Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome
(Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica-Year B; This homily was given on 9 November, 2012 at the Seminary of Our Lady of Providence, Providence, R.I. See John 2:13-22)
The Basilica of St. John Lateran adorns herself with the title
of “Mother and First of all the Churches in Rome and of the World.” A rather modest distinction, no? Of course that title comes to the Lateran
Basilica because it was the place of residence for the popes from the early
Church right up until the beginning of the 14th century (only in
1305, when the papacy was temporarily displaced to Avignon did the Lateran
cease to be the papal residence). The
pope, of course, being the Vicar of Christ on earth, is the visible head of the
Church and is entrusted in a particular way with authority to preserve Her
unity and guide Her through Her earthly pilgrimage, to where She will be joined with Christ for
all eternity. Certainly we celebrate
this morning that renowned and glorious union with Christ in which we are all,
as His body, exalted. We thank God for
the Holy Father who gives his life in service of that end for us as Catholics. What a glorious feast day!
So many of the popes down through the centuries, and
especially the popes that we have witnessed personally—Pope Benedict XVI,
Blessed John Paul the Great before him, others for some of us who have been on this
earthly pilgrimage a little longer—have reminded us by their very lives that
power, glory and the great dignity of our call are translated in this world
into humility, service and the gift of self.
We seek an ever more intimate union with Christ who “came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom
for many” (Mark 10:45). The Church is called to be like Christ,
to be holy, even though we are all too aware of each one’s limitations and
failings. And so it is that the Church comes to
understand herself, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, as “at the same time holy and always
in need of being purified” (Lumen Gentium,
#8).
Therefore
it is fitting that, on this glorious feast day in which we celebrate the dignity
of our Divine filiation, we reflect in the Gospel on the purification of the
Temple (John 2:13-22). Traditionally the
Fathers of the Church will come to understand this cleansing of the Jerusalem
Temple as Jesus’ preparation for the one acceptable sacrifice, not bulls and
goats and sheep but Himself. The Lamb of God is the one sacrifice that
takes away the sins of the world, and He will replace all animal sacrifices,
Himself the fulfillment of God’s plan for our forgiveness and salvation.
But St.
Paul reminds us, in our second reading this morning, that we are the temple of
the living God, who dwells in us. The
temple, though holy, is in constant need of purification. There are three aspects of this purification
that are important for us to reflect on this morning.
Firstly, we recall
that it is Christ who allowed Himself to be purified and scourged for
us. Christ, who is without sin and perfect in
every way, nonetheless went through the pain and humiliation of being scourged
at the pillar and endured the agony of the crucifixion well before His body the
Church suffered. He asks nothing of us
that He Himself has not already endured.
When we experience purification or cleansing in this world it is not the
punishment of God or His wrath vented against us. It is the love that unites us more intimately
with our Divine Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.
The cleansing and purification of this temple is good because it is from
God.
Secondly, we acknowledge that we are
all in need, as individual members of His body, of that purification.
We are all mindful of those times that we have taken the focus off
Christ as the center of our lives and placed something, or someone, else in His
place. Through the idolatry of
technology, or imprudent relationships or perhaps coming to realize that we
have placed ourselves at the center of our lives, we stand in need of
purification and cleansing so that this temple of the living God begins once
again to be about Christ and the work of the Gospel and not about us.
Finally, we are
aware, perhaps now more than ever, of the need for us as a Church to be
purified of all the ways we have failed to transform the world around us and
have, instead, allowed the secular world to transform us.
How many members of the body of Christ, through neglect or apathy, have
turned a blind eye to the needs of the unborn and the sin of abortion so
prevalent in our culture today? How many support abortion in the name of
“choice”? How many members of the Body
of Christ in America have supported same-sex marriage and rejected God’s plan
for the human family as a covenant of love between one man and one woman,
bearing fruit in this world in the same way that Christ desires to unite Himself
to His Bride the Church for that fruitfulness in spiritual life? How many Catholics in our very
region of the country have accepted the lie that physician-assisted suicide is
a viable solution when it comes to our loved ones facing terminal illness? There are consequences to these sins against
human dignity and the gift of life. These
errors and moral failures are in need of cleansing and purification.
Furthermore,
the silence of priests—all of us, at one time or another—on these vital issues
is also something which we must bear responsibility for.
And yet
how very many faithful Catholic men and women, laity, priests and religious,
have sacrificed so much to be faithful and to witness to the dignity of human
life, the sanctity of marriage, the dignity of the human person. Our defense of those essential qualities and
dimensions of life come at a cost and there is a tremendous struggle, to be
constantly defending and fighting for what others consider to be an option at
best or, at worst, a nuisance.
This
struggle, this challenge, is what is known as purification. The challenge that some must face—in this
life or the next—of taking accountability for those times when opinions and decisions have
not been consistent with the values and teachings of our Catholic faith is
cleansing, purifying. The acknowledgment
of the need for forgiveness and God’s mercy is something that strikes at the
heart of God’s work of purifying His temple.
How are
we called today, and especially in the days ahead, to embrace that
purification? How is God inviting us to
be more completely united to Jesus Christ here in this world by being purified
of all that is not from Him and worse, has taken us away from Him in any
way? Because a purified and cleansed
Church alone will have the power necessary to accomplish what this world needs
more than anything else: the transformation into what Blessed John Paul the
Great called a “Civilization of Love.” A
purified Church will have the power to announce with the boldness of humility
and charity the Gospel message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the
only path to mercy and human fulfillment.
