Temples of Love
The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. Fr Lawrence Lew relates today’s celebration to our prayer for the dead in the month of November.
November is the month of remembrance. And for us Catholics, our remembrance is a prayer, a remembering of Christ’s love and sacrifice for us; a remembering that in and with Christ we are bound to one another in love, in a holy communion, that is stronger than death. We enact this whenever we come together for the Mass – we deepen our communion with God and one another, remembering that Jesus has saved us from our sins so that he can unite us to his divinity, making us to become the communion of Saints who have him as our centre, our source and summit. Thus Jesus had said at the Last Supper when he instituted the Holy Mass: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ for whenever we eat his Body and drink his Blood, we become more fully who we are meant to be as Christians. It is as if we remember who we had come from, and to whom we shall return: Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Hence last weekend the month of November opened with two commemorations, that of All the Saints in heaven, and of the All the holy Souls in Purgatory. Thus we call to mind that we, the Christian people who are fighting the good fight of faith even now in this life, are united to the Saints in heaven who pray for us, and we are likewise united in charity to the faithful departed for whom we pray and remember with acts of love and piety especially in this month. And this Sunday’s feast of the Dedication of the Cathedral Church of Rome underscores the communion of the Church, for we are united by love for and obedience to the Pope who, as St Peter’s successor, presides in charity over the universal Church. It is he who has been entrusted with the task of shepherding Christ’s flock and leading us in truth and charity towards our heavenly homeland. So, while we celebrated the Saints last Sunday and prayed for the Holy Souls, we remember today that our Faith is always Ecclesial, always situated within the communion of Saints, for as St Paul says, ‘what do you have that you did not receive?’ (1 Cor 4:7).
The full name of the Cathedral of Rome, situated in an area called the Lateran hill, is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and Saints John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. Hence, the focus of today’s celebration is the salvation that Christ our Saviour has won for us, and we come to share in this salvation through the primordial Sacrament of Baptism. Through the living waters of Baptism, as Ezekiel’s vision says, we live and thrive like fish – this was a favoured image of the Fathers for neophyte Christians. Or consider Psalm 1 which likens the just man to a tree planted beside flowing waters, and so we who have been baptised are to become like trees who bear the fruit of good works that nourishes others and leaves of virtue that bring healing to a wounded society. Through Baptism, we have been incorporated into Christ. St Paul’s striking image is that we, the Baptised, are henceforth ‘the temple of God’, and elsewhere he says that we we are members of Christ’s Body the Church. Baptism, therefore, establishes communion between each individual and Christ, and through Christ with every other Christian. For one of the hallmarks of Christian salvation is unity of belief and worship and above all, of charity. All too often the Church of Christ has been mingled with political concerns, and secular ideologies, and the busy-ness and commerce of our non-Christian ideas and preoccupations. Rightly did St Paul say that we have to ‘take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ’ (2 Cor 10:5); we need to examine our preconceptions and foundational ideas, and purify them, dying to them in order to rise to new life with Christ. For our Baptism into Christ demands this, and so the Gospel today challenges us to allow Christ and his grace to come and drive out from us (and from the Church) whatever is making it into a marketplace, unfit for the true worship of the living God.
The other co-patron of the Lateran Basilica adds his voice to complete our reflections today. Famously, in his first epistle, St John says: ‘Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.’ (1 Jn 4:7) Therefore, he challenges us, who have been called into the communion of the Church, and who have been saved by Christ, to remember the obligation this places on us: We have been called to love one another. Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Dilexi Te, thus summons us above all to love the poor. So, as we remember the basilica dedicated in Rome today, and remember too the commandment of Christ to gather in his memory for the Eucharist, we cannot avoid this admonishment of St John Chrysostom cited by Pope Leo: ‘Do not honour Christ’s body here in church with silk fabrics, while outside you neglect it when it suffers from cold and nakedness… [The body of Christ on the altar] does not need cloaks, but pure souls; while the one outside needs much care. Let us therefore learn to think of and honour Christ as he wishes’. Consequently, says Pope Leo, ‘charity [towards the poor] is not optional but a requirement of true worship.’ The salvation that Christ has won for us has to be made visible. So Pope Leo states that ‘the attention due to [the poor], rather than a mere social requirement, is a condition for salvation.’ For are they not also temples of the Holy Spirit? Are we not in communion with them through Christ? Indeed, there are many essential Christian truths that are brought to remembrance this month.
Readings: Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12 | 1 Corinthians 3:9-11,16-17 | John 2:13-22
Image: interior of the Lateran Basilica via Wikimedia Commons
