Homily for the Mass of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Sunday 9 November 2025
Dedication of the Lateran Basilica – Year C

Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

1^st Reading: Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12
Psaume : 45 (46), 2-3,5-6,8-9a.10a
2^rd Reading: 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17
Gospel: John 2,13-22

Today's readings can serve as a guide to distinguish three phases, or three moments, or perhaps three aspects — because they are not successive but often concomitant — of the Christian life: that of conversion, that of edification, and that of fruitfulness. 

Conversion is what the Gospel of John addresses, where Jesus comes to purify the Temple. It is not a sudden outburst of anger from Jesus, but a perfectly planned, deliberate, and peaceful action. We are told that he is made a whip with ropes…he takes his time calmly making his whip before taking action. Then, he drives the vendors, sheep, oxen, and so on, out of the Temple. It's important to understand the layout of the site. When we talk about the Temple, we're referring to the entire sacred space, a vast platform surrounded by colonnades. You enter from the south and arrive at a large courtyard. South of this courtyard is the basilica, where the money changers and the sellers of oxen and sheep must be located, because when a Jew comes to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice, he hasn't necessarily left home. Imagine the apostles coming to offer a sacrifice from Capernaum: they don't travel with their bull; they can buy one there. Therefore, it's necessary to be able to purchase the necessary offerings on site. But these vendors don't stay in the basilica; they spill out onto the courtyard. Now this courtyard is the courtyard of the Gentiles. And in the middle of this very large courtyard is the space reserved for the children of Israel; within this space, a second enclosure, and inside this second enclosure, the sanctuary, which is ultimately a small building. It is there that the lampstand burns, which burns before… nothing remains in the time of Jesus. In the time of Solomon, the Ark of the Covenant, containing the tablets of the Law, a measure of manna from the desert, and Aaron's rod, was in the Holy of Holies. Jesus thus clears the courtyard of the Gentiles, as a prophetic sign that the Gentiles are called to enter into God's covenant with his people. This is not an outburst of anger, but a prophetic act performed by Jesus, who comes to set things right. 

It was Jesus who initiated it.

If we reflect on our own conversion, what we see Jesus accomplishing in the Temple of Jerusalem is what he also wants to accomplish in our own lives. It's not the merchants who suddenly say, "Hey, we've taken up too much space, let's move our tables," it's Jesus who does it. Similarly, our conversion isn't primarily the result of our own efforts, but first and foremost the work of the Lord, which at times seems as forceful as what Jesus does with the merchants in the Temple… Because our conversion requires us to renounce a number of things, a number of attitudes, a number of aspects of our lives in order to open ourselves to God's grace, to allow ourselves to be transformed by God's grace. Many spiritual writers see, through the events of our lives—all the events of our lives—the way the Lord works in our lives for our conversion. One could say that everything that happens to us through God's grace is given to us for our conversion. From everything that happens to us, we can allow the Lord to draw fruit for our conversion, but only if we are willing to see the Lord's action in these events. The Gospel teaches us to see God's action in Jesus' actions in the Temple. But the apostles did not understand at the time. It was at the Resurrection that they would understand what had happened there. 

The Lord wants to make us his Temple. That is why he corrects us. That is why he works for our conversion. Saint Paul will insist on this in the First Letter to the Corinthians, in particular, to tell us: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). It is the same word “naon“In Greek, ‘sanctuary,’ which designates the Holy of Holies, that place where God resides in the Temple of Jerusalem. And a little further on, in the same Letter to the Corinthians, he tells us: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (1 Cor 6:19-20). Through the events of our lives, the Lord comes to drive the merchants out of the Temple: we must learn to consent to this.

If we consent to this, we can then work towards building up our being, our Christian being, our being as children of God. Paul speaks of building up in this letter to the Corinthians: "You are a house that God is building." (1 Cor 3:9). He is not speaking of each individual only, he is also speaking of the whole Church, the Temple of God, the spiritual edifice. “You are a house that God is building. According to the grace God gave me, I, like a good master builder, laid a foundation stone. Someone else is building on it. But each one must be careful how he is building. No one can lay any other foundation stone than the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” How do we build our lives on Jesus Christ?

