Homily by Fr Mathew Nov. 9,2014

The dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

(November 9,2014)

Three friends were hunting together: One was a lawyer, one a doctor, and the other a preacher. As they were walking, they came up on a big deer. The three of them shot simultaneously. Immediately the deer dropped to the ground and all three rushed to the spot to find that the deer was dead. To their surprise, it had only one bullet hole. So all of them claimed that it was his bullet that killed the deer. As they were arguing about whose deer it was, a game officer came along that way. He asked them what they were arguing about. As the doctor described to him what was going on, the officer suggested that he would take a look at the deer and tell them who had shot it. In five seconds he came back and said with much confidence, "Folks, I can tell you this. The preacher shot the deer!" They all wondered how he knew that in five seconds. The officer said, "Easy. The bullet went in one ear and out the other."

 How often we listen to the Gospel message on one ear and let it go through the other! I hope this will not happen today as we celebrate the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.

Many of you wonder why we celebrate a building in Rome. It is the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome. The Pope lives very close to the St Peter’s Basilica.  However, the St. Peter’s Basilica, which is a magnificent Church, is not his cathedral.

The Lateran Basilica is the mother church of all the churches in the world.  Through Our parish Church, we’re united to our Mother church in Rome which reminds us that we are one body united in Christ by our one faith. In the words of Pope Francis, “today’s feast is an invitation to reflect on the communion of the Church around world.”

The second Vatican council says, as we heard in the second reading, we’re the Church and we are its living stones and Jesus Christ is the corner stone.  The church building is  nothing but a place where the body of Christ gathers. However, Fr Robert Barron in his homily suggests that “the building matters” because we are a sacramental church. We use external signs to experience what is transcendent. So Our Church building is Sacramental. In the words of Pope Francis, “The Church Herself is a sign and an anticipation of this new humanity, when it lives and spreads the Gospel with Her witness, a message of hope and reconciliation for all mankind.”

Today we celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the collapse of  the Berlin wall. The wall represented the ideological divisions in the word. The wall stood there for many years as a sign of wounds and brokenness inflicted on the very heart of humanity by war, violence and exploitation. By bearing witness to our faith and living that faith, we are called upon to bring about reconciliation and unity in this world. As a church our mission is to bring down all the walls that divide us.

So the church is an inevitable sign in a divided world. However, many people think the Church and religion are unnecessary.  According to a recent pew report, one in five Americans says that they are spiritual but not religious. I have heard people say that “I am a good person; I pray at home. I’m spiritual, but I don’t have to belong to an organized religion to tell me what to do ln my life.” 

I can understand institutional disenchantment. Institutions can get corrupted. It can become redundant. 

But institutions are also the only mechanism human beings know to perpetuate values and actions. If books were enough, why have universities? If guns enough, why have a military? If self-governance enough, let’s get rid of Washington and the government in Lansing.

The point is that if you want to do something lasting in this world, we need something concrete. We cannot operate in vacuum. Do you have a vision? Then Get a blueprint.

If we were simply spiritual and didn't care about religion, many of the largest world renowned charities like Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and Food for the poor would not have existed.

One of the things I studied about alcoholism in my psychology class was that we cannot treat this addiction with pills or psychotherapy.

The Only proven successful method so far known to us is AA program. People who belong to this group get together every week and confess to each other their fragility and failures. Only with the support of the like-minded people (from where they derive our spiritual strength) they know they can overcome  their demons and addiction. This is very true of our spiritual life, too. We are wounded animals. We will not be able to deal with our wounds and brokenness and grow in spirituality unless we have the support of a community which we call Church.

As Aristotle says, we’re a social animal. Our life, whether it is spiritual or physical, becomes stagnant when we cut off from the community or the Church. When we travel together supporting each other, our pilgrimage to our final destiny becomes more easy and tangible.