A (belated and brief) homily for the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, November 9, 2025
Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12, 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17, John 2:13-22
In every city and village worldwide, we’ll find houses of worship: temples, synagogues, mosques, churches, and more. Even storefronts and basements and tents and, yes, caves serve as gathering places for members of the human family to acknowledge in their culturally and religiously appropriate way that somebody somewhere loves us enough to give us our little blue marble in the sky.
To give us our own lives.
To give us our own unique lives, with our own unique abundance of gifts.
And on every street, every village square, we’ll find people who point to a giant marble-and-granite edifice or a humble rusty Quonset hut and declare, “That’s my church” (or whatever’s applicable).
They’re not wrong.
But they’re not fully correct, either.
A house of worship gives us a place where, communally and occasionally individually, we can pray. Where we can be focused on the immense — unfathomable — goodness and power of the Ultimate Reality we know as God. Physical houses of worship remind us of our need and obligation to maintain our relationship with a Creator of vast universes seen and unseen who chooses to be so intimate with us that we can feel the Divine Presence in our every waking moment.
Should we choose to…
A magnificent, breathtaking church like the Basilica of St. John Lateran does help us focus. Does remind us.
But what we mostly need reminding is that, whether we’re on the street looking in or inside God’s house looking out, we are called to be the visible, active Body of Christ.
We.
Are.
Church.
We are the hands that cradle, that steady, that uplift, that wipe away tears, that applaud successes large and small.
We are the arms that hug, that clear away obstacles, that help our sisters and brothers carry loads physical, emotional and spiritual.
We are the eyes that look for injustice and the minds and hearts that forge solutions.
We.
Are.
Church.
We are the living stones.
If Jesus chose Simon to be Cephas, Peter, the rock on which Christ would build his Church, then we must be Peter as well. Every one of us. Every day of our lives.
We must be Peter and Re-Peter, re-Pete-ing as often as needed and in as many ways as needed to seek justice and peace, to preserve and enhance God’s Creation.
Wherever we go, we must bring Church and build Church and grow Church and sustain Church.
Because when we are Church, we are Family. God’s Family. The Family of the God whose family crest is a heart and whose family motto is Love.
