Churches of the Day

Nov 2: Sunday: The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed
(All Soul's day )

It is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that
they may be loosed from their sins. (c/f 2 Mac 12, 4

C/f Below the readings for today we offer some thoughts on this theme

FIRST READING            

A reading from the book of Isaiah          25:6-9
The Lord will destroy death forever.

On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of food rich and juicy, of fine strained wines.
On this mountain he will remove the mourning veil covering all peoples, and the shroud enwrapping all nations, he will destroy Death for ever.
The Lord will wipe away the tears from every cheek; he will take away his people's shame everywhere on earth, for the Lord has said so.
That day, it will be said:
'See, this is our God in whom we hoped for salvation;
the Lord is the one in whom we hoped. We exult and we rejoice that he has saved us.'

The Word of the Lord.       Thanks be to God.


Responsorial Psalm     Ps 26: 1, 4. 7-9, 13-14  R/ v13
Response                          The Lord is my light and my help.
Or                                         I believe that I shall see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living.

1. The Lord is my light and my help; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; before whom shall I shrink?         Response

2. There is one thing I ask of the Lord, for this I long,
to live in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life,
to savour the sweetness of the Lord, to behold his temple.                        Response

3. O Lord, hear my voice when I call; have mercy and answer.
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face.                               Response

4. I am sure I shall see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living.
Hope in him, hold firm and take heart.  Hope in the Lord!                       Response

SECOND READING      

A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Romans        5:5-11
Having died to make us righteous, is it likely that he would now fail to save us from God’s anger?

Hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. We were still helpless when at his appointed moment Christ died for sinful men. It is not easy to die even for a good man - though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die - but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Having died to make us righteous, is it likely that he would now fail to save us from God's anger?

When we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, we were still enemies;
now that we have been reconciled, surely we may count on being saved by the life of his Son?
Not merely because we have been reconciled but because we are filled with joyful trust in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have already gained our reconciliation.

The Word of the Lord               Thanks be to God.

Gospel Acclamation            Jn 6: 39
Alleluia, alleluia!
It is my Father's will, says the Lord, That I should lose nothing of all that he has given me,
and that I should raise it up on the last day.
Alleluia

GOSPEL (Year C)  

The Lord be with you.                       And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke     7:11-17,    Glory to you o Lord
Young man, I tell you to get up.

 Jesus went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. When he was near the gate of the town it happened that a dead man was being carried out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her.
‘Do not cry,’ he said.
Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said,
‘Young man, I tell you to get up’.
And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Everyone was filled with awe and praised God saying,
‘A great prophet has appeared among us; God has visited his people’.
And this opinion of him spread throughout Judaea and all over the countryside.

The Gospel of the Lord           Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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Gospel Reflection by Fr Martin Hogan (published by Messenger Publications , c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/        Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed on Luke  7:11-17

I always find November a somewhat sombre and difficult month. The golden colours of autumn are quickly giving way to the barrenness of winter. As the month progresses, the days will get gradually shorter and darkness will increasingly make its presence felt. We lose the colours of nature and the life-giving quality of light. It is a month I associate with loss. It is perhaps fitting, then, that November is the month when we reflect upon more personal experiences of loss, the loss of significant people in our lives, people who have journeyed with us, who gave us love and whom we loved in return. The commemoration of All Souls is a day when we do that in a special way.

On this day, we feel a sense of communion with our faithful departed. As followers of a risen Lord, we believe that our faithful have not just departed from us but have also returned to God, from whom they came. We understand death as a door through which we pass back to the source of our being, the Creator of all life. We also believe that our loved ones, in passing over into God, do not break their communion with us. Even though they have departed from us, they remain in communion with us and we remain in communion with them. A vital stream of life continues to flow between our deceased loved ones and ourselves. The faith and love that bound us together in this life still binds us to them when they pass over into the next life. In the gospel reading, Jesus gives her son back to the grieving widow. One of the ways we expressed our love for our loved ones in this life was by praying for them. Our loved ones who have died can still be touched by the love that finds its voice in prayer. Prayerful remembrance is one of the ways we continue to give expression to our loving communion with them. Such prayer helps them and can also help us. None of us will have had a perfect relationship even with those we have loved the most. When someone close to us dies, there is always some unfinished business. Praying for our loved ones can help to heal whatever may need healing in our relationship with them. As a result, our communion with them can deepen after their death until it comes to fullness at the moment when we too pass over from this life and are united with them in God’s love at that great banquet of life portrayed in today’s first reading.

