XXXII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
DEDICATION OF THE LATERAN BASILICA IN ROME
By our Pastor, Fr. Carmelo Jiménez
The XXXII Sunday in Ordinary Time coincides with the celebration of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, which is important because it is the oldest church in the world. So, it has been given the title of Head and Mother of all churches. When the Emperor Constantine converted to Catholicism, the persecution of Christians stopped. At the beginning of the fourth century (shortly after 300 AD.) The emperor gave Pope Sylvester I, the Lateran Palace to be his official residence. So the Lateran was the headquarters of the Catholic Church for over 1,000 years, until the fourteenth century when the pope moved to the Vatican. The Pope Sylvester I built the first basilica and dedicated it to Saint John the Baptist on November 9, 324 AD.
The Basilica of St. John Lateran is reached via a pleasantly landscaped boulevard along the old Aurelian wall that runs from the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore to the Lateran Basilica. St. Helen, mother of Emperor Constantine, intended to make this place a kind of Jerusalem in Rome. She brought from the Holy Land a boat loaded with soil from Calvary and the relics of the Cross, which are still kept in a special chapel in the basilica, known as the Chapel of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.
The Lateran Basilica is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome or the Pope’s church as the Bishop of Rome. In that church are the pictures of all the popes from St. Peter to Pope Francis. In this Basilica five councils were held. In 1929 the Lateran Treaty was signed, which is a peace treaty between the Vatican and Italy.
Now you could ask me: in all that history, what can we use? The website: www.aciprensa.com in the section on the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, says: “Augustine recommends, ‘When we remember the consecration of a temple, consider what St. Paul said: ‘Each one of us is a temple of the Holy Spirit.’ Hopefully we preserve our beautiful and clean soul, as it pleases God to be his holy temples. In that way the Holy Spirit will live happily in our hearts’”.
A part of today’s Gospel of John says: “’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” (Jn 2, 19-22)
Now, I invite you to recognize that since our baptism, we were consecrated living temples of the Holy Spirit and God is in each of us. Our bodies are sacred, in that way, they deserve respect and honor. Let us love ourselves that we may feel the love of others, and that we may love others. In that way we will grow as a church and community. May God help us to grow in community, in the Church, the body of Christ until we come into his kingdom. Amen.