Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

The Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica (November 9)

Readings: Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12   1 Corinthians 3:9-17         John 2:13-22

            Since the twelfth century on November 9th the Roman Church has honored Emperor Constantine’s building of the basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, the cathedral church of the Pope, the bishop of Rome.  It is now a universal feast in the Roman Catholic Church in which we celebrate the life-giving mystery of our unity with the pope in the living temple which is the body of the risen Christ.  Let us enter the joy of this feast by singing the refrain of the responsorial psalm: “The waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High!” (Ps 46).
            Our first reading is taken from the prophet Ezekiel’s glorious vision (chs 40-48) of the Lord’s glory returning to abide with Israel in a restored Temple to be built by the Jewish exiles when they return from Babylon.   The vision has more than historical significance for ancient Israel.  It is an eschatological vision of the Lord’s grace, present in his church, returning his creation into the life-giving fertility of the Garden of Eden.  After describing in meticulous detail his vision of a Temple in which all the abuses of the past have been removed (40-46), Ezekiel concludes with an account of the angel of the Lord showing him the life-giving “water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east.”  Drawing upon the imagery of the rivers in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10-14), Ezekiel recounts how the angel made him wade in the waters of the river until they were so deep that they could not be crossed except by swimming (47:3-7).  Then the angel explains to the prophet the significance of the mysterious river.  Its waters flow into the Arabah, the rift from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea and down to the Gulf of Aqaba, and make the salt waters of the Dead Sea fresh.  They renew both animal and vegetative life in this arid region and provide food and healing medicine.  “Wherever the river flows, every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live . . . fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. . . . Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
            In the Epistle Paul applies temple language to the living community of believers as he addresses the problem of factionalism in the Corinthian church. Apparently the community has been divided into groups claiming allegiance to Paul, Apollos, Peter, and Christ (see 1 Cor 1:10-17).  For Paul such division destroys the community as God’s temple by misunderstanding the Christian gospel and the apostles’ subordinate role in spreading its message.  The gospel is not the “wisdom” of a particular preacher.  In fact, by the standards of philosophical wisdom, it is folly, because its foundation stone is the cross, i.e., the message about Jesus, a crucified and risen Messiah.  Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians, “You are God’s temple.”  His role in founding the community was by the grace of God that of a master builder who laid a foundation, but now another is building upon it.  He “must be careful how he builds upon it” for there is only one foundation and that is “Jesus Christ.”  In urgent language Paul again reminds the Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?  If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are is holy.”
            In the Gospel John uses temple language to point to the life-giving power of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  In the course of cleansing the temple Jesus announces that his death and resurrection will replace the temple where animal sacrifices are offered to God.  In contrast to the other Gospels which place this incident at the end of Jesus’ public ministry, John recounts the cleansing of the temple in chapter two on the first of three Passover celebrations in his gospel.  A major theme in the first part of the gospel is that Jesus replaces the various institutions of Judaism.  In this case, the temple has been corrupted into “a market place” where sacrificial animals are sold.  Moved by “zeal” for his Father’s house, Jesus makes a whip of cords and drives out the sacrificial animals and knocks over the money-changers’ tables.  When asked for a “sign” authorizing this action, Jesus replies “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”  As often happens in John, Jesus’ hearers misunderstand him because they interpret his language as referring to some earthly, often Jewish, reality.  His opponents think he is speaking of the temple which “took forty-six years to build,” but John reminds us that Jesus “was talking about the temple of his body.”
            John then notes that only after the resurrection did his disciples recall and believe both Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple and the saying about his body.  For us as well, the life-giving power of the new temple, Jesus’ body, “destroyed” and “raised up,” is to be remembered as we meditate on the mystery of belonging to the Church, founded by the covenant of our salvation which has now been won by the folly of a crucified Messiah, who had the courage to reject turning his “Father’s house into a marketplace.”