Word to the Wise
Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - Nov. 9 - The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome
[Ezek 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; 1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17; John 2:13-22,]You are God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But each one must be careful how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ. Do you not know you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
Many years ago, a very large family friend (now deceased) said to me, "If the body is the temple of the Spirit, I'm a basilica!" He was correct on many levels! The most important level, however, is the understanding that a church is much more than a physical building, just as a "home" is more than a house. When that building is the official cathedral of the Pope (and I bet many think it's St. Peter's), St. John Lateran Basilica, it acquires an importance that is not just local but universal. So, the liturgical calendar has a feast commemorating the foundation of the church back in the 4th Century!!!! It is a historical sacred space, but no more sacred than the humblest thatched "cathedral" in an island diocese somewhere in the Pacific Ocean!
Sacred space and sacred place exist for the sake of the Body of Christ - the faithful who come to worship! Otherwise there would simply be an empty building to eventually fall into ruins and be the subject someday of a National Geographic article. But sacred space can shape the quality of the experience of worship and serve as a preaching or catechesis, like the great Gothic cathedrals in Europe. A person without faith can appreciate the achievement and the beauty of such a place, but the person of faith finds the building itself a prayer in which he or she can join. The entire Body of Christ can join in celebrating the foundation of the particular sacred space that is the Basilica of St. John, Lateran, in Rome, but we will do it in our own sacred space, founded like the Lateran Basilica on the foundation of Jesus Christ! AMEN