Although nothing is more painful than the loss of a loved one in death, our faith gives us this hope-filled vision in the face of death. In today’s second reading, Paul says that ‘hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’. Our hope is grounded in God’s love for us now, a very personal love that is poured into the hearts of each one of us through the Holy Spirit. God’s love, revealed in Jesus and poured into our hearts through the Spirit, continues to hold on to us when we pass through the door of death. As all authentic human love is always life-giving for the one loved, God’s love is supremely life-giving for us, even in the face of our bodily death. What God’s love has already done for us through his Son and the Spirit in this life is the assurance of what God’s love will do for us in eternity. As Paul says in the second reading, ‘Now that we have been reconciled [to God], surely we may count on being saved by the life of his Son’.

Reflections 2  Patrick Duffy explains other aspects of this feast.

Today's Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, is an expression of the doctrine of the communion of saints. As traditionally explained, this doctrine means that each of the three divisions of the Church -

1. the Church Triumphant (all the saints in heaven),
2.  the Church Militant (all those still alive on earth) and
3. the Church Suffering (all the souls in purgatory) can help the others by their merits and prayers.

Rituals Surrounding Death
In every culture death is surrounded with ritual. There is also a widespread belief that ritual and prayers can affect the fate of the soul of the dead person in the "world to come". Christian ritual expresses what Christians believe about death, the resurrection of the body and what we call "life everlasting".

Old Testament 
In the Second Book of Maccabees, after some of his soldiers had been killed in battle, Judas Maccabaeus, had their bodies laid to rest among their relatives in their ancestral tombs. However, in the process he discovered that they had concealed amulets of idols under their tunics. As this was understood as a sinful act on their part, Judas decided to have a sacrifice for sin offered on their behalf in Jerusalem. For this he collected up to 2,000 drachmae and sent it to Jerusalem.
The text of 2 Macc 12:44-45 explains:
"For if he had not expected the fallen to rise again it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead, whereas if he had in view the splendid recompense for those who make a pious end, the thought was holy and devout. This is why he had this atonement sacrifice offered for the dead, so that they might be released from their sin."

Early Christian Customs
In the early centuries, prayers for the dead were inscribed on the walls of the Roman catacombs where Christians were buried. Some Roman funeral customs were retained by the Early Church Burials once they were sure they were not incompatible with their faith.



In the second century, prayers for the dead and celebrations of the Eucharist on the anniversary of a loved one took place. Initially these celebrations were on the third day after burial and the yearly anniversary. Later the seventh day, the thirtieth day and the fortieth day also became special days for commemorating the deceased person. These fixed days for the memorial of the dead with the Eucharist probably replaced the ancient sacrifices for the dead and sometimes perhaps the refrigerium, or memorial meal eaten at the graveside of the person.

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed
The first mention of a day specially dedicated to commemorating all the faithful departed is found in a monastic rule attributed to Saint Isidore of Seville (died 636), who ordered his monks to celebrate the Eucharist for the souls of the departed on the Monday after Pentecost. The choice of this day may be due to the fact that the emerging feast of All Saints was celebrated on the Sunday after Pentecost, following some examples from the Christian East.

