Archbishop of Sydney

Feast of Basilica of St. John Lateran

St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney - 9 November 2003

By + George Pell
ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY
9 November 2003

Constantine was the first Roman Emperor to grant religious freedom to the Christians after nearly three hundred years of intermittent persecution, and the palace on the Celian hill in Rome which had been owned by the Laterani family was part of the dowry of Constantine’s wife Fausta. It was given to the Church and was the official residence of the Pope as bishop of Rome from the fourth century until 1309 when the popes left Rome to reside at Avignon, in the south of France until 1377. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 896 and by a terrible fire in 1308, just before the Popes left.

One difficulty with the site was that it was almost impossible to defend against invading armies, whereas St. Peter’s on the Vatican hill with the ancient castle and garrison of St. Angelo on the Tiber below was a natural fortress.

St. John Lateran’s is known as “omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput” i.e. the mother and head of all the churches of the city (of Rome) and the world. It is one of the four major basilicas or churches in Rome with St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s and St. Mary Major’s.

The ancient baptistery there is the traditional site of the baptism of the Emperor Constantine, although he was only baptised on his deathbed. This was not un-common then because a number of potential pagan converts felt that they could not live up to the standards of daily living required of Christians and took the chance of waiting until their deathbed for baptism, when all their sins would be taken away and there would obviously be limited opportunities for further temptation and succumbing to temptation.

A cathedral is named after the “cathedra”, the Greek term for the teaching chair of the bishop, so that a cathedral is the church of the bishop, who is a successor of the apostles, one of the twelve chosen by Christ to lead the Christian community.

Today under the influence of progress in science and technology we look to the future and are keen to purchase the most up to date computer, or car or mechanical appliance if we can afford them. In ancient times they were more inclined to look backwards to great figures from the past, perhaps to an almost golden age, when the situation was wonderful.

So as followers of Christ, we want to know that we are receiving accurately what Christ and the first apostles taught so long ago. The local bishop, above all, in communion with the other bishops and under the leadership of the successor of St. Peter, the bishop of Rome, is the guarantor of the fidelity and accuracy of the apostolic tradition that is basically the same everywhere throughout the world and through the many hundreds of years since Christ.

As the cathedral of the Pope, St. John Lateran’s is a visible sign of this unity of life and doctrine across the ages. We should not take this unity for granted as it is a wonderful blessing and only maintained through struggle.

As Ezekiel’s Old Testament vision of the Temple demonstrates, every church should be a source of spiritual strength for the surrounding societies; like a power house sending out spiritual energy; like the beautiful imagery of the streams of living water coming out from the temple. These streams are made up of the prayers and good deeds of the parishioners, the spiritual vitality or energy which runs through all those in contact with Church members.

Here at St. Mary’s we are proud of our Church, the mother Church for all Australia. For that reason we are keen to make it as beautiful and prayerful as it possible and I thank and congratulate the Friends of St. Mary’s (here this morning) for their wonderful ongoing support. So on a wider more universal scale we love and care for the great Roman churches.

But there is no point in having a beautiful church, lovingly cared for, if we are inadequate temples of the Holy Spirit ourselves. Through baptism and grace God Himself, the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts. We personally become God’s temple, with the person and teaching of Jesus Christ as our foundation. We must not drive Jesus from our hearts by serious sin. We are God’s building, as St. Paul told us, and just as we care for our own church building so too we must keep our hearts pure and faithful, so that we are bearing spiritual fruit, in season and out of season, year in year out.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.