Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Year of Saint Joseph

Year of the Family "Amoris Laetitia The Joy of Love"

Readings of the Day

RB: Ch 32 The Tools and Goods of the Monastery

Mass: Ezk 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; Resp Ps 46; 1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17; Jn 2:13-22

The waters of the river gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High!

DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT YOU ARE THE TEMPLE OF GOD, AND THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU?

(1 Cor 3:16)

I recall every year on this date (which happens to be my birthday 😊) the years I spent in Rome and my annual pilgrimage to the magnificent Lateran Basilica on the Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano. I would always walk there, not a short distance from where I lived, and sit for many hours, and when ready, attend Mass in one the side chapels. It is the anniversary of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica that we commemorate today. The basilica "was built by the Emperor Constantine on the Lateran Hill in Rome in about 324." We honor the basilica, "'the mother and head of all the churches of the City and the World ...'"

A friend sent wishes that this year be a healthy and joy-filled one for me. I reflect on today's Feast, a new year, and care of mind and body, not only mine, but yours too. We are the Body of Christ. May we treat and care for our bodies as the temple of God, and for one another as we, in the words of Saint Benedict, "support with greatest patience one another's weaknesses in body and behavior" (RB 72:5). We are united in faith and prayer and go to our heavenly home together. Saint Caesarius of Arles (460-542) has this to say, taken from one of his sermons, included in today's Office of Readings. 

Whenever we come to church, we must prepare our hearts to be as beautiful as we expect this church to be. Do you wish to find this basilica immaculately clean? Then do not soil your soul with the filth of sins. Do you wish to this basilica to be full of light? God too wishes that your soul be not in darkness, but that the light of good works shine in us. so that He who dwells in the heavens will be glorified. Just as you enter this church building, so God wishes to enter your soul, for He promised: I shall live in them, and I shall walk the corridors of their hearts.

SAINT JOHN,

SAINT JOSEPH,

PRAY FOR US.

Today's photo: From my brother in Indianapolis, IN, the mighty White River, just some of the beauty of the Midwest.

© Gertrude Feick 2021