A reflection for the Dedication of the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour — In Dedicatione Basilicæ Ss. Salvatoris, II classis (9 November), with the commemoration of St. Theodore, Martyr
Over the main door of the Lateran Basilica in Rome an inscription tells every pilgrim where he is standing: Sacrosancta Lateranensis ecclesia, omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput. “The most holy Lateran church, mother and head of all the churches of the City and of the world.” St. Peter’s is larger and better known, but it is not the Pope’s cathedral. The Lateran is. Its throne is the cathedra of the Bishop of Rome, and from that chair the Successor of Peter teaches the Church.
The Church keeps the anniversary of its dedication everywhere, not only in Rome. Tradition holds that the basilica was consecrated by Pope St. Sylvester on the ninth of November in the year 324, a little more than ten years after the Edict of Milan. The Emperor Constantine had given the Pope the palace of the Laterani family, and beside it rose the first great public church of Christian Rome. It was dedicated to Christ the Saviour, and so it still is: its full title is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour, with St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist named after Him as its later patrons. A pious tradition records that at the dedication an image of the Saviour appeared on the wall of the apse to the people gathered there. The Roman Breviary’s lessons for today keep that memory, and the apse mosaic of Christ’s face has been restored and renewed down the centuries.
For the rest of the Church, this is a feast of unity. When a parish anywhere in the world celebrates the dedication of the Lateran, it is celebrating its own mother. The Roman Church is the one with which, as St. Irenæus wrote, every Church must agree because of its more powerful pre-eminence (Adversus Hæreses III.3.2). Five ecumenical councils were held at the Lateran. The fourth of them, in 1215, gave the Church the word transubstantiatio to profess what happens on every altar (Firmiter, c. 1). This building has been the house of the Church’s teaching for seventeen centuries.
The Mass is the Mass for the dedication of a church, Terribilis. The Introit is Jacob’s cry when he woke from his dream of the ladder at Bethel: Terribilis est locus iste: hic domus Dei est, et porta cæli. “Terrible is this place: this is the house of God, and the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:17). The psalm verse is Quam dilecta tabernacula tua, Domine virtutum: “How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts” (Ps. 83:2). The Gradual answers it: Locus iste a Deo factus est, inæstimabile sacramentum, “This place was made by God, a priceless mystery.” The Offertory is David’s prayer as he gathered the gold and cedar for a temple he would never see built: Domine Deus, in simplicitate cordis mei lætus obtuli universa, “O Lord God, in the simplicity of my heart I have joyfully offered all these things” (1 Par. 29:17). And the Communion is Our Lord’s own word, spoken as He drove the sellers from the Temple: Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur, “My house shall be called the house of prayer” (Matt. 21:13).
Today the Church also commemorates St. Theodore, a soldier martyred in Asia Minor in the persecution of the early fourth century. He will appear again at the end of this reflection.
I. Vidi sanctam civitatem: the Epistle
“In those days: I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people; and God himself with them shall be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away. And he that sat on the throne, said: Behold, I make all things new.” (Apoc. 21:2-5)
A strange reading for a building. One might expect the Church to give a feast of stone and mortar a lesson about Solomon’s Temple. Instead she reads the last vision of the Bible: a city that no human hand built, coming down from heaven at the end of time. That choice tells us what she thinks a church is. A consecrated building is not mainly a work of human architecture. It is a sign of the City that God Himself is building, and a place where that City already touches the earth.
Coming down out of heaven from God. St. Augustine comments on this verse in the twentieth book of The City of God (XX.17). He notices that the city is said to come down. It does not rise up from the earth by human effort. It comes from heaven because the grace by which God made it is heavenly. Augustine adds that this city has been coming down from heaven since its beginning, ever since its citizens began to be born of grace through the Holy Ghost sent from heaven. The full glory belongs to the end of the world. But the descent has already begun. Every baptism is the city coming down a little further.
Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. The city is also a bride. St. Paul says the same of the Church: Christ loved her and delivered Himself up for her, “that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle” (Eph. 5:25-27). The adornment of the bride is the holiness of her members. This is why the Church spends so much care on the beauty of her churches. The gold of the altar and the light of the windows are not vanity. They are a figure of the bride’s real jewels, which are the virtues of the saints.
Behold the tabernacle of God with men. The Greek word is skēnē, a tent. It is the same root St. John uses in his Gospel: “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” eskēnōsen, pitched His tent among us (John 1:14). God’s dwelling with men began in the womb of the Virgin. It continues in every tabernacle on every altar of the world, where the same Word made flesh is truly present. And it will be complete when “God himself with them shall be their God.” The tent in the desert, the Temple in Jerusalem, the Lateran in Rome, and the parish church down the road are all stages of one promise.
