9 November 2020 – Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
The river enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh. Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes. On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.
From Ezekiel 47: 1-2, 8-9, 12, NRSV
The reading is chosen to give an illustration of what the temple – and the Church – could and should be like. The Lateran Basilica in Rome is the Pope’s cathedral and so is, in effect, the mother church for Catholics. It is from here that the Pope offers “ex cathedra” teaching but the Pope is not the source of the “river” that flows out into the world. That source is, of course, Christ. And the Pope is not the only person through whom this “river” flows. By uniting ourselves to that source, we can allow the freshness and life-giving energy to flow through us into the world and transform it.
- How easy do you find it to understand the symbolic language we find in the Bibl
- How can you allow the fresh and life-giving ‘water’ to flow into you and through you into the stagnant places within you and within the world?
Many parts of our world feel in need of this life and freshness. Pray for a sense of that wellspring of Christ within you – a sense which is usually fostered by allowing it to flow through you towards others.
