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Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his Body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.
Reflection
Today we are commemorating the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. Each year on November 9, the Liturgical Calendar of the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the Cathedral Church of the Diocese of Rome. In every diocese in the world, the anniversary of the dedication of their own cathedral is observed as a local feast day, usually with Mass at the cathedral for the people of the diocese.
The Lateran Basilica is the church of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, and its official title in English is “Mother and Head of all the churches of the city (Rome) and of the world.”
In the early fourth century, the first Christian emperor, Constantine, had a church built on land that once had belonged to the Laterani family. The Basilica, consecrated in 324 by Pope Sylvester I, was dedicated to The Most Holy Savior.
In the 9th century Pope Sergius III also dedicated it to Saint John the Baptist and in the 12th century Pope Lucius II added Saint John the Evangelist to the title. In 1650, Pope Innocent X commissioned a wholesale reconstruction of the Basilica.
Of the three readings for this feast (Ezekiel 47: 1-2, 8-9, 12; 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16,17 and the Gospel provided above,) all of them include references to a faith community’s gathering.
Ezekiel has a focus on an actual building, the Temple, in the city of Jerusalem. It was understood to be the place of God’s living presence in the world. In Paul ‘s letter to the church in Corinth, there were no Christian buildings in existence.
His focus was not, then, on a building but on the people gathered as church. They are “… God’s building … God’s Temple.”
And, in today’s Gospel, Jesus is placing the emphasis on himself and not the Temple structure in which he was standing. He is the place where God is truly present in the world.
Guided by Jesus’ claim in the Gospel and by Paul’s reference to the Christian community as the body of Christ, I have reflected that we all are called, in ways unique to each of us, to be the living expression of God.
Jesus pointed to himself as the true temple of God in the world. Through our individual baptisms into his life, death and resurrection, we also have become temples of God through whom God’s loving presence can touch the lives of others.
As individual believers and as a community of faith we are called to build our lives on the person of Jesus, by keeping his word and keeping ourselves open to his Spirit.
In attending to that calling, we then experience the Spirit of God living among us and within each of us.
The Lateran Basilica is a particular manifestation of our home parishes scattered throughout the world, a physical symbol of the spiritual body of Christ.
Celebrating the feast of this sacred church today is a way to honor an essential truth: our temples (buildings) of stone (or bricks, adobe, cinder blocks or thatched huts), stand as signs of our living Christian community.
For us, a church is a place where God lives, and, in the Catholic tradition, we believe in the living physical presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Additionally, we also believe that in the gathered community God also dwells. Each of us, then, is missioned and is sent into the world where we can bring that loving presence of God to all whom we encounter.
Action
Perhaps spend some time reflecting on these words from the Gospel, “His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, Zeal for your house will consume me.” For what do we have a burning passion?
What is the most beautiful house of worship you have visited? What made that place feel sacred to you?
Originally from Philadelphia, Linda had a 25-year career as a navy nurse. She then served as a parish adult faith formation coordinator, an on-call hospital chaplain and a hospice bereavement specialist. A Providence Associate since 2007, Linda lives in San Clemente, California with her husband, Randy, and their 2 cats.
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