Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Lateran Basilica — Major Papal, Patriarchal and Roman Archbasilica Cathedral 

of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in Lateran, 

Mother and Head of All Churches in Rome and in the World

This has never been a feast that made sense to me. A feast for a church in Rome. Granted it is a very old church and the Pope's seat as Bishop of Rome. Okay, fine, but nothing for me here in America to get excited over (just to be provincal about it!).

Then I read this.

A church's walls do not make one a Christian, of course. But a church has walls nonetheless. Walls, borders, and lines delimit the sacred from the profane. A house makes a family feel like one, a sacred place where parents and children merge into a household. A church structurally embodies supernatural mysteries. A church is a sacred space where sacred actions make Christians unite as God's family. Walls matter. Churches matter. Sacred spaces matter. Today the Church commemorates a uniquely sacred space, the oldes of the four major basilicas in the city of Rome. The Lateran Basilica is the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Rome and thus the seat of the Pope as Bishop of Rome.

That really hit me where I live. I love my church building. And the people in it. It is home and they are my family. During the pandemic shut-downs we yearned to be able to gather together with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

This feeling was strengthened when I read today's devotional meditation in the Special Feasts (vol. 7) of In Conversation with God. It talked about the history of the temple, beginning with the Tent of Meeting in the desert where Moses spoke with the Lord as to a friend. It wasn't a temple, of course, but it was the place where man could meet God. I loved that connection going so far back in salvation history. 

There Christ nurtures us from the Tabernacle as he used to care one by one for those who came to him from all cities and villages. We can present him with our deepest desires to love him more and more with each passing day, and entrust to him our preoccupatoins, our difficulties and our weaknesses. We should cultivate a profound reverence forour churches and oratories since the lord awaits us there.

Today the world would be considerably different if Christ had not wanted to remain with us. In front of the tabernacle we can draw strength for our interior struggle and leave all our worries in his hands. On how many occasions have we returned tothe hustle and bustle of ordinary life with renewed hope! We cannot forget that the Sacrifice of infiinite value which the Lord offered on Calvary is renewed each day in our churches so as to draw down upon us form heaven innumerable graces of divine mercy.

Okay, I finally get it!

Choir and apse of the Lateran Basilica