God shall wipe away all tears. Augustine is careful here (De civitate Dei XX.17). These words, he says, cannot describe the present life. The Church on earth still weeps. Her children still die, and the saints themselves groan and long for release. To read this verse as a promise of comfort in this world would be to mistake the pilgrimage for the homeland. It describes the life to come, when “the former things are passed away.” In the month of the holy souls, the Church sets this verse before us with special tenderness. Those who sleep in Christ are on their way to the city where there is no more mourning.
Behold, I make all things new. The last line of the lesson is spoken by “he that sat on the throne.” Its first fulfilment is not the end of the world. It is the font. “If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new” (2 Cor. 5:17). St. Paul uses the very words of today’s Epistle. The new creation begins in a soul that is washed and made a dwelling of God. That is exactly what today’s Gospel will show us.
II. Hodie huic domui salus facta est: the Gospel
“At that time: Jesus entering in, walked through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named Zacheus, who was the chief of the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was, and he could not for the crowd, because he was low of stature. And running before, he climbed up into a sycamore tree, that he might see him; for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus was come to the place, looking up, he saw him, and said to him: Zacheus, make haste and come down; for this day I must abide in thy house. And he made haste and came down; and received him with joy. And when all saw it, they all murmured, saying, that he was gone to be a guest with a man that was a sinner. But Zacheus standing, said to the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wronged any man of any thing, I restore him fourfold. Jesus said to him: This day is salvation come to this house; because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:1-10)
Why this Gospel? For centuries the Church has read the story of Zacchaeus whenever she celebrates the dedication of a church. At first sight the connection is thin: a tax collector up a tree, and a dinner. But the hinge of the story is a house. “This day I must abide in thy house.” “This day is salvation come to this house.” The Church reads the Gospel at the consecration of a church because a church is a house that Christ has chosen to enter and remain in. And she reads it to remind us that He did not first choose a temple. He chose a sinner.
The chief of the publicans, and he was rich. Zacchaeus was not a minor tax-farmer. He was the head of the tax collectors of Jericho, a rich customs city on the road from the Jordan. He collected money for Rome and kept what he could for himself. His neighbours regarded him as a traitor and a thief, and they were not wrong. When Christ chose his house, the crowd was scandalized: “he was gone to be a guest with a man that was a sinner.”
St. Ambrose, in the commentary on Luke read at Matins today (Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam VIII.81-90), sets Zacchaeus beside the blind man at the gate of Jericho in the verses just before. Both are outsiders. One cannot see because of his eyes, the other because of his height. Both want to see Jesus, and both are given more than they asked. Ambrose draws the lesson that the rich are not shut out of the Kingdom. The camel can pass through the needle’s eye, for God can do it, and here is a rich man passing through. What saves him is not his wealth, which he gives away, but his desire to see Christ.
He could not for the crowd. St. Augustine preached on this Gospel more than once (Sermo 174). He takes the crowd as a figure of something every Christian meets. Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, and the crowd stood in his way. So it is with anyone who sets out to follow Christ seriously: the crowd of ordinary opinion presses around him and blocks his view. It laughs at humility. It tells him that the Cross is foolishness. It murmurs, as the crowd at Jericho did, when grace comes to someone who does not deserve it. Augustine notes that the people who hindered Zacchaeus were walking with Jesus. The crowd that blocks our sight of Christ is often made of people who think they are close to Him.
He climbed up into a sycamore tree. Augustine’s reading of the tree is well known (Sermo 174.3). The sycamore, he says, was taken to be a kind of worthless or “foolish” fig. To climb it is to climb the foolishness of the Cross. “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:23). The proud are ashamed of it; the humble climb it, and from there they see the Lord. Zacchaeus had to make himself ridiculous to see Jesus. A rich official running ahead of a crowd and scrambling into a tree is not a dignified sight. That small humiliation was the beginning of his salvation. St. Gregory the Great reads the tree the same way, as the wise folly by which the soul rises above the crowd (Moralia in Iob XXVII).
Looking up, he saw him. Zacchaeus climbed to see Jesus. But the Gospel says that Jesus looked up and saw him. He called him by name before Zacchaeus had said a word. Ambrose says that Zacchaeus was seen before he saw. This is the order of grace in every conversion. We think we are seeking God. In fact He has already found us, and our seeking is His gift. “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” The searcher in this story is not Zacchaeus. It is Christ.
