‘St John Lateran’ is a church in Rome, not a person. In the words carved in front, it is the “mother of all churches.” It is the pope’s official ecclesiastical seat in Rome (St Peter’s in the Vatican is not a cathedral), and the popes resided there for many centuries. It was the first Christian church building. The ground for it was donated by the Emperor Constantine early in the 4th century. It was rebuilt four or five times. The Vandals wrecked it in the 5th century, an earthquake did the same in the 9th, two fires destroyed it at different times in the 14th, and there was little left of the original when the interior was redone in the 17th. The statues that line the centre isle are so massive in scale that you feel like an ant as you walk there. What are we doing as we make a fuss about a church building in Rome? We are thinking symbolically. A church – any church – is a symbol of a believing community, just as a house is a symbol of the self. Johann Tauler said, “We must go into our house, our souls…” We search for God there, and God searches for us. This is not usually a peaceful process: “God ransacks the house,” Tauler said, “throwing aside one thing after another.” But churches all look so finished; the seeking and finding seem to be long over; there is nothing there to express the drama of the great search. Those massive statues in the Lateran basilica, especially, say nothing about searching; they are all about assertion. Too much assertion and emphasis can frighten away a seeker. We cannot be brow-beaten into faith; when we are, it is someone else’s belief we end up with, not our own. Then it is just that: belief, not faith. You can pick up and drop beliefs at will; they are like clothes that are in and out of fashion. But faith is something deeper and more difficult; it does not come cheap: it is God’s gift, given freely, but it becomes ours only through our own search. God comes searching for us, Tauler said, as we search for God. God searches for us in all our ragged imperfection. http://goodnews.ie
Commentary on Dedication of the Lateran Basilica 9.11.2025
Fr. Donagh O’Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie:
‘St John Lateran’ is a church in Rome, not a person. In the words carved in front, it is the “mother of all churches.” It is the pope’s official ecclesiastical seat in Rome (St Peter’s in the Vatican is not a cathedral), and the popes resided there for many centuries. It was the first Christian church building. The ground for it was donated by the Emperor Constantine early in the 4th century. It was rebuilt four or five times. The Vandals wrecked it in the 5th century, an earthquake did the same in the 9th, two fires destroyed it at different times in the 14th, and there was little left of the original when the interior was redone in the 17th. The statues that line the centre isle are so massive in scale that you feel like an ant as you walk there.
What are we doing as we make a fuss about a church building in Rome? We are thinking symbolically. A church – any church – is a symbol of a believing community, just as a house is a symbol of the self. Johann Tauler said, “We must go into our house, our souls…” We search for God there, and God searches for us. This is not usually a peaceful process: “God ransacks the house,” Tauler said, “throwing aside one thing after another.”
But churches all look so finished; the seeking and finding seem to be long over; there is nothing there to express the drama of the great search. Those massive statues in the Lateran basilica, especially, say nothing about searching; they are all about assertion. Too much assertion and emphasis can frighten away a seeker. We cannot be brow-beaten into faith; when we are, it is someone else’s belief we end up with, not our own. Then it is just that: belief, not faith. You can pick up and drop beliefs at will; they are like clothes that are in and out of fashion. But faith is something deeper and more difficult; it does not come cheap: it is God’s gift, given freely, but it becomes ours only through our own search. God comes searching for us, Tauler said, as we search for God. God searches for us in all our ragged imperfection.
http://goodnews.ie