedra, his seat of authority.  But we also mark the importance of dedicating Church buildings to God, of having sacred buildings, sacred places where the Church comes together to worship.

Priests get phone calls fairly often now from young couples wanting to have their weddings celebrated on a beach.  I got a call recently from a couple wanting their wedding at a farm.  We’ve lost the sense of the sacred, and the idea of sacred space.  And for many young Catholics who never step foot in a church, then I guess a beach or a farm would be more sacred than a church building.

And it’s not entirely their fault. After Vatican II there seems to have been a rash of ugly, uninspiring churches built, churches which don’t look like churches.  Even though Vatican II called for “noble beauty” in Church architecture, the prevailing modernist impulse is to de-sacralize everything, 
including church architecture.  Modernists claim we should treat nothing as holy because they say everything is holy.  We shouldn’t have to go to Church because God is everywhere. But this idea is totally foreign to Catholicism.  From day one, Christians have gathered together in sacred spaces for the celebration of the Sacraments.

And as we can, we are to make them noble and beautiful. A church should be beautiful, and should look like a church from the outside, that it may inspire and draw people from the world encounter God who transcends the ugliness of the world. And a church should be beautiful, and look like a church on the inside, that it may inspire and express the honor we owe to God in everything we do.
So we dedicate our church buildings to God, we adorn them with gold vessels, ornate vestments, and beautiful art, we set them apart as sanctuaries, as places where we encounter the holy, the divine.   For, if we don’t dedicate some things to God, we will end up not dedicating anything to God.  We dedicate church buildings, set them aside, adorn them with beauty, that we may be dedicated, consecrated, and adorned with virtue.

If you’ve never had the chance to visit Rome and the timeless basilicas there, I will be leading a pilgrimage there this May, please consider joining me, as we make pilgrimage to the holy places.  If you have access to the internet, you can also take a virtue tour of St. John Lateran and some of the holy places.

In the Gospel today, we hear of Jesus driving out the ugliness of sin and evil from God’s temple. May the devout celebration of this feast drive out the ugliness and sin which sometimes makes their way into our lives. May the celebration of the dedication of the mother Church reminds us of the beauty and harmony with which we are to live as Catholics, in intimate communion with Jesus, coming together in holy places to listen to the Word of God and to be nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ, that we may be built up into a pleasing temple to God for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

   

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