The River and the Market

Reflections on the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica: Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12; 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11,16-17; John 2:13-22

Australian author Morris West, in his 1998 novel Eminence, narrates the story of Cardinal Luca Rossini. As a young, dynamic and outspoken priest, Luca is beaten up brutally in front of his village parishioners by the military junta in 1970 and later tortured in the Argentine military prison. Extricated and exiled in the Vatican by the Pope, he carried with deep-seated memories and a profound sense of disappointment with the Church’s silence on matters of injustice. Years later, now a cardinal and confidant of Pope John Paul II in his 50s, he is confronted by a probing question from a journalist named Steffi Guillerman, “What’s wrong with the Church?”.

He replies, “The same things that have been wrong with it for two thousand years – people! Men and women and children, too, who make up the family of believers. This isn’t a community of the pure and the perfect. They’re good, bad and indifferent. They’re ambitious, greedy, fearful, lustful, a rabble of pilgrims held together by faith and hope – and the difficult experience of love.” The Church is a gathering of the good, the bad, and the indifferent. As the famous saying goes, “The church is not a hotel for saints, it is a hospital for sinners”. 

On the feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, the mother and head of all churches, the readings present us with the two faces of the Church. In the first reading, Ezekiel envisions a river flowing eastward from the temple, bringing life wherever it goes. This vivid imagery captures the Church’s divine calling: to be a source of God’s grace in the world. Like the river, the Church flows through history, a living testament to God’s enduring presence. Few institutions—be they kingdoms, ideologies, or movements—have withstood the test of time as the Church has.

As a pilgrim people, it journeys toward the eternal Kingdom of God, carrying the promise of spiritual nourishment, healing, and hope to all it touches. The gospel, however, presents a contrasting face. Jesus finds the temple transformed into a marketplace, a place where commerce overshadows worship. This scene reveals the Church’s human reality: it is not immune to corruption or distraction. The marketplace symbolises moments when the Church strays from its mission, prioritising concerns incompatible with its sacred purpose. This face of the Church requires constant conversion, repentance, and renewal to realign with God’s will.

Paul, in the second reading, bridges these two faces, reminding us that we are “God’s building,” with Jesus Christ as the foundation. No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Christ. Paul urges us to build carefully upon it, for the day will disclose the quality of each one’s work. This profound truth underlines the Church’s dual nature: it is both a divine edifice, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and a human construction, vulnerable to the frailties of its builders.

The Lateran Basilica itself embodies this duality. Dedicated in the fourth century, it has stood as a symbol of the Church’s resilience, surviving fires, earthquakes, and invasions. Yet it has also witnessed scandals, schisms, and reforms, from the Avignon Papacy to the Counter-Reformation. It is a physical reminder that the Church, like the temple in Ezekiel’s vision, is meant to channel life-giving waters, but like the temple in the gospel, it often needs cleansing.

How, then, do we reconcile these two faces? The key lies in the Gospel’s climax: when challenged by the Jews, Jesus speaks of destroying the temple and raising it in three days. He refers, of course, to His own body, crucified and resurrected. This paschal mystery is the heart of reconciliation. The Church, as the Body of Christ, participates in this death and resurrection. Its human weaknesses—our ambitions, greed, and silence on injustice—are crucified with Christ, and through His rising, the divine life surges anew.

Reconciliation is not a one-time event but an ongoing process, woven into the fabric of ecclesial life. It demands prophetic witness. Like Rossini, we carry scars from the Church’s failures, yet we are called to speak truth in love. The Holy Spirit, dwelling in us, stirs zeal like Jesus’ in the temple. Let us honour the Lateran Basilica not as a relic, but as a signpost. May we embrace the Church’s two faces with humility and hope, allowing Christ to reconcile them in us. As pilgrims, let us drink from the river of grace, repent of our marketplace distractions, and build upon the firm foundation of Jesus.