November 9, 2026
Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
Gospel: Jn 2:13–22

Today is Monday of the Thirty-Second Week in Ordinary Time. Today the Church celebrates the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. As we read in the recently published Roman Missal: The Basilica of St John Lateran is the Cathedral of Rome, built under Constantine and consecrated by Pope Sylvester in 324. The Feast of its dedication rightly honors “the mother and mistress of all churches of Rome and the world” and renews our union with and love for the See of Peter.

Today, the passage from the Gospel of Saint John presents to us the scene of Jesus cleansing the Jerusalem Temple. Let’s try to understand.

We often see many secularizing elements within churches dedicated to the worship of God. For example: some people use the church as a social venue for making friends; others, brothers and sisters who peddle low-cost goods within the church for profit; and yet others who seek positions of responsibility in the Church to satisfy their own vanity. All these secularizing elements are no different from those people in Jesus’ time who were buying and selling in the house of God (cf. Jn 2:14–16). Because we are always thinking about what we can get from this world and forget what is most essential: what God has laid up for us in heaven, the Kingdom of Heaven which must be taken by force.

Whenever we participate in the Eucharist, which is celebrated as a perpetual memorial of Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection, we often look upon the priest who proclaims the Gospel of the Kingdom to us in the Liturgy of the Word with the eyes of “children of this world.” In our eyes, those sacred ministers who celebrate the sacraments for us appear, in their outward form, no different from us; they speak to us of the Kingdom of God in a language we can understand. When we participate in the heavenly Banquet, we often act like the Jews (cf. Jn 2:18), reasoning with carnal mindsets about the teachings we hear in the Church, yet unwilling to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. After receiving the blessed cup of blessing and the bread that is broken (cf. 1 Cor 10:16–18), we fail to listen to the voice of Jesus, who humbled Himself to come into our hearts and speaks intimately with our souls. Consequently, on the surface, we appear no different from those who, like us, have been baptized into Christ, united with Him, crucified the old self subject to death with Christ on the Cross, so that the sinful self is done away with and we are no longer slaves to sin (cf. Rom 6:6–7), receiving the one Spirit and becoming children of God. Yet our hearts remain filled with evil and unseemly thoughts, standing in enmity with God, disobedient to His law, refusing to live each day of this life according to His holy will, and failing to make ourselves temples of the Holy Spirit. Like the Temple itself, we fail to welcome more “sons of disobedience,” offering prayers for their rebellion through rigorous penance and blessing, so that they may be freed from the bonds of sin and attain true freedom.

O God, who from living and chosen stones prepare an eternal dwelling for your majesty, increase in your Church the spirit of grace you have bestowed, so that by new growth your faithful people may build up the heavenly Jerusalem. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

©Totus Tuus 2026
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica