Today we celebrate the feast of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. It is the oldest church building in Europe, having been established in the reign of Constantine. It is an Archbasilica, for it is considered the most important basilica in Rome. It is named St. John Lateran after St. John the Apostle and St. John the Baptist. Lateran comes from the family that originally owned the property – the Laterani family. It is the mother church of Catholics. By celebrating it today, we remember our roots and that we are part of a large family. It is appropriate to remember our mother.

In the first reading, Ezekiel sees water flowing from the temple. This did not literally happen, so what could it mean? Water sustains life and causes things to grow. Life flows from the temple which is the house of God. Jesus said that he came so that we might have an abundant life. In the creed we confess that the Holy Spirit is the Lord, the giver of life. This life, like the water, makes salty waters fresh. It causes growth that never fades, never fails. This life is the medicine of immortality. Most of the early Christian writers saw in this passage an allusion to either baptism or the teaching of the Good News. It flows to us from God, through his temple, the Church. To experience this water and embrace this teaching, we receive life. The virtues blossom in our lives and produce medicine that saves a dying world. Our mother, the Church, like the Lateran Basilica, has been proclaiming the Gospel from the beginning and producing life, as all mothers do.

The psalm is a good reminder that the Church doesn’t produce this water. We didn’t invent the Gospel. We received it and now we are called to let it flow through us. “The waters of the river gladden the city of God.” The Church, the City of God, is glad and joyful, not because of anything within herself, but because she is “the holy dwelling of the Most High!” We are weak. He is “our refuge and strength.” Napoleon once told a Catholic cardinal that he could destroy the Catholic Church. The cardinal responded that we have been trying to destroy it for eighteen hundred years and haven’t been successful and that Napoleon won’t be either. The water keeps flowing into it despite our weaknesses and failings.

In the second reading, St. Paul reminds us that buildings are not the Church: we are. As much as we love our old buildings, the time could come when they are no more. But the Temple of God will remain as long as there is a single human being filled with the Spirit of God. So, we share the Good News with those around us and this Temple is built up. Actually, what if there were no followers of God left on this planet? Would the Temple of God completely disappear? No, because the Temple would still have her foundation: Jesus Christ. And, in the words of St. Ignatius of Antioch, “where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

Jesus’ body is the Temple of God and, although the authorities destroyed it, he raised it up on the third day. That Temple will never fail, never stumble, and will never die again. Jesus is risen. That is the water that gladdens the City of God, the Temple of God, the Church. And we have God’s promise as stated in the Gospel Acclamation: “I have chosen and consecrated this house, says the Lord, that my name may be there forever.”