Make haste and come down. Our Lord calls Zacchaeus up and then calls him down. Humility lifted him into the tree, and now humility must bring him low again to receive his guest. “This day I must abide in thy house.” The word “must,” oportet, is the language of the divine plan. It is the same word Christ uses of His Passion: “the Son of man must suffer many things” (Luke 9:22). He must stay in this sinner’s house just as He must go up to Jerusalem to die. Entering the houses of sinners is not a detour from His mission. It is His mission.
He received him with joy. Zacchaeus did not wait to become worthy before he opened his door. He came down “and received him with joy.” Then, standing in the presence of his guest, he changed his life. He gave half of what he had to the poor and promised fourfold restitution to anyone he had cheated. The Law required one-fifth more for ordinary fraud (Lev. 6:5; Num. 5:7) and fourfold only for the theft of a sheep (Ex. 22:1). Zacchaeus imposes the heaviest penalty on himself. This is what real repentance looks like. It is not a feeling of regret but restitution, generosity, and a reordered life. Christ did not demand these things before He entered. His entering made them possible.
The Venerable Bede, in his homily for the dedication of a church (Homiliæ Evangelii II.25), puts the meaning of the story plainly. The house of Zacchaeus, which received the Lord, is a figure of the Church. And the Church is not only the building but the faithful who make up the Church. Whenever a soul receives Christ with joy and turns from its sins, salvation comes to that house, and the dedication of a church is fulfilled in a living temple.
He also is a son of Abraham. The crowd had excluded Zacchaeus from the people of God. Christ restores him to it. Zacchaeus was a Jew by birth, but he becomes a true son of Abraham by faith, the faith that made Abraham leave everything at God’s word. St. Paul draws the conclusion: “they that are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7). This is how the new Jerusalem is peopled. Its citizens are not those who were born respectable. They are the lost whom the Son of Man came to seek.
III. The Mass as a whole: the city comes down, and the house goes up
St. Thomas built the Summa Theologiæ on the movement of all things from God and back to Him, exitus and reditus (I, q. 2, prologue). Today’s two readings show that movement as two directions of one meeting.
The Epistle is the exitus. Everything in it comes down. The city descends “out of heaven from God.” The voice comes “from the throne.” God pitches His tent among men. The initiative is entirely His: “Behold, I make all things new.” Nothing in the vision is built from below.
The Gospel is the reditus, and it begins where the Epistle ends, with God already among men. Christ is walking through Jericho. He looks up, calls a sinner by name, and enters his house. Then everything in the house turns back toward God. Zacchaeus’s wealth goes to the poor, his injustices are repaired, and he himself is restored to the family of Abraham. The house that received God is given back to God as a house of salvation.
A consecrated church stands exactly where these two movements meet. St. Thomas explains why the Church consecrates her buildings (Summa Theologiæ III, q. 83). A church is consecrated, he says, not because the building is capable of grace, but to signify the holiness the Church receives through the Passion of Christ, and the holiness required of those who receive the sacraments there. The stone church is dedicated so that the living Church will remember what she is. St. Augustine said the same to his people at a dedication (Sermo 336). The house of our prayers is built here, he told them, but we ourselves are the house of God. We were cut from the mountains by the preaching of the truth, squared and shaped by discipline, and fitted together by charity. Without charity, the stones of the building lie apart, and no house stands.
Every Mass completes the meeting. At the consecration the city comes down: Christ descends upon the altar, and the tabernacle of God is truly with men. At Communion the Lord says to each of us what He said to Zacchaeus: Hodie in domo tua oportet me manere, “This day I must abide in thy house.” And when we receive Him with joy and change our lives, salvation comes to the house of our soul, and it is returned to God dedicated.
IV. The Collects
Deus, qui nobis per singulos annos huius sancti templi tui consecrationis reparas diem, et sacris semper mysteriis repræsentas incolumes: exaudi preces populi tui, et præsta; ut, quisquis hoc templum beneficia petiturus ingreditur, cuncta se impetrasse lætetur.
“O God, who year by year renewest for us the day of the consecration of this Thy holy temple, and ever bringest us safe to Thy sacred mysteries: hear the prayers of Thy people, and grant that whosoever enters this temple to ask for blessings may rejoice in having obtained all that he asked.”
The Collect is the prayer of every dedication anniversary, and on this feast the whole Church prays it for her mother church. It asks something bold. It does not ask that some who enter the church be heard. It asks that quisquis, whoever enters, may rejoice to have obtained cuncta, everything he sought. That is Zacchaeus’s experience. He came to see a passing preacher and went home with salvation.
Deus, qui nos beati Theodori Martyris tui confessione gloriosa circumdas et protegis: præsta nobis ex eius imitatione proficere, et oratione fulciri.