Alternative Texts for Readings

__________________

The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd. and used with the permission of the publishers.  http://dltbooks.com/
The Scripture Reflection is made available with our thanks from his book Reflections on the Weekday Readings : Your word is a lamp for my feet and light for my path by Martin Hogan and published by Messenger Publications ,    c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/    also Paddy Duffy also gives us some of his thoughts  for today

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GOSPEL   Year B, 2027  - **************************************************************

Alternate Gospels below for other years

The Lord be with you.          And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to  Mark     15:33-39    16:1-6      Glory to you, O Lord.
Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.

When the sixth hour came there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, My God, why have you deserted me?’
When some of those who stood by heard this, they said,
‘Listen, he is calling on Elijah.' Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar and,
putting it on a reed, gave it him to drink saying,
'Wait and see if Elijah will come to take him down.'
But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said,
In truth this man was a son of God.’

When the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices with which to go and anoint him. And very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising. They had been saying to one another,
‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’
But when they looked they could see that the stone,which was very big ,had already been rolled back.
On entering the tomb they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right-hand side, and they were struck with amazement.
But he said to them,
‘There is no need for alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified:
he has risen, he is not here.  See, here is the place where they laid him.’

The Gospel of the Lord.         Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

**********************************

The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and used with the permission of the publishers.  http://dltbooks.com/
The Gospel reflections come from WEEKDAY REFLECTIONS  : The Word of God is Living and Active by Martin Hogan and published by Messenger Publications  c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/_

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GOSPEL (Year A,)               

The Lord be with you.                  And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 11:25-30          Glory to you, O Lord.
You have hidden these things from the learned and the clever and revealed them to mere children.

Jesus exclaimed, 'I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

'Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.
Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.'


The Gospel of the Lord.       Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.


*******************************

Gospel Reflection      Sunday, Commemoration of all the faithful departed           Matt. 11:25-30

Today is the day when we give expression to what we refer to in the creed as ‘the communion of saints’. We believe that there is a deep, spiritual, communion between those of us who are still on our pilgrim way and those who have come to the end of their pilgrim journey. As the funeral liturgy of the church states, ‘all the ties of love and affection that knit us together in this life do not unravel with death’. Saint Paul puts it more simply in his first letter to the Corinthians, ‘love never ends’. One of the ways we expressed our communion with our loved ones before they died was by praying for them.

If we are people of faith, we will pray for those who are significant for us. Just as our love for our loved ones does not cease when they die, neither does our praying for them cease, which is an expression of our enduring love for them. Today is a special day of prayerful remembrance for our loved ones who have died. A traditional prayer we often pray for those who have died is ‘eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them’. We can sometimes think of rest as something passive, the absence of activity. We could also think of rest in a way suggested by that lovely psalm No. 23 that is often prayed at a funeral, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’. Towards the end of that psalm we read, ‘near restful waters he leads me to revive my drooping spirits’. Rest is associated with a revival of our spirits. Eternal rest is an eternal revival of our deepest self. One of the early saints of the church, Saint Ephrem, wrote, ‘in the kingdom our departed ones achieve their full stature’. When we are praying that God would give our departed loved ones eternal rest, this is what we are praying for. The invitation of Jesus in today’s gospel reading, ‘Come to me’, and his promise, ‘I will give you rest’, suggests that already in this earthly life we can begin to enter into this reviving rest which allows us to reach our full stature.

__________________________________________________

Alternate GOSPEL   

The Lord be with you.          And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to  Mark     15:33-39    16:1-6      Glory to you, O Lord.
Theme: Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.

When the sixth hour came there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’
which means,
‘My God, my God, why have you deserted me?’

When some of those who stood by heard this, they said,
‘Listen, he is calling on Elijah.'
Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar and, putting it on a reed, gave it him to drink saying,
Wait and see if Elijah will come to take him down.'
But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said,
In truth this man was a son of God.’

When the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices with which to go and anoint him. And very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising.
They had been saying to one another,
‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’
But when they looked they could see that the stone — which was very big — had already been rolled back. On entering the tomb they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right-hand side, and they were struck with amazement. But he said to them,
‘There is no need for alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he has risen, he is not here. See, here is the place where they laid him.’

