One day some 40+ years ago, my best friend in seminary was teasing me about my already disappearing hair. I responded, somewhat theatrically, by chasing him down the hall into the chapel, where he finally grabbed hold of the altar, and confidently declared, “You can’t hit me here. This is a church!” (And, no, I did not hit him. Actually, I had no intention of doing so. And, yes, we remain good friends to this day).
But my friend’s words that day always remind me what special places churches are. As a priest, I have been very fortunate to have served in two especially beautiful historic churches – for 10 years in the early 2000s here at Saint Paul the Apostle, the Paulist Fathers’ “Mother-Church” and for the next 10 years as pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, the Victorian Gothic “Mother Church” of Knoxville, TN. There are, of course, many beautiful churches and many styles of churches, each with its own richness. There are ancient Roman basilicas, rugged Romanesque churches, great gothic cathedrals, and beautiful baroque churches. Unfortunately, there are also any number of ugly churches to be seen, but that is another discussion for another day.
Yet, whatever they look like, churches are always special places. From time immemorial, people have had their special sites – hilltops, sacred springs, stone temples – to which to go to worship. God, of course, is not confined to any one place. Still, as human beings, we operate in space and time, which is why God himself became human – in a particular place and at a particular time in human history. So, it’s no surprise that, through the ages, God has continued to inspire his people to set aside special places in which to assemble to worship him. Solomon famously built the Jerusalem Temple to be a holy house of prayer and sacrifice. So too the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great built the Lateran Basilica in Rome to be the Pope’s special church, his cathedral, and hence “the mother and head of all the churches of the City and the world” – the anniversary of whose dedication on November 9, 324 A.D. the Church solemnly celebrates today.
When we celebrate the dedication of a church, we celebrate three things. We celebrate a place, a very special and sacred place set apart unlike any other. We celebrate a people, the people the place represents. And we celebrate a relationship, the relationship that binds the people together.
First, the place. The Lateran Basilica gets its name from the family, whose palace originally occupied the site. In the 4th century, the Emperor Constantine built a church – not in the center of what was still then a very pagan city, but at the city’s edge - a church that was to be the cathedral of Rome. Originally it was dedicated to Christ our Savior; but later Saint John the Baptist was added to the basilica's title. Hence its popular common name, the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.
The neighboring Lateran Palace became the papal residence, and the whole complex functioned as the center of Christian life in the city - until the Popes moved to Avignon, France, in the 14th century. When the popes finally moved back to Rome in 1377, the Vatican replaced the Lateran as the Pope’s principal residence.
Even then, up until the unification of the Kingdom of Italy in 1870 put an end to papal rule in Rome, it remained customary for the Pope to come to the Lateran to impart the Papal Blessing, Urbi et Orbi (To the City and to the World) on certain special days during the year.
So that’s the place, a very special place. But, when we celebrate the dedication of a church, we also celebrate the people the place represents, for, as St. Paul reminded the Corinthians, We are God’s building [1 Corinthians 3:9c]. That is why the anniversary of a church’s dedication is celebrated liturgically as a feast for all those whose church it is. As the Pope's principal church, the cathedral church of Rome. Saint John Lateran is, in a sense, everyone’s church. Hence, its anniversary is celebrated universally.
It is no accident that one and the same name, “Church,” is used for both the people who continue Christ’s presence in the world and the place where they assemble to experience his presence most directly, by proclaiming his word and celebrating his sacraments.
But, when we celebrate the dedication of a church, and especially when we celebrate the dedication of a cathedral church, we also celebrate the relationship that binds its people together. As the site of the bishop’s cathedra, the chair from which the bishop exercises his teaching office and pastoral power within the local church, a cathedral is a sign of the unity of believers in the one faith, which the bishop proclaims and represents, which is why having a proper cathedral is so important in the life of a local church. As the Pope’s cathedral, the Lateran Basilica is a sign of our unity as believers in the one faith in which, as the successor of Saint Peter, the Pope unites the entire Church - all around the world and across the centuries.
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