You know that Thérèse repeatedly expressed this: “To love Jesus and to make Him loved, that is my greatest desire, to love Jesus and to make Him loved.” (Cf. LT 201 to Fr. Roulland). And this desire that dwells in Thérèse’s heart must dwell in ours as well. The heart of Christian life is our relationship with Jesus. There is only one Savior, Jesus Christ. Our efforts will not save us… It is a matter ofto be saved, like Jesus. You remember, when Jesus was on the cross, one of the high priests said: "He has saved others, and he can't even save himself." (Mt 27:42). Well no, dear high priest, Jesus cannot save himself because he comes precisely to to be saved in our humanity. And it is the Father who saves him from death. This is what Jesus comes to experience, and this is what he invites us to enter into: learning to let ourselves be saved by God's merciful love. And to learn to let ourselves be saved, we must put Jesus at the center, for he is, one might say, both the first among the saved and the Savior… because he allowed himself to be saved. How do we build our lives on Jesus? How do we seek to live in dialogue with Jesus throughout our day? How do we ask him for advice concretely, in the course of our lives? How is he our first, our only friend, as Thérèse calls it in a passage of the manuscripts (Cf. MsB '4v)? 

Conversion and edification, and finally fruitfulness. 

We have this great vision from Ezekiel of the water flowing from the right side of the Temple, flowing down to the Dead Sea and purifying its waters. This water flowing from the right side of the Temple cannot help but remind us of the water and blood flowing from the right side of the Lord Jesus on the cross. This living water, of which Jesus will speak in the same Gospel of John, when, at the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple, he stands in the Temple and cries out:

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ By this he was speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.” (Jn 7:37-38).

The Holy Spirit flowing from the side of Jesus and giving life wherever death has done its work. 

I'm rereading the same saying of Jesus, but with different punctuation. Listen carefully:

“Jesus stood up and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he was speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.”

I haven't changed the word order; I've simply rearranged the punctuation. And if you listened carefully, you heard that now living water flows from the heart of the believer. We mustn't choose one of the two versions—even though, in printing the book, we are forced to choose—because Jesus allows us to participate in his very being. Through baptism, we are members of the Body of Christ. And if living water springs from his body, then this living water must also spring from our bodies, since we are members of his Body! If we allow ourselves to be converted by the Lord, if we accept that he takes up his whip at certain times to drive out the merchants of the Temple who prevent true worship from taking place in our hearts—that is, praise and adoration which lead to concrete charity for our neighbor—if we accept that the Lord transforms us in this way, if through Him, with Him, and in Him we build our lives, then the Holy Spirit will also spring forth from our hearts because Jesus will be truly present in us and will cause his Holy Spirit to spring forth through our hearts, and our lives will be fruitful. 

And this is what will evangelize the world, for the Holy Spirit that comes from our hearts is nothing other than charity lived out concretely. All of this is constantly nourished by the Eucharist. 

I conclude with two quotes from Thérèse in Manuscript A. At one point, she says about Jesus present in the tabernacle in the Blessed Sacrament:

It is not to remain in the golden ciborium [that Jesus] descends each day from Heaven, but to find another Heaven which is infinitely dearer to him than the first: the Heaven of our soul, made in his image, the living temple of the adorable Trinity!… (Ms A Folio 48v°)

My brother, my sister, you are a living Temple of the adorable Trinity!

And then, when she recounts her trip to Italy, regarding Our Lady of Loreto where there is supposedly the house of the Virgin where Jesus lived, she says:

How delightful these memories are!… [60v] But our greatest consolation was to receive Jesus Himself into His house and to be His living temple in the very place He had honored with His presence. (Ms A Folio 60)

Yes, brothers and sisters, in celebrating the dedication of the Basilica of the Holy Savior of the Lateran, let us renew the awareness that the Holy Spirit awakens in us, that we are truly children of God, inhabited by the Holy Spirit, that the Lord has made us the Temple of the adorable Trinity and that he wants the living water of God's merciful love to spring forth from our hearts so that the world may be saved.

Amen