I remember one of the unexpected highlights to a pilgrimage to Rome that I did in 2007 was a guided tour to the “first of all churches in Catholic Church: John Lateran Cathedral.”
On the front of the door was inscribed the Latin: Sacrosancta Lateranensis ecclesia omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput ("Most Holy Lateran Church, of all the churches in the city and the world, the mother and head."
WOW. A very profound claim… (Many may be forgiven for thinking that Saint Peter’s Basilica was the mother church.. but it is definitely not…. It’s the Church we celebrate in a special feast.. a feast so important that when it lands on a Sunday it overrides the usual Sunday readings.. which does not happen for most feast days… only really important ones such as last weeks feast of All Souls and this weeks feast.
This Church, now known as John Lateran (actually it has two co-patrons because it has been dedicated to John the Baptist and John the Evangelist at different times in its history) actually has as its official name and head patron, Christ himself. The official title of this church is the “Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour.”
So, we start to see why this feast is so important.. it is regarded as a Feastday of Christ our Saviour…
Emperor Constantine gave this land to the church as residence of the Pope and for a church in around 312 AD and it was officially dedicated in 324. It has undergone many changes but is regarded as the seat of the Bishop of Rome, thus symbolising the seat of the Bishop and the mother church of the universal church. It ranks in importance over all other churches, even St Peter's Basilica.
This was the very first Christian church built in the West and the first church built when Christianity was not outlawed and underground. So, this first church presented a new challenge to the newly legalised early Christian church. What kind of building should a public church be? They did not want to build something that was like the Roman temples, which were beautiful outside and designed to be looked at by people from outside, and fairly empty on the inside (with usually a statue to some Roman or Greek god or goddess). The early Christian church wanted to distance itself from comparisons with temples of the pagans. Also, Christianity needed large public space for people to gather and also room for different spaces where people at different stages of initiation could come, somewhat apart from others. Thus, the early Christians looked around for similar buildings and decided that the closest in practical style to what they were looking for were the Roman public buildings of the time, the Basilicas, which were enormous spaces for public civic gatherings which could allow for different sub-spaces within for people to gather as well. The church deliberately went the opposite way to the pagan temples: the Christian churches were plain and ordinary looking on the outside and beautiful and inspiring within. This church of John lateran was orginally built as a temple to the God who enabled victory for the Roman Emperor Constantine, and there has always been a sense of victory about this church. This is why it was dedicated to Christ the Saviour. This church symbolises Christianity coming out of the shadows and now standing openly as a publicly accepted and victorious presence in the community.
The church has been rebuilt and extended many times, the most significant change was the interior in which large columns were built and in-between the columns were placed huge statues of the twelve Apostles, as if to say that just as these statues form part of the support beams of this church, so too the Apostles are the support pillars on which Jesus has built his church. The main altar is built above relics of the original wooden altar which Saint Peter and Paul are believed to have celebrated Mass, and above the altar is an ornate covered canopy… called a “baldachino” with golden statues of Peter and Paul which are actually reliquaries containing fragments of the skulls of Sts Peter and Paul, so Mass on this altar occurs in the midst of the these symbols of the church's history.
The Bishop's chair, The seat of the Bishop of Rome…. Which is the chair of the Pope, is in the Apse directly behind the altar. This chair is a symbol of the Bishop’s pastoral care and oversight of the diocese of Rome and his role as universal pastor to the churches throughout the world.
When I visited, we got to celebrate Mass in the chapel of the Baptistry at St John Lateran. This was a special blessing for us and was very meaningful. WE started mass with a renewal of our Baptismal vows, in this Baptistry (at the Catholic Church's mother church) representing Baptisms all over the world.
I prayed then as we continue to pray now, for parishioners, family and friends and for the universal church, Christ’s church, to which we all belong….
It is wonderful to belong to something much bigger than what we can see…. Its excellent that all the local Catholic church communities spread throughout the world are also at the same time “in communion’ with the universal church, represented by the unity we share with the Bishop of Rome, the pope. It reminds us that we are truly part of a bigger picture and we act in union with the church. Because we belong to a wider communion, we act in the knowledge that we are both local and universal in our membership…. And this is why we are careful to ensure that the necessary local flavour of our community here also synchronises with what we share in common with the wider universal church and its actions… It is so moving to be part of a communion that grounds us in the here and now, and at the same time calls us to look outward and upward into the worldwide mission of Christ’s church…..
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This feast we share, of course is not really about a building.. bricks and stones… although that is a focal point for prayer and presence… but we know from the Gospel that Jesus is the true temple and we are all bricks in the fabric of Christ… we are part of the body of christ, the church. Saint Paul tells us too that the "temple" is the church, the gathered body of Christians, the body of Christ. Each of us is a living stone building up the church on the foundation of Jesus. Today's feast is as much a celebration of a magnificent physical structure as it is our unity as Christians in the church. We also celebrate our vocation to stay focused on the church's mission, which is the building up of the kingdom of God.
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REFERENCES:
· FR. PAUL W. KELLY
· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_St._John_Lateran
· Prepare the Word (internet service)
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