From Living and Chosen Stones

You would be forgiven for thinking that the Pope’s main church is St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. It’s certainly the largest. But no.

The Pope’s own church – his episcopal seat as Bishop of Rome – is in the church of Saint John Lateran.

Which Saint John?

Good question. Two of them, actually, for the full name of this church is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist at the Lateran.

(In the original Latin, that’s Archibasilica Sanctissimi Salvatoris et Sanctorum Iohannes Baptista et Evangelista in Laterano.)

So technically, it’s named after Christ, with a couple of Saint Johns in support. Even so, in Rome it’s generally called San Giovanni in Laterano.

We visited this church in 2005, where I took the photo above. It’s really hard to capture the scale of the place. Those are larger-than-life statues of Christ and the apostles up top. Each of the apostles is carrying symbols of their martyrdom; I think that’s Saint Simon on the far right, holding a timber saw.

Today is the anniversary of the founding of this church, and therefore a feast day in the Universal Church. It’s one of the few that trumps a normal Sunday celebration.

Why? As the Pope is to be the symbol of unity in Christ’s church on earth, so the Pope’s church is the mother church, if you will, of the Church Universal.

My fellow Christians, today is the birthday of this church, an occasion for celebration and rejoicing. We, however, ought to be the true and living temple of God. Nevertheless, Christians rightly commemorate this feast of the church, their mother, for they know that through her they were reborn in the spirit.

At our first birth, we were vessels of God’s wrath; reborn, we became vessels of his mercy. Our first birth brought death to us, but our second restored us to life.

(from today’s Office of Readings,
A sermon of Saint Caesarius of Arles)

My friend Andrew Casad brought to my attention a carving that may be found in the baptistery of this ancient church.

Inscription on the Architrave of the Lateran Basilica:

Gens sacrandapolis hic semine nascitur almo
quam fecundatis spiritus editaquis
virgineo fetu genitrix ecclesianatos
quos spirante deo concipitamne parit
coelorum regnum sperate hoc fonte renati
non recipit felix vitasemelgenitos
fons hic est vitae qui totum dilvit orbem
sumens de Christi vulnere principium
mergere peccator sacro purgante fluento
quem veterem accipiet proferet undanovum
insons esse volens isto mundare lavacro
sev patrio premeris crimine sev proprio
nullarenascentum est distantiaquos facit unum
unus fons unus spiritus unafides
nec numerus quemquam scelerum nec formasvorum
terreat hoc natus flumine sanctus erit

Englished:

Here is born in Spirit-soaked fertility
a brood destined for another City,
begotten by God’s blowing
and borne upon this torrent
by the Church their virgin mother.
Reborn in these depths they reach for
heaven’s realm,
the born-but-once unknown by felicity.
This spring is life that floods the world,
the wounds of Christ its awesome source,
Sinner sink beneath this sacred surf
that swallows age and spits out youth.
Sinner here scour away down to innocence,
for they know no enmity who are by
one font, one Spirit, one faith made one.
Sinner, shudder not at sin’s kind and number,
for those born here are holy.

So let us contemplate our divine adoption by God the Father through the Incarnation of His Son our Lord Jesus Christ, who became our brother in the flesh. We are now all sons and daughters of God in Christ, and children also of the Church His bride.

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, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

(today’s collect)