Today in the Catholic Church we remember the dedication of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. This is the Cathedral Church of Rome (St. Peter’s is in Vatican City which is technically another country) and, hence, the seat (cathedra) for the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. The Emperor Constantine gave the Lateran Palace to the bishop of Rome for use as a Church in the fourth century, after Christianity moved from being persecuted to an approved and, eventually, the official religion in the Roman Empire. Here at St. James we have a conflicted relationship with church buildings. We lost our beautiful temple ten years ago but found the gospel truth that the Church is not a building but a people. Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you … The temple of God, which you are, is holy. The conflict: We need sacred spaces to lift our minds and hearts to God but it is the people, not the spaces, that make for holiness. Perhaps we just have to live with that ambiguity?