The Gospel of the Lord.         Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.


********************


Every year, the church gives us this day, the 2nd of November, to express in a prayerful way our communion with those we were close to in this life who have died. We pause this day to give thanks for their lives, to pray for them, and to ask them to pray for us.

*******************************************GOSPEL (Year A,)               

The Lord be with you.                  And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 11:25-30          Glory to you, O Lord.
Theme: You have hidden these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.

Jesus exclaimed, 'I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

'Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.'


The Gospel of the Lord.       Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.


*******************************

Gospel Reflection      Nov 2. Commemoration of all the faithful departed           Matt. 11:25-30

Today is the day when we give expression to what we refer to in the creed as ‘the communion of saints’. We believe that there is a deep, spiritual, communion between those of us who are still on our pilgrim way and those who have come to the end of their pilgrim journey. As the funeral liturgy of the church states, ‘all the ties of love and affection that knit us together in this life do not unravel with death’. Saint Paul puts it more simply in his first letter to the Corinthians, ‘love never ends’. One of the ways we expressed our communion with our loved ones before they died was by praying for them. If we are people of faith, we will pray for those who are significant for us. Just as our love for our loved ones does not cease when they die, neither does our praying for them cease, which is an expression of our enduring love for them. Today is a special day of prayerful remembrance for our loved ones who have died. A traditional prayer we often pray for those who have died is ‘eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them’. We can sometimes think of rest as something passive, the absence of activity. We could also think of rest in a way suggested by that lovely psalm that is often prayed at a funeral, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’. Towards the end of that psalm we read, ‘near restful waters he leads me to revive my drooping spirits’. Rest is associated with a revival of our spirits. Eternal rest is an eternal revival of our deepest self. One of the early saints of the church, Saint Ephrem, wrote, ‘in the kingdom our departed ones achieve their full stature’. When we are praying that God would give our departed loved ones eternal rest, this is what we are praying for. The invitation of Jesus in today’s gospel reading, ‘Come to me’, and his promise, ‘I will give you rest’, suggests that already in this earthly life we can begin to enter into this reviving rest which allows us to reach our full stature.

____________________________________________________________

 

GOSPEL   (Year B)

A reading from the holy Gospel according to  Mark     15:33-39    16:1-6
Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.

When the sixth hour came there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you deserted me?’ When some of those who stod by heard this, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling on Elijah.' Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar and, putting it on a reed, gave it him to drink saying, ‘Wait and see if Elijah will come to take him down.' But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said, ‘In truth this man was a son of God.’

When the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices with which to go and anoint him. And very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising.
They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ But when they looked they could see that the stone — which was very big — had already been rolled back. On entering the tomb they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right-hand side, and they were struck with amazement. But he said to them, ‘There is no need for alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he has risen, he is not here. See, here is the place where they laid him.’

The Gospel of the Lord.

********************


 

09-11- The Dedication of the St John Lateran Basilica, Rome

The Lateran Basilica is one of the four great Basilicas of Rome. The original Basilica was erected by the first Christian Emperor:  Constantine. Until the time of Constantine there were no public buildings called 'churches.' Worshippers met in people's houses. Until then this hillside site in Rome was the location of two monasteries called after 'St John the Divine', and 'St John the Baptist'. It is the Cathedral church of Rome and, also the church of the Pope, Bishop of Rome. For all these reasons, it has come to be known as the mother- church of Christendom. 

Feast of the Day:09-11- The Dedication of the St John Lateran Basilica, Rome
C/f history of today’s Feast can be found below today’s Readings and Reflection

FIRST READING         

A reading from the prophet Ezekiel     47:1-2. 8-9. 12
I saw a stream of water coming from the Temple, bringing life to all wherever it flowed.

The Angel brought me back to the entrance of the Temple, where a stream came out from under the Temple threshold and flowed eastwards, since the Temple faced east. The water flowed from under the right side of the Temple, south of the altar. He took me out by the north gate and led me right round outside as far as the outer east gate where the water flowed out on the right-hand side.

