Dedication of the Basilica of St John Lateran (November 9, 2014)

Dedication of St John Lateran (Rome) November 8-9, 2014

I was baptized at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church on Brooks Ave in Rochester in April of 1942. Seven years later I made my First Communion at Our Lady of Good Counsel, and a few years after that I was confirmed at this Church. Then on June 2, 1968, I celebrated my first Mass as a priest - of course, at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church. This was my spiritual home as it was the spiritual home of my family and my parish family who supported me on my journey to the priesthood and, even more importantly, witnessed to me how to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus.

The church of Our Lady of Good Counsel was not memorable as an architectural masterpiece. The building still stands but it is no longer a Catholic church. This Church is very memorable to me not because of its brick and mortar but because it was the spiritual home of our family.

In 2010 we celebrated the 150th anniversary of St. Joseph's Church. Our parish Church is our spiritual home and it has been for many, many families over the last 154 years. We have a great history. The most important thing we have done as a parish community over the last 154 years is that Sunday after Sunday after Sunday we have gathered to give thanks to the Lord our God in the mystery of the Eucharist. We have celebrated the presence of Christ among us. We have been fed and nourished at the table of the Lord with Jesus' Body and Blood.

We are proud of the bricks and mortar of our Church building, the beautiful stained glass windows, the baptismal font where we receive the life of Christ Jesus for the first time, and our altar which is at the center of our life in Christ.

However as beautiful as the architecture of our Church, it is only the building that houses the Church. The Church is ourselves, the people of God, you and I are the living temple of God's presence among us.

Jesus did not live and die for this building, as beautiful as it is. Jesus lived and died out of love for us who are made in his own image and likeness. It is we, each and every one of us, we who are messy, sinful, a bit off-centered at times, who are the beloved of God.
St Paul in the second scripture reading proclaims: "You are God's building... Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? The temple of God, which you are, is holy".

As I now look back at my first spiritual home at Our Lady of Good Counsel -- by the way, I am so grateful that the example and the intercession of Mary has always been a most important part of my spiritual journey, but as I look back at my first spiritual home, I now recognize more fully that the building is not what was most important. In fact, the building is no longer part of my life. But Good Counsel, that is the people who loved and supported and who I loved were my spiritual home.

I see more clearly that 72 years later here at St Joseph's Church in Penfield that my spiritual home has not changed. Our spiritual home is all of us who are brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus and who pray together to God who is the Father of us all.
My spiritual home has been has been and will always be being a member of the community of the baptized, the disciples of the Lord Jesus who live in gratitude for the ways our life has been blessed and who seek to share the love we have been given by our merciful and loving God who is the Father of us all.

All of this is a long introduction to the feast we celebrate today - the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. It is the cathedral of the bishop of Rome and mother church of Roman Catholicism. I have had the opportunity several times to pray at this magnificent Basilica of St John Lateran. My nephew Jason studied at the Lateran Seminary on the campus of this great basilica. You could fit many, many St Joseph Churches into the nave of this expansive basilica.

But the point of this feast is not to be edified by the magnificence of the architecture, but rather to reflect on how it is through Rome that we Catholics connect with all other Catholics throughout the world. Pope Francis at St Peter's Basilica and the more ancient St John Lateran are the source of our unity in Christ Jesus. Yes, Rome's failures are our failures, and Rome's glories are our glories. We are family connected in Jesus Christ to one another. It is Pope Francis seated at the Basilica of St John Lateran who is our center of unity. As Roman Catholics, we are one people despite our many native languages, our diverse races and ethnicities, and the different and diverse ways our lives are gifted. We are united as one family.

This feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica is a feast that celebrates unity and the diversity of the whole people of God - the young and old, men and women, the ordained and the lay, the rich and the poor, black and white, urban, suburban and rural, Latino and all other cultures, gay and heterosexual, into one people of God. We are all family. We celebrate both our diversity, our uniqueness; and we celebrate that we are family, a people of God united in Christ Jesus with God as the Father of us all.

None of us want to be orphans. We long for home. We long for family. We wish to be loved and to love. This longing for family is deep-seated within all of us. This is a spiritual longing that all of us share.

The other day I was talking to someone who recalled very vividly being alone in the emergency room of the hospital at night with no one by his side and facing an uncertain medical diagnosis. By all accounts, this was a frightening situation to be in. And yet, it was a profound moment of grace for him. He had a deep awareness that he was not alone. Jesus was by his side. He didn't have to be afraid. As I listened to his story, I knew it was the real deal. He was a man who knew Jesus. He knew the invitation and the words of Jesus speaking to him: "Make your home in me as I make mine in you." He was spiritually at home with Christ Jesus in the midst of an hospital emergency room.
He lived the words of St Paul who said: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?"

On this feast of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, we pray for two graces: that we know deep in our hearts that the Spirit of God dwells within us, and that we as Catholics of St Joseph's parish value our own personality, but we value that we are connected to, in fact, we are brothers and sisters, to all other Catholics throughout the world. We are family - the family of God. Thanks be to God!