On this feast that celebrates the “Mother Church of Rome” – St. John Lateran, - the home parish of the Holy Father, I found myself asking: What does my favorite church look like?  There are some whom would argue for the New Cathedral’s combination of Byzantine and Romanesque architecture filled with those wonderful mosaics as their favorite.  Others are drawn to the gothic style of a St. Peter and Paul or St. Francis De Sales.  Others enjoy the clean lines and focus on community that some of the more modern churches enjoy.  What does your favorite church look like? 

I’ll show you what mine looks like.  And I have a little audio-visual to demonstrate.  Here is what my favorite church looks like.  (unveil mirror – let people see themselves in it…)   I told you it was a trick question.  Or maybe not!  We are so accustomed to thinking about ‘church’ as buildings, as the physical structures that we inhabit.  But in so doing, we miss the key component of church.  Church is less about the place and more about the people and the quality of relationships we are a part of.  If there is a gift that this current generation of upcoming Catholic Christians brings to the church – it is that they are not enamored of the church’s institutions and buildings.  What is key is the shared life and love that they experience – (or don’t) as they experience the relationships we call church.  Church is about shared life and love.

  The scriptural image of the river that flows from the temple bringing life to all that touches it, is a profound invitation for what we, the church are called to be.  “Wherever the river flows, every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live…”  Just as the river brings life in a desert world, so the church brings life to all who thirst for love.  St. Paul tells us: “You are the temple of God and the Spirit dwells within you.”  And in today’s preface, we hear: “You give us grace upon grace, calling us to create the beauty of the temple by the holiness of our lives.”  If you hear nothing else this Sunday, hear this message.  You and I create the beauty of the temple by the holiness of our lives.  This church is a beautiful structure, but it is you and I that are the living stones, the cornerstones of this structure.   

  However, the other side of the coin of today’s feast is our connection to the concrete, historical church – symbolized by the church erected on the Lateran Hill in Rome.   For as important as the spiritual connection to one another that creates the church, that is only half the story.  Today’s feast reminds us there is no such thing as GENERIC HOLINESS.  That doesn’t exist.  We are holy in this time and this space and this cultural situation.  For those on the Awakening retreat reunion today, hopefully you are discovering ever more deeply, that the blessings of the retreat without grounding in a community to hold you accountable will not be sustained.  Either we belong to the church that Jesus intended to found, and find our holiness there, or we have missed the boat.  That is the other side of the story.

    In an era that has seen so much scandal in the church, that is a hard message to preach and a hard message to hear.  We cannot do generic church/spirituality.  The temple which Jesus cleansed was a very concrete, historic place with its traditions and roots and history.  The temple of Jesus’ body that we hear about in John’s gospel is the church that you are I are the continuation of.  Right here, right now, in this place called Normandy, Missouri, in the year 2008.   We belong to the Catholic Church – the one Jesus founded.  And it is THROUGH the church, not despite it, that we are faithful to the message and witness of Jesus. 

   Hold mirror back up.  It is the most beautiful church I have seen, built into a temple by the holiness of our lives.  What you see reflected here – is each other and the physical building which symbolizes the Catholic church founded by Jesus.  Together we are the church of Jesus.  Not generic holiness – but the living, breathing, struggling, sinning church – on our pilgrim way home to the Father.  Will you create the beauty of the temple by the holiness of our lives?  Will you be fertile water to all who need grace this week?  And will you renew your commitment to this church – both saint and sinner – by the choice to love all whom you see in this mirror –all who are the Body of Christ in this concrete time and space and place of history?