The Nazareth Page-A gospel meditation for your home
November 9, 2025 – Dedication of Lateran Basilica-John 2:13-2
REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
Download this simple process to Prepare for Sunday using the Observe, Judge, Act Method
Rarely does a feast day connected with a church building, however important to the Catholic Church, outclass and replace the regular passage of ordinary Sunday celebrations. But we are talking about the Roman Catholic Church, and this particular church, the Lateran, is one of the four great churches of Rome. In fact, it was the major church of Roman Catholicism for hundreds of years and is still the cathedral for the Diocese of Rome. The only church structure that exceeds its importance is St. Peter’s in Vatican City. Many church councils were held at the Lateran Church.
What I find important today however is the selection of the gospel for today’s liturgy. The scene is familiar to many. Jesus enters the temple area in Jerusalem and is clearly angry. What he witnessed was its evolution from a truly holy space where God is worshipped to a major money-maker for Jewish leadership. Its purpose had changed.
Seeing this misuse of God’s dwelling, Jesus described another way to imagine and experience the presence of God. He pointed to his own earthly body, his person. both then and in its risen state, where God is present. And further, and to me more challenging, is the belief in God’s presence in us, in our strength and in our frailty, as well as in those near us and those distant, or to use traditional Catholic language, in all those humans who live “in the state of grace.”
Through the reception of sanctifying grace, we like Jesus, become temples of God’s Holy Spirit. Spiritual writers refer to this as the divine indwelling. This brings God extremely close to us. Closer that we are to ourselves, to recall a phrase taken from the theological writings of St. Augustine.
In Catholic grade school I first learned that God was everywhere. As I thought of that, I was not happy. Terrified would be a better way to describe my reaction. I recall being both disturbed and scared because the nun teaching us this did so to warn us that God not only knows and sees our every thought, word and deed, but also records all the bad things we did. Especially our sins. And after we die, this record will determine our fate for all eternity! I was not made happier knowing this.
Later, I learned another understanding of this truth of faith. God exists closely with me all the time. I don’t have to go to a church building to connect with God. God is with me always. Just as real as God is in the Church of the Lateran.
David M. Thomas, PhD