He said, 'This water flows east down to the Arabah and to the sea; and flowing into the sea it makes its waters wholesome. Wherever the river flows, all living creatures teeming in it will live. Fish will be very plentiful, for wherever the water goes it brings health, and life teems wherever the river flows. Along the river, on either bank, will grow every kind of fruit tree with leaves that never wither and fruit that never fails; they will bear new fruit every month, because this water comes from the sanctuary. And their fruit will be good to eat and the leaves medicinal.'

The Word of the Lord.      Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm         Ps45:2-3,5-6,8-9 R.v.5
Response                               The waters of a river give joy to God’s city,
                                                 the holy place where the Most High dwells.

1. God is for us a refuge and strength, a helper close at hand, in time of distress:
so we shall not fear though the earth should rock, though the mountains fall into the depths of the sea. Response

2. The waters of a river give joy to God’s city, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within, it cannot be shaken; God will help it at the dawning of the day.                                               Response

3 The Lord of hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
Come, consider the works of the Lord, the redoubtable deeds he has done on the earth.                              Response

SECOND READING  ( or Alternative First Reading )             

A reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Corinthians         3:9-11. 16-17 
You are the temple of God.

You are God's building.
By the grace God gave me, I succeeded as an architect and laid the foundations, on which someone else is doing the building. Everyone doing the building must work carefully. For the foundation, nobody can lay any other than the one which has already been laid, that is Jesus Christ.

Didn't you realise that you were God's temple and that the Spirit of God was living among you? If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy him, because the temple of God is sacred;
and you are that temple.

The Word of the Lord.    Thanks be to God.


Gospel Acclamation          2 Chron 7:16
Alleluia, alleluia!
I have chosen and consecrated this house, says the Lord, for my name to be there for ever.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL     

The Lord be with you                    And with your spirit.
A reading from the Gospel according to John        2:13-22    Glory to you, O Lord

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John        2:13-22
He was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body.

Just before the Jewish Passover Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting at their counters there. Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers' coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers,
'Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father's house into a market.'
Then his disciples remembered the words of scripture: 'Zeal for your house will devour me.'
The Jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?'
Jesus answered, 'Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up'.
The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary:
are you going to raise it up in three days?'
But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said.

The Gospel of the Lord.            Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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1. Gospel Reflection     9th November.      The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, Rome       John 2:13-22

Writing to the church in Corinth about thirty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Paul says to them, in the words of today’s first reading, ‘You are God’s building… God’s temple’. For Paul, it was the Christian community, rather than any physical building, that was the place of God’s presence in the world.

In the gospel reading, Jesus points to himself as the Temple of God. He, more than any human being, is the place of God’s presence in the world. As individuals and as a community we look to the Lord to help us to be the place of God’s presence in the world, to be church, in that sense. We gather in a building we call a church, to open ourselves to the presence of the Lord, so that we can become more fully the church of God, the body of Christ, the place of God’s presence in our world.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd. and used with the permission of the publishers.  http://dltbooks.com/
The Scripture Reflection is made available with our thanks from Reflections on the Weekday Readings : Your word is a lamp for my feet and light for my path by Martin Hogan and published by Messenger Publications  c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/

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Feast of the Day:  November 9; The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. Further reflections.

Patrick Duffy also provides some of it's brief history and commentary.

Dedication of the Church (Basilica) of St John on the Lateran. This Papal Archbasilica of St John  was dedicated to Christ the Saviour in the fourth century. The anniversary has been celebrated as a feast of the Latin Church on this date since the twelfth century. It honours the local Church of Rome as a link with earliest Christian tradition and as a sign of our communion in Christ.

Although the Pope lives in the Vatican and in the shadow of St Peter's Basilica,
the Basilica of St John Lateran is The Cathedral of the Most Holy Saviour and of Ss John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the Lateran is also known as the Papal Archbasilica of Saint John.

