Zeal for Your House

November 9, 2009

Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S.J.

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. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” John 2:17

Piety

Jesus, dwell in us today. Fill us with concern and connection to you and to all of your people so that we may share in the zeal for building up your house. Amen.

Study

My parents held onto the home of my childhood for years beyond what made sense to me. We children had all moved away and gradually settled in and around Washington, D.C. Long Island where we grew up was a forgotten home. Perhaps twice in fifty years I drove by out of curiosity without any thrill or deeper meaning for doing so. Lasting roots were long gone if they were ever there in the first place.

The Lateran Basilica is the MOTHER CHURCH of Christianity. This Church is a sign of the unity with the Chair of Peter. This Church gives us connections with the roots of Christianity. It calls us to go back for a visit by looking at our beginnings in the faith. It connects us to St. Peter and all the graces that Christ prayed for Peter that we might be one as he Christ was one with the Father. People make places of our past come alive and this is true of the temples of the Lord. It is important to our wholeness as Christians to go back for a visit each year to one of the earliest Churches.

The tabernacles of the churches are the focus of Christ in his Church. Christ in there in the Blessed Sacrament. Because we are the temples of the Spirit, Christ is there with us also. Places are made holy by what is done there. We are made holy by how we guard the life of Christ within. We are created in the image and likeness of God in Christ.

Christ is the bottom line of our holiness. He is the capstone who holds our spiritual life together. When we make our surrender to Christ rather than lose ourselves in Christ we find our real selves in him. He is our ultimate truth. He shows us the way to the Father by giving us his life which makes us God’s children. We are given God’s life in Eucharist.

Action

Christ takes us into himself even as we become temples of the divine life in our world. The temples of Christ are places for us to focus our search for holiness. We need to honor the temples of old that we might know how to treat ourselves as temples of the Holy Spirit.

Together we grow into the new and eternal Jerusalem. As we learn to value each of the Temples of the Lord, we learn to value each other in the special life of Christ we all possess. Together we the people of God are the Mystical Body of Christ. We are the Church in the Words of Vatican II. Each Church is made holy as the home of Christ. All the members of the Church bring in their togetherness the texture of Christ in our world today. We are an old Church and for this reason we have our old members who honor history by having made history. We are a young Church because of the ways we come together that have the freshness of the ongoing life of the Spirit in our undertakings. While it might be true we have no real reason to visit the homes of our growing up, it will always be true that we have good reasons to visit the roots of our life in Christ. We need to have the holy places of our life. The foundations of our spiritual journey will always be important to who we are in the love of Christ today. Faithfulness to our roots makes us who we are today in the love of Christ.

Credits:

Photo 1 A Golden Light (interior of the Basilica of St. John Lateran by Lawrence OP originally posted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/1488960342/.

Photo 2 of the Lateran Basilica interior by Lawrence OP originally posted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/1000302976/.