DID YOU KNOW THAT St. Peter’s Basilica is not the cathedral of Rome? You’d think it was, based on its size and prominence, but in fact, the seat of the diocese of Rome is actually three miles away in St. John Lateran, and has been since 324, when Emperor Constantine gave Pope Sylvester I some land that had previously been owned by the Lateran family. Hence the name. (It was simply called ‘The Lateran Basilica’ until it later picked up the patronages of Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist.)
The day your parish was dedicated is a local solemnity — my parish recently celebrated ours —and the day your local cathedral was dedicated is also a solemnity throughout the diocese. Since the bishop of Rome is also the bishop of the universal Church, St. John Lateran is, in a sense, the cathedral of the universal Church. Therefore, the feast of the dedication of St. John Lateran is a solemnity worldwide, which is why it supersedes the thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time on Nov. 9.
Before Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire, Mass had to be celebrated in secret for fear of persecution and martyrdom. The New Testament recounts Masses celebrated in private homes, and later, in Rome, the faithful fled (literally) underground to worship among the relics of the martyrs in catacombs.
In a new era under Constantine, the dedication of the Lateran Basilica represented a new era of freedom to worship in the open. This is the same freedom of religion that we still enjoy today and often take for granted. We also celebrate our freedom this week as we observe Veterans Day, grateful for the servicemen who work to keep our freedom of religion secure.
Freedom is a great gift from God, though often a misunderstood one. We often think of freedom as the ability to do whatever we want, whenever we want. But Jesus offers us a truer form of freedom.
“Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
We’ve all felt the oppression of a particularly pernicious temptation. It’s hard to resist a habitual sin because we’ve been enslaved by the world, the flesh or the devil. We can’t choose the right thing, even when we want to.
“Freedom is doing what is morally right.”
I finally understood what that meant when I heard it explained this way: Do you want to kill your wife? No, of course not! Therefore, you’re free from the law against killing your wife. You simply never have to worry about it. That freedom does not mean that you’re allowed to kill her if you change your mind! Rather, your freedom is the ability to freely choose what is morally right, unburdened by sin or temptation.
How wonderful it is when you pray your examination of conscience and realize that the sin you’ve been struggling with and bringing to confession over and over again for years has been lifted, and you no longer feel even the temptation to fall into that sin again. Praise God for that freedom! Someday, when we’ve been purified in purgatory of all our attachments to sin, we will be truly free from every temptation and be able to spend eternity in pure freedom, doing nothing but the will of God forever.
In the meantime, as we celebrate the Church’s ‘Independence Day’ today, ask God to free you from your slavery to habitual sin. Thank Him for the freedom to worship Him without oppression and pray for our brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world who are still suffering persecution and living their faith in secret.