“O God, who dost surround and protect us by the glorious confession of blessed Theodore, Thy Martyr: grant that we may profit by imitating him, and be upheld by his prayers.”
V. St. Theodore: the soldier and the two temples
St. Theodore, called Tiro, “the recruit,” was a young soldier serving at Amasea in Pontus, in what is now northern Turkey, early in the fourth century. When he refused to sacrifice to the gods, he was given time to reconsider. Tradition says he used it to set fire to the temple of the mother-goddess Cybele in the city. He was tortured and burned alive. His shrine at Euchaïta became one of the great pilgrim churches of the Christian East, and he is honoured to this day by Catholics of the Byzantine rite and by the Orthodox.
St. Gregory of Nyssa preached a panegyric at that shrine on his feast (Encomium in S. Theodorum). He describes the church built over the martyr’s tomb: the carved wood, the marble, and above all the paintings on its walls showing Theodore’s struggle and Christ crowning him. Gregory says that painting, though silent, speaks from the wall like a book. The pilgrim who enters reads the martyr’s faith in colour before he hears it in a sermon.
The saint of the commemoration and the feast of the day are well matched. Theodore burned a temple of idols. The Church today dedicates a temple of the living God. The burning of the false temple and the building of the true one are parts of the same work. Theodore made room in Amasea for the God who comes down from heaven, and he paid for it with his life. Then his own body became the cornerstone of a church.
VI. A word for practice
Examine. Is there a crowd standing between me and Christ? Human respect, the opinion of my circle, fear of looking foolish for my faith? Am I willing to climb the sycamore, to be seen as ridiculous for the sake of seeing Him? When grace comes to someone I consider unworthy, do I rejoice, or do I murmur? Is there anything in my life that I owe back to others, money, time, reputation, that I have not restored? Do I treat my parish church as the house of God and the gate of heaven, or as a hall for a weekly obligation? Do I treat my own soul as the temple it became at baptism?
Do. Visit a church this week outside the time of Mass and spend a quarter of an hour before the Blessed Sacrament, remembering that the tabernacle of God is truly with men. Find out the date of the dedication of your own parish church and keep it in your prayers each year. Make one act of restitution, however small, for something you have taken or neglected to give. Pray for the Holy Father, the Bishop of the Lateran, and for the unity of all the churches with their mother. In this month of the holy souls, pray for those who built and endowed the churches where you have worshipped, and who now wait for the city where every tear is wiped away.
Pray. The Collect of the day. Then, before receiving Holy Communion, the centurion’s words the Church puts on our lips, Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum, joined to Christ’s answer to Zacchaeus: “This day I must abide in thy house.”
Aspiration. Hodie huic domui salus facta est. “This day is salvation come to this house.”
Devote. On this Monday, a day traditionally offered for the faithful departed, ask Our Lady, the first and purest tabernacle of God with men, to make your soul a house fit for her Son. Ask St. Sylvester, who consecrated the Lateran, to obtain for the Church of Rome fidelity to the faith she has guarded since Peter. Ask St. Theodore for the courage to clear out of your heart whatever idols stand where God should dwell.
If you wish to go deeper: the Sacred Liturgy path explains the traditional rite of the dedication of a church: the bishop’s knocking at the doors, the alphabet traced in ashes on the floor, the anointing of the twelve crosses on the walls, and the meaning of the anniversary Mass Terribilis. The Church History path tells the story of the Lateran: Constantine’s gift, Pope Sylvester, the fires and rebuildings, and the five Lateran Councils, including the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. The Theology and Doctrine path examines the Church as the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Ghost, the primacy of the Roman See, and the Real Presence. The Lives of the Saints path follows St. Theodore and the soldier-martyrs of the Great Persecution.
Sources. Scripture is cited from the Douay-Rheims, with the Vulgate. The Fathers are given in paraphrase with their loci: St. Augustine, De civitate Dei XX.17, Sermo 174, and Sermo 336; St. Ambrose, Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam VIII.81-90; St. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob XXVII; the Venerable Bede, Homiliæ Evangelii II.25; St. Irenæus, Adversus Hæreses III.3.2; St. Gregory of Nyssa, Encomium in S. Theodorum. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ I, q. 2, prologue, and III, q. 83. Magisterial text: Fourth Lateran Council (1215), c. 1, Firmiter. The history of the basilica and the tradition of its dedication by St. Sylvester follow the Roman Breviary lessons for 9 November and the traditional accounts.
Terribilis est locus iste: hic domus Dei est, et porta cæli.