{"id":8431,"date":"2025-11-08T15:24:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T15:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/?p=8431"},"modified":"2025-10-16T15:29:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T14:29:43","slug":"commentary-on-dedication-of-the-lateran-basilica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/commentary-on-dedication-of-the-lateran-basilica\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on Dedication of the Lateran Basilica 9.11.2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Fr. Donagh O\u2019Shea OP,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/goodnews.ie\/calendar.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">www.goodnews.ie<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018St John Lateran\u2019 is a church in Rome, not a person.\u00a0 In the words carved in front, it is the \u201cmother of all churches.\u201d\u00a0 It is the pope\u2019s official ecclesiastical seat in Rome (St Peter\u2019s in the Vatican is not a cathedral), and the popes resided there for many centuries.\u00a0 It was the first Christian church building.\u00a0 The ground for it was donated by the Emperor Constantine early in the 4th century.\u00a0 It was rebuilt four or five times.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The statues that line the centre isle are so massive in scale that you feel like an ant as you walk there.\u00a0<br>What are we doing as we make a fuss about a church building in Rome?\u00a0 We are thinking symbolically.\u00a0 A church \u2013 any church \u2013 is a symbol of a believing community, just as a house is a symbol of the self.\u00a0 Johann Tauler said, \u201cWe must go into our house, our souls\u2026\u201d We search for God there, and God searches for us.\u00a0 This is not usually a peaceful process: \u201cGod ransacks the house,\u201d Tauler said, \u201cthrowing aside one thing after another.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<br>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.\u00a0 Those massive statues in the Lateran basilica, especially, say nothing about searching; they are all about assertion.\u00a0 Too much assertion and emphasis can frighten away a seeker.\u00a0 We cannot be brow-beaten into faith; when we are, it is someone else\u2019s belief we end up with, not our own.\u00a0 Then it is just that: belief, not faith.\u00a0 You can pick up and drop beliefs at will; they are like clothes that are in and out of fashion.\u00a0 But faith is something deeper and more difficult; it does not come cheap: it is God&#8217;s gift, given freely, but it becomes ours only through our own search.\u00a0 God comes searching for us, Tauler said, as we search for God.\u00a0 God searches for us in all our ragged imperfection.\u00a0<br><a href=\"http:\/\/goodnews.ie\">http:\/\/goodnews.ie<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fr. Donagh O\u2019Shea OP,\u00a0www.goodnews.ie: \u2018St John Lateran\u2019 is a church in Rome, not a person.\u00a0 In the words carved in front, it is the \u201cmother of all churches.\u201d\u00a0 It is the pope\u2019s official ecclesiastical seat in Rome (St Peter\u2019s in the Vatican is not a cathedral), and the popes resided there for many centuries.\u00a0 It<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8433,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions\/8433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}