Scripture readings for Nov. 9, 2025, Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
Ez 47:1-2, 8-9, 12 Ps 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9 1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17 Jn 2:13-22
Happy Church Day! As feast days go, this Sunday is one of the more unusual ones on the church calendar.
We don’t commemorate a Biblical event (say, the baptism of Jesus) or a saint. We don’t mark a new season (but be patient: Advent is coming soon). Instead, we celebrate a building — more specifically, the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. It’s the oldest of the four major basilicas in Rome and serves as the official “home” of the pope — the seat of the bishop of Rome.
St. Peter’s Basilica gets all the attention, but it’s the Lateran that is really the “pope’s church.” During this Jubilee Year, it’s been flooded with pilgrims passing through its Holy Door.
But why does this matter? Why all the fuss over a church?
History is part of it. The original Lateran was actually built by the emperor Constantine over an ancient Roman palace (The Lateran Palace) in the 4th century. The baptistry was dedicated to St. John the Baptist (which is why the church bears his name) and the Vatican website will tell you the structure has been destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries. It is a testament to survival and endurance. It also contains some priceless relics, including wood from what is said to come from the table of the Last Supper. It is considered the “mother church” of all the churches in the world.
But this Sunday is about more than an important piece of Roman real estate. This Sunday actually goes to the heart of our identity as Catholics, as believers, as Christians on a pilgrim journey of faith.
If you’ve ever attended the dedication (or rededication) of a church, it’s a profoundly moving experience. In so many ways, it echoes the sacrament of baptism. The church is sprinkled with water; the altar is anointed with oil; the walls are blessed. It is a moment of great promise and possibility, with a building in effect being commissioned for holiness.
Isn’t it that way for all of us? This Sunday, we are given a chance to remember the dedication of a great symbol of our faith — and to rededicate ourselves, too, to recall that our ultimate purpose is to strive to live as holy people of God.
So we hear again the Gospel from St. John, recounting how Jesus drove the money-changers out of the temple, and we encounter the words of Ezekiel, describing the water flowing from the temple, nourishing everything around it.
But we also hear these words of St. Paul: “You are God’s building. You are the temple of God and the Spirit dwells in you.”
A church building is brick and mortar, wood and glass. But ultimately, it is people.
So this weekend, we are reminded that we are the “living stones” that make up the church; like the Lateran, we have been consecrated to stand before the world as landmarks for Christ. In a sense, we are the doors through which people can enter into a closer relationship with him, and we are the windows that shine forth the light of his love.
In his autobiography, Thomas Merton wrote, “I thought churches were simply places where people got together and sang a few hymns…and yet now I tell you, it is the Sacrament…Christ living in our midst…it is He alone who holds our world together.”
More than a building, this Sunday calls us to remember what we believe. That is what this feast is really all about.
We do it because of this: The One who draws us to church on any given Sunday. The One who nourishes our hopes, and who calms our fears, and who makes of each of us — with all our flaws and imperfections — his tabernacle, the sacred space that rests in the heart of every church.
It is all because of Christ in the Eucharist.
Remember that this Sunday. Cherish that. And celebrate it!
Deacon Greg Kandra is an award-winning author and journalist, and creator of the blog “The Deacon’s Bench.”
