Liturgically, today is the feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, which takes priority over the 32nd Sunday. The Lateran basilica, dating from the early 4th century, and not St Peter's, is the official seat of the Bishop of Rome, and so is the Pope's church. And so we pray today for Pope Leo. This is also Remembrance Sunday when we commemorate those who have given their lives for our country in war. We also r member our deceased family members and friends. We thank God for their lives amongst us, and we commend them to God's compassionate love and mercy.

At first sight today's feast has to do with buildings. The people of Israel were initially nomads. For them the tent was important, a basic commodity, a survival guarantee. It signified home and family, security and belonging. The tent later came to have profound religious significance for the people too. In Exodus 25:8-9 Israel is told to make a tent or tabernacle so that God could dwell amongst his people: the tabernacle became the site of God's localised presence on earth.

Later, when Israel finally settled in Jerusalem, and life became more sedentary, the Temple which Solomon constructed took over this role and became the religious centre of Israel, the place of God's presence. And this was true also of the Second Temple, which stood proudly, richly embellished by Herod, in Jesus' day.

Though the building itself was architecturally impressive and artistically beautiful, it was God's presence which really mattered. In the first reading today the prophet Ezekiel is brought in vision to the entrance of the Jerusalem Temple; for him the increasing flow of water signals God's blessing, bestowing abundant life. In parenthesis, some scholars make a link between water from the right side of the temple, and the water issuing from the right side of Jesus after the Calvary lance-thrust.

The attitude of Jesus to the Temple was somewhat critical. Things had gone wrong. He was aware of the religious domination system centred there, the liaison with Rome, the hardship caused to the peasants, the muddled values of oppressive institutionalised religion. The Gospel story illustrates what he thought of the abuses permitted and encouraged by those with vested interests, which, as he puts it, turn his Father's house into a market place rather than a house of prayer.

But in the narrative there is an interesting shift from a temple understood by the religious leadership as a building, to a temple understood by Jesus as a person. For the new sanctuary soon to be raised would be his risen body. By the time John's Gospel came to be written, at the turn of the first century, the Jerusalem temple had been razed to the ground by the Romans in 70. The Christians held that it was replaced by the Risen Jesus; he was now the focal point of the presence of God.

Much earlier than that, however, whilst the Jerusalem temple was actually still standing and open for worship, the early Christians considered it irrelevant, superseded, for they had come to see themselves as a new, living temple through the action of God's Spirit. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, of which the 2nd reading is an extract, was written only 20 years after the death of Jesus. Already the Christian community saw itself as the Father's house, as the place where God dwelt. Whilst still using architectural language, Paul highlights the new fact that through the gift of the Spirit each of us becomes a temple, a place where God dwells. Quite remarkable, isn't it?

This idea of God's dwelling or abiding is central to the 4th evangelist's understanding of what it means to be Christian. Our identity, what makes me me, what defines my being, consists in the fact that we are people in whom God abides or dwells or makes his home. And we are people who abide now already in God, caught up in the mystery of his immense love. Our God isn't out there; he is in here, the innermost core of our being, nearer to us than we are to ourselves. It would, I feel, make such a difference to our lives if we were more aware that Jesus abides in us and we abide in him; if we allowed that truth to really soak in and permeate our lives.

And this fundamental truth of our faith makes a difference to our celebration of Remembrance Sunday. For, whilst the outer structure or building of the bodiliness of our dear ones was destroyed in death, that inner relationship which they had with the Risen Jesus, that abiding, remains. In fact it explodes into fulfilment, like a flower suddenly bursting into bloom. And because our dear departed remain alive in Jesus in what we might call the heavenly temple, and we are united with Jesus here below in the present, the limits of space and time are transcended, and we are one with them still in our deepest being. This is especially so, I believe, in the celebration of the Eucharist, when the self-giving and Risen Jesus, with whom they are united in the Father's house, encounters us in a special way. And we are caught up together in the mystery of God's love.

So let us live this day in wonder and in gratitude and in hope.

Reflection provided by Fr Michael Winstanley SDB

Photo by Nick Castelli on Unsplash