*It is considered the mother church of the Roman Catholic faithful, traditionally known as 'the Pope’s church' i.e.
*the cathedral church of the diocese of Rome, where the Bishop of Rome presided in the 'old days'.
*The pope is still it's bishop.
* It has as its patrons Ss John the Evangelist and John the Baptist.
*This cathedral is the seat of papal authority and therefore is, the parish church of Catholics everywhere.
*Since the 7th century it has also been known as the 'Basilica of the Most Holy Saviour, Jesus '-   it is dedicated to him.

Patrick Duffy provides some of it's brief history.

The Lateran Palace
The Lateran Palace in Rome originally belonged to the Laterani family, who served as administrators to several emperors, but Nero confiscated it. When Constantine became emperor, he built the Lateran Basilica in the fourth century on land that had belonged to the Laterani family (hence the name ‘Lateran’). he gave it over to the Church for a synod and as  the Cathedral of Rome . 


The Basilica
‘Basilica’ is the word given to an early form of building used for Christian worship.  It was modelled on the Roman Basilica - a building used as a law court and a commercial exchange. At first the name ‘basilica’ was used of churches which resembled the Roman building, but now the title of ‘basilica’ is given by the pope to certain privileged churches both in Rome and throughout the world.

Pope Sylvester I (314-335) then had the basilica (which literally means a royal hall for transacting business or legal matters).  It soon became the cathedral of the Church of Rome and the seat of the popes for a thousand years.  It was the residence of the popes until 1308. Ecumenical councils, all called Lateran, were held there: in 1123, 1139, 1179, 1215 and 1512-17. While the popes were absent from Rome in Avignon (1305-1403), the Basilica fell into disrepair. The popes did not return to live there, but resided first at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, then later at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, and now at the Vatican.

Restoration 
The palace was restored by Pope Sixtus V (Felice Peretti 1585-90). Pope Innocent X (Giovanni Battista Pamphili 1644-55) commissioned the present structure of the basilica in 1646 and Pope Clement XII (Lorenzo Corsini 1730-40) gave it a grand new façade in 1735.

[caption id="attachment_52631" align="aligncenter" width="350"] (This is a souvenir copy of the creation of the Vatican State by the Lateran Pacts with Its “trinity” of King Victor Emmanuel III, Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini.)[/caption]

The Lateran Treaty 1929
In 1929 the Lateran Treaty was signed in the Lateran Palace by Mussolini and Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Gasparri. Today the palace houses the Vicariate and offices of the diocese of Rome which Pope John XXIII located there.

[caption id="attachment_35238" align="alignright" width="272"] The late Bishop of Rome, and Pope of the Universal Church,  Pope Francis prayed in his parish Church, the Lateran Basilica regularly.[/caption]

The Basilica Today
St John Lateran is the cathedral of the diocese of Rome where the Bishop of Rome presides, especially on Holy Thursday for the Chrism Mass. One of Rome’s most imposing churches, the Lateran’s towering facade is crowned with 15 colossal statues - Christ, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and 12 doctors of the Church. Beneath its high altar rest the remains of the small wooden table on which tradition holds St. Peter himself celebrated Mass.

Relevance of the Feast
We are all members of our own local church, work for the universal kingdom of Christ,  are also members of this "mother-church" in Rome.

The dedication of churches can be traced back to the Jewish practice of dedicating the Temple in Jerusalem to God. Once a Temple had been dedicated, there was a feast each year to celebrate the anniversary of the dedication. This feast was celebrated not only in Jerusalem but in every synagogue as well. Similarly, and now every Western Catholic church observes the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.

This feast helps us move beyond our narrow geographical confines to a sense of the universal Church. See also 18th November, the Dedication of the Churches of St Peter and St Paul.

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Memorable Advice for Today

Stop looking for the perfect church. It does not exist. It is not there.
Even if it did exist, the moment you or I joined it , it would no longer be perfect!

~Nicky Gumbel ~ 

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