We need beautiful churches yes we do!

Reflection for the Feast of St. John Lateran
9 November 2010
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
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The pope now has to take a short popemobile ride to get to St. John Lateran Church in Rome, but this was not always the case. Now when we think of the pope, we think of him appearing at St. Peter's. We think of him overlooking the square. But throughout history, the pope has appeared more times at St. John Lateran, the mother church of Christianity, than he has at St. Peter's. St. John Lateran is the original church built by Constantine that houses the cathedra, the seat of authority, of the successor to St. Peter, the pope. Today we celebrate St. John Lateran as the mother of all churches; yes, even the mother of St. Peter's.

The kind of churches we build say something about who we think we are. Churches, as we learn well in today's readings, are sacraments of human persons, for St. Paul reminds us that we are temples of God. Churches are sacraments of the family of God, for we are all living stones, being built into God's building upon the foundation which is Christ. Churches could not be more important. The kind of churches we build speak directly as to who we are. Dr. Peter Kilpatrick said as much last night, when saying that beauty leads to contemplation, contemplation to mission, mission to virtue, and virtue to fullness of being. When we build a beautiful church, we are proclaiming to know that reality is beautiful and are responsibility to become beautiful ourselves. When we build a crummy church, we are saying something else. That is why Jesus 'gets medieval' on those who were trashing the temple, using it as a means to an end, rather than using it for worship of God, and to contemplate the source of all beauty. The beauty of churches could not be more important.

God does not need churches, but we do. We can not build an adequate home for God, but we must know who we are and where we are going, and churches help us to do this. It has been one of the greatest privileges of my priesthood to go ask people for money for the building of a church, and to sit in on on the planning of a church, and to be there as the MC for the Dedication of that same Church, St. Michael's in Leawood. Pope Benedict XVI for the first time as pope dedicated a new church, Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, this past weekend, a church that has been under construction for 125 years, and still has 25 years to go. Throughout the construction of churches, a good question is always asked. Does God want this church? Does he need it? Shouldn't we give the money to the poor? The response is that God does not need this church, but He greatly desires it for He desires our good, and He knows that man cannot live without beauty, and unless man is drawn toward beauty, He will never understand His true purpose and never fully reach out to his neighbor in need. It is never a matter of either, or. It is a matter of both, and. It is my experience that those who do not appreciate beauty rarely if ever reach out in love to the poor, for recognizing beauty in form and recognizing beauty in persons recognize the one and same truth.

As we celebrate the dedication of the mother church of Christianity today, with great joy and thanksgiving, we pause to give thanks for the dedication of the church of St. Lawrence as well, and all who have made its construction possible, out of love for us and in the hope that we would encounter beauty here. Let us see this great building not only as the place where God comes to hang out with us, but the place where we come to be transformed by the grace of the sacraments, the living water of the Eucharist, into a building that is truly fit for heaven. Amen.