Dedication of the Lateran Basilica 9.11.14 Unity
We live in an age where the rights and liberty of the individual are considered paramount.
Today’s feast gives us a much more corporate and balanced understanding of the matter.
The Lateran Basilica is the Cathedral church of Rome. It is therefore the central church in the centre of the Church, the church which more than any other in the world represents the unity of the Catholic Church.
This unity is something which partially we have, and partially we are still praying for.
Our unity stems from Christ Himself. He founded the Church which would be a visible link with Himself. Those who belong to this Church are united with Him and with each other.
Our Lord said He would found the Church on rock and now we have become a big rock. Not, however, a rock that is meant to crush, but to be a foundation on which we can stand.
The existence of the Church gives us a secure foundation for our individual lives. Without the Church we would not know Jesus Christ. It was the Church that gave us the Bible. It was the Church that has preached and taught the Gospel in every age since the time of Christ.
Many challenge the Catholic Church’s claim to teach the truth. We do not make this claim out of any sense that we are better or smarter than other people; only that Our Lord has guaranteed that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church in all important matters.
This is divine activity not human. We do not claim credit for it; we simply recognize the action of God when He does act.
Unity of Christians does not require that we all agree on everything – just the essentials.
We can have cultural differences regarding clothes, food, music and the like. We can have different personal preferences, for all sorts of things.
But we cannot have different beliefs when it comes to basic doctrines and practices.
Many Catholics in fact do not believe the same things as the Church teaches; nor do they observe the Church’s rulings on certain matters of morality or sacramental practice.
This is one of the perils of living in an individualistic age. We have the right to think for ourselves but not the right to pit our own individual wisdom against the wisdom of God Himself, as revealed through the Church.
So we can think for ourselves but there is still only one right answer (on the basic things at least).
Some will say that doctrines are not so important; that it is what we do that counts.
There is, however, no need for conflict between theory and practice; between having the right doctrines and living them out in practice.
We will not step over a poor man at our front gate so that we can go to Mass.
Nor will we feed the poor man, and then not go to Mass.
We can do both. We can meet all obligations to God and Neighbour, by the help of God’s grace.
Today, we give thanks for the unity we already have, and we pray for what is still lacking.
Our Lord Himself prayed for the unity of His disciples, as we see in John 17,21… that they may all be one.
He must have been looking into the future when He prayed that prayer!
What a tangle we have made of it, as of most issues.
Only God can answer His own prayer. We can help by not forgetting that we have a corporate as well as an individual identity.
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