The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
Sunday, November 9, 2025

Watch this homily! (begins at 37:51)

My friends, we know that the anniversary of the dedication of a parish’s church is an important date to be celebrated. It often marks the end of months and years of sacrifice to raise funds, and to pledge to continue sacrificing financially so that a sacred space may be built and maintained. An anniversary celebrates the beginning of worship in a space that is sacred and dedicated to praising God and being nourished through word and sacrament.
 
The anniversary of our dedication on December 22, 1907, and our re-dedication on December 22, 1994, after our renovation is an important date in the life of our parish. And, because we are the mother church, the cathedral church, of the Archdiocese of Seattle, that date is important for our whole archdiocese.
 
Today we honor a church that counts the world within its parish boundaries. The basilica of St. John Lateran is the cathedral church of Rome. That means it is the church of the bishop of Rome, who is the pope. And so St. John Lateran is a spiritual home of Catholics everywhere.
 
Tradition tells us that this church was dedicated on November 9, 324. The land and the original building was a gift to the bishop of Rome by the Emperor Constantine. And like our cathedral, it has undergone many renovations over the centuries.
 
But this feast is not just about a sacred building made of stone and stained glass, as beautiful and important as this sacred space is. This feast is really about the Church that is built of living stones – you and me.
 
Today’s first reading is Ezekiel’s vision of the life-giving waters that flow from the Temple – the dwelling place of God. The stream that flows from the Temple is a kind of re-creation, recalling the four rivers that issue from a single source in the Garden of Eden. This stream becomes a life-giving river. It flows into the Dead Sea, where it is transformed into a place of life for all sorts of fish and living creatures. Trees of every kind grow along the river . The fruit from these trees provides food and the leaves serve as medicine for healing.
 
For the people in Exile, the message is clear, God can create life where none exists, God’s love for his people is overflowing
 
 What a vision of hope this must have been for the people in Exile. These people who had lost hope are given a vision of God’s steadfast love and a promise of a future that sees the life-giving Temple restored. This was more than a building for the people of Israel. This was God’s dwelling among them.
 
In our second reading today from First Corinthians, St. Paul gives us a profound image. We are God’s building. We are God’s holy place. God’s life-giving water flows in us. The Second Vatican Council picked up on this ancient image and spoke of the Church as the People of God and the Body of Christ.
 
In the passage from John’s Gospel, Jesus makes clear that his body is the true dwelling place of God, the true temple. “Destroy it,” he tells his adversaries, “and it will be raised.” His actions, driving out those who were making God’s house a place for their own financial gain, challenges us to reflect on how we are caring for the Body of Christ – the dwelling of God that is us.
 
How are we caring for this holy place, these living stones, this People of God, this Body of Christ? How are we nourishing our relationship with each other so that we more and more become credible signs of the dwelling of God among us? Are there areas of our life as church where we just go through the motions (I know that is sometimes a temptation for me), rather than being engaged, trusting that it is here that God is revealed – among these living stones – these people we are gathered with today?
 
The process we have entered into as a universal Church through the call of Pope Francis and now re-affirmed by Pope Leo, this process of synodality, calls us to care for the Body of Christ, for our relationships with each other, by walking together, journeying together in faith.
 
We are not spiritual lone rangers as Catholics. We don’t focus on a Jesus and me theology. While my personal relationship with Christ is important and crucial in my life of faith, for us Catholics, that relationship cannot thrive apart from the Church, the People of God, the Body of Christ, the real dwelling place of God.
 
This process of synodality, of walking together in faith, is part and parcel of our life here locally in the Archdiocese of Seattle and in our parish family of Christ Our Hope, Immaculate Conception and St. James. We began that journey together in the summer of 2024.
 
As we continue that journey this year and next, I invite you, encourage you, to be engaged in the process of listening and conversation that we will have as we reflect on who we want to become as a parish, and how we will get there.
 
Just like the renovations at St. John Lateran over the centuries, and the renovations of our own cathedral over the past one hundred and eighteen years, we are being called to renovate once again, not this building, but the living stones that make this magnificent building sacred.
 
Today let us re-dedicate ourselves to the tender care of the dwelling place of God. May the Eucharist we share continue to build us into living stones of God’s temple so that life-giving water will flow from us into our city, our state, our country, and yes, the whole world.

Father Gary F. Lazzeroni