The New Temple

The Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome - Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12

The angel brought me

back to the entrance of the temple,

and I saw water flowing out

from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east,

for the façade of the temple was toward the east;

the water flowed down from the southern side of the temple,

south of the altar.

He led me outside by the north gate,

and around to the outer gate facing the east,

where I saw water trickling from the southern side.

He said to me,

"This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah,

and empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh.

Wherever the river flows,

every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live,

and there shall be abundant fish,

for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.

Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow;

their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail.

Every month they shall bear fresh fruit,

for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary.

Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine."

Today’s feast is unique in the liturgical calendar. It is focused on a building instead of on a saint or an event. The Basilica of St. John Lateran, dedicated both to St. John the Baptist and to St. John the Evangelist and located on the Lateran Hill in Rome, is the cathedral church of the Diocese of Rome; it is the mother church of the Mother Church. The anniversary of its dedication is an important event for Catholics everywhere and serves as an opportunity to meditate on the Lord’s providence of a Church, a Mystical Body united to Jesus through faith and the sacraments, and not simply to a physical structure in Italy. 

Our reading from the Prophet Ezekiel comes from his vision of a New Temple in a New Jerusalem. Ezekiel had been swept into exile by the Babylonians in the first wave of deportations that occurred around 597 B.C., roughly ten years before the Babylonians would destroy the Temple in Jerusalem. Ezekiel’s visions recorded at the end of his very well-organized book were meant to bring hope to the exiles. Someday, the Lord would restore the Temple, but it would be a Temple unlike anything they could have imagined. At the end of the exile, some Jews returned and built a far less impressive Temple, and later on King Herod would greatly embellish it. This was not the Temple of Ezekiel’s vision, and the Romans destroyed it in 70 A.D. 

Jesus Christ is the New Temple. Both in his personal body and in his Mystical Body, his Church, he is the locus of worship and the source of life that the earthly Temple merely represented. The water flowing from the right side of the Temple in Ezekiel’s vision represents the sacraments, which are “powers that come forth from the Body of Christ” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1116). Our church buildings, including the Lateran Basilica, provide places for us to gather as a Church and encounter these powers. Today’s feast is not merely about the history of a physical structure. It is about the living structure that Jesus Christ built, nourishes, and continues to lead, a living structure whose visible aspect is manifest in many buildings throughout the world, including one very important one on a hill in Rome.