Great to be back. This past weekend we celebrated the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. What’s up with that? Thanks to Theresa Austin, digital usher, for the vid. The text is below.
It was the Year of Our Lord, 312. For the better part of three centuries, Christians in the Roman Empire had undergone a series of persecutions at the hands of various emperors. Now the Empire was embroiled in a great civil war between the forces of Maxentius and Constantine. Maxentius occupied Rome while Constantine’s army, greatly outnumbered, mustered across the Tiber near the Milvian Bridge, a key access point to the city. The battle for control of the Roman Empire would ensue at dawn the next morning.
That night, Constantine and his officers had vision in a dream. He found himself looking at the sky. In the clouds he saw a cross and heard the words, In hoc signum vincit! (“With this sign, conquer.”) The next morning, Constantine ordered that a cross affixed to all of his battle standards. Then he marched his troops towards the city.
The two forces met at the Milvian Bridge. In the course of the battle Maxentius’ horse slipped on a rock in the river, throwing him headlong onto the bank. His head struck a rock and he was mortally wounded. With their leader having fallen, the forces of Maxentius were routed and Constantine entered the imperial city triumphant and secure in his claim to the throne.
Although not yet a Christian, based on his vision and the unlikely circumstances of his victory, Constantine attributed his victory to the Christian God. In gratitude, he legalized Christianity and soon built four major basilicas to serve the needs of the Church. The first of these was built in an area known as the Lateran. It was dedicated to St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. Although renovated from time to time throughout the centuries, and sacked more than once, it stands largely the same as it did when it was built in the year 315. Strictly speaking, it is the Cathedral of Rome.
As the first church built in Christendom, St. John in the Lateran is the mother church of Christianity. This is where the Church of Rome has gathered for over 1700 years to celebrate the Eucharist and the sacraments. How fitting it is that the whole Church throughout the world pauses on the anniversary of its dedication to give thanks to Almighty God for his generous providence in history in continuing to provide for the needs of the People of God in every time and every circumstance…even here in 99516.
Buildings are funny things. If you think about it, what makes a house a home? Is it the location, the style, the furnishings? Or rather, it is the family that lives there?
In the same way, what makes a building like the Lateran Basilica holy? It is the history? Is it the age? The architecture? Or rather is it the one who dwells there?
Likewise, what about our own little parish church? What makes this place holy? Is it the walls, the roof, the windows, the liturgical furnishings? Or rather, is it the one who dwells here and the family of faith that meets here?
This morning our Holy Father likened the Church to a construction site. Having grown up in construction, it is an apt description. Somewhere in the annals of history, there is an unwritten rule that all airports, hospitals and churches must be under construction at all times? I don’t know why, I don’t make the rules. But I do agree with Benjamin Franklyn who once said, “We shape our buildings and then our buildings shape us.”
Working construction is a marvelously satisfying occupation. When you show up there is a piece of bare ground. When you leave, there is proof you have been there. How incredibly wonderful when that proof is something beautiful for God, whether in a building or in a life of faith lived therein.
I have worked on many buildings and have guided the construction of at least two church buildings. I have studied at great length and have learned a great deal about what Catholic church buildings have looked like over the centuries and what they are supposed to achieve. One of my greatest experiences was visiting the Cathedral in Cologne, (Koln) Germany for the first time as a seminarian. The building is massive. Construction began in 1248 but it was not completed until 1880, 632 years later. I explored every inch of that building from the highest point in its bell towers to the foundation stones in the basement.
It was down there that I had a moment. Now I was a laborer. I was the one who would dig the hole and shoot the grade for foundations stones such as that. I stood there in the basement of that huge cathedral and thought about my brother laborer who was the first one to put a shovel in the ground and turned that first spadeful of dirt so many centuries ago…knowing that he would never see it completed in his life time. THAT is the kind of faith that I want. That is the kind of faith that we are called to.
I’ll leave you with the thought of Bishop Kenneth Utner, who wrote the following prayer after the death of St. Oscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of El Salvador.
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.