HOMILY FOR FEAST OF THE DEDICATION OF THE LATERAN BASILICA

Fr Billy Swan

Dear friends. For ten years of my life, I studied and taught in Rome. It was a wonderful adventure: one that I never thought or expected would happen. I lived at the Irish College for all that time which is about a five minute walk from the Basilica of St John Lateran. Many the times I used to go there for prayer or for Mass on Saturdays and special occasions. The Lateran Basilica is the Pope’s cathedral and the cathedral of the diocese of Rome - not St Peter’s Basilica as many people think. It is known as ‘the Mother and Head of all the churches of the city and the world’ meaning that just as the bishop of every diocese around the world is in communion with the bishop of Rome who is the pope, so every church has a spiritual connection to St John Lateran’s Basilica on the Coelian hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, which is why we celebrate this feast day here in Ireland. Therefore, this feast day is about being part of the universal Church, the people of God and the Body of Christ. In my homily this week, I would like to share with you some of the benefits of us Catholics being part of a family of believers in a Church that stretches across the globe.

First of all, the Church is bigger than our own local parish and diocese. The Church is broader and wider than Wexford, bigger than the diocese of Ferns and the Irish Church. Years ago when our diocese was going through the greatest crisis in its history, it was a salvation to live with priests from places like Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland where the Church was youthful and growing after the fall of Communism. It was a wonderful blessing to sit at table with priests from Iraq and listen to their stories of heroism and how they witnessed to their faith. These people were among the finest people I have ever met and they taught me that while the Church might be struggling in one part of the world, it is thriving in another. They also taught me to love the whole Church and not just to be concerned about how she was doing in Ferns or Ireland.

Another feature of the Church to which I was drawn in my time in Rome was being part of a living faith tradition that stretches right back to the Apostles. From the tombs of St Peter and St Paul, to the heroic tales of the early martyrs who preferred to die in the arenas of Rome rather than deny their faith in Christ; from the great theologians of the East to those of the West who helped us understand our faith in God as we have it in the creeds; from the mystics like Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Bernard of Clairvaux and Theresa of Avila; to the great reformers like St Thomas More, Ignatius of Loyola and John of the Cross; to the saints of the recent centuries such as Padre Pio, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Pope John Paul II and Carlo Acutis. In our long Church tradition we also have the genius of architects and artists who put their work at the service of the Gospel. People like Caravaggio, Bernini and Michaelangelo. Through art and architecture, these people help draw us into the mystery of God and fire our Catholic imagination through beauty, poetry, sight, truth and mystery. We also have the musical tradition of Gregorian chant, Bach, Handel’s Messiah and Mozart. Their compositions have lifted hearts and minds to God for centuries through their sacred music.

My friends, the point is this: our Catholic tradition has its shadow side, of that there is no doubt. Jesus is always purifying his Church as he does in the Gospel today. He purifies the Church because he loves the Church. The bad things are far outweighed by a richness and beauty that we are called to know and fall in love with. Think of all we have to feast on and to be edified by: the Gospel itself, the teachings of the apostles, the sacraments, the saints, art, beauty, architecture, music, poetry and the beauty of charity.

This is the heritage of the universal Church around the world. We are part of it and it is ours. We must claim it, know it and love it. When we do we know something more of the words applied to Jesus in today’s Gospel: ‘zeal for your house will devour me’. This was the love for the Church that burned in the heart of Jesus and the love that we hope to have too. The Catholic Church is so much more than a big structure or institution. Listen again to the words of St Paul in the second reading: ‘didn’t you realise that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God is living among you?’ Once we take possession of all that is good, beautiful and true in our living Church and its heritage, the more life we will receive and the more life we will give. This is the image of the living water in the first reading: the water that teems with life and makes everything grow.

The Basilica of St John Lateran is called the mother of all the Churches of the world. In Rome I learned the meaning of this feast day: namely being part of a universal family to which we belong and that we are inheritors of a heritage that continues to inspire and give life. May we immerse ourselves in that tradition, know it and come to love the Church to which we belong!