The rites observed by the Roman Church in consecrating churches and altars were instituted by Pope Sylvester. For although from apostolic times churches were dedicated to God and called by some oratories, by others churches, and in them the Christian people assembled on the first day of the week and were wont there to pray, to hear the word of God and to receive the Holy Eucharist, yet until then they were never so solemnly consecrated, nor was an altar erected in them, anointed with chrism, to represent and signify our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our altar, victim and priest.
When the emperor Constantine had received health of body and soul by the Sacrament of Baptism, he promulgated a law to the whole world allowing the Christians to build churches. And he encouraged them in this work by his own example as well as by this edict. Thus, in his Lateran palace he dedicated a church to our Saviour, and founded the adjoining baptistery in honour of Saint John the Baptist on the very spot where he himself had been baptised by Saint Sylvester and cleansed from his leprosy. The Pontiff consecrated it on the fifth of the Ides of November, and we celebrate the memory of it on this same day on which for the first time a church was publicly dedicated in Rome, and there appeared before the eyes of the Roman people an image of our Saviour depicted on the wall.
Although later on, when consecrating the altar of the Prince of the Apostles, blessed Sylvester decreed that from then on all altars should be built of stone, the altar of the Lateran Basilica was of wood. This however is not surprising. For, from the time of Saint Peter down to Sylvester, persecution prevented the Pontiffs from having any fixed abode, so that they offered the holy Sacrifice either in crypts or cemeteries, or in the houses of the faithful, as necessity compelled them, on the said wooden altar which was hollow like a chest.
When peace was granted to the Church, Sylvester placed this altar in the first church, the Lateran. And in honour of the Prince of the Apostles, who is said to have offered the holy Sacrifice upon it, and of the other Pontiffs who had used it up to that time, he decreed that no one should celebrate Mass on it except the Roman Pontiff. The church having been injured and half ruined in consequence of fires, hostile invasions and earthquakes, was several times repaired by the care of the Popes.
After a new restoration Pope Benedict XIII solemnly consecrated it on the 28th of April 1726, and ordered the commemoration of it to be celebrated on this present day. The great works undertaken by Blessed Pius IX, were completed by Pope Leo XIII: the principal apse, which was threatening to fall through age, was very much enlarged. The ancient mosaic, already partially restored at different times, was reconstructed on the old model and transferred to the new apse, which is handsomely and richly decorated. The roof and woodwork of the transepts were renewed and ornamented. Also, a sacristy and house for the Canons were added, and a portico connecting these building with Constantine’s baptistery. The works were completed in 1884.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
At Amasea, in Pontus, the birthday of St. Theodore, a soldier, in the time of the emperor Maximian. For the confession of Christ, he was severely scourged and sent to prison, where he was comforted by an apparition of our Lord, who exhorted him to act with courage and constancy. He was finally stretched on the rack, lacerated with iron hooks till his intestines were laid bare, and then cast into the flames to be burned alive. His glorious deeds have been celebrated in a magnificent oration by St. Gregory of Nyssa.
At Tyana in Cappadocia, the martyrdom of St. Orestes, under the emperor Diocletian.
At Thessalonica, St. Alexander, martyr, during the reign of Maximian.
At Bourges, St. Ursinus, confessor, who was ordained at Rome by the successors of the apostles and appointed first bishop of that city.
At Naples in Campania, St. Agrippinus, a bishop renowned for miracles.
At Constantinople, the holy virgins Eustolia, a native of Rome, and Sopatra, daughter of the emperor Maurice.
At Berytus in Syria, the Commemoration of the Image of our Saviour, which being fastened to a cross by the Jews, poured out blood so copiously that the Eastern and Western Churches received abundantly of it.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors, and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
When the emperor Constantine had received health of body and soul by the Sacrament of Baptism, he promulgated a law to the whole world allowing the Christians to build churches. And he encouraged them in this work by his own example as well as by this edict. Thus, in his Lateran palace he dedicated a church to our Saviour, and founded the adjoining baptistery in honour of Saint John the Baptist on the very spot where he himself had been baptised by Saint Sylvester and cleansed from his leprosy. The Pontiff consecrated it on the fifth of the Ides of November, and we celebrate the memory of it on this same day on which for the first time a church was publicly dedicated in Rome, and there appeared before the eyes of the Roman people an image of our Saviour depicted on the wall.
Although later on, when consecrating the altar of the Prince of the Apostles, blessed Sylvester decreed that from then on all altars should be built of stone, the altar of the Lateran Basilica was of wood. This however is not surprising. For, from the time of Saint Peter down to Sylvester, persecution prevented the Pontiffs from having any fixed abode, so that they offered the holy Sacrifice either in crypts or cemeteries, or in the houses of the faithful, as necessity compelled them, on the said wooden altar which was hollow like a chest.
When peace was granted to the Church, Sylvester placed this altar in the first church, the Lateran. And in honour of the Prince of the Apostles, who is said to have offered the holy Sacrifice upon it, and of the other Pontiffs who had used it up to that time, he decreed that no one should celebrate Mass on it except the Roman Pontiff. The church having been injured and half ruined in consequence of fires, hostile invasions and earthquakes, was several times repaired by the care of the Popes.
After a new restoration Pope Benedict XIII solemnly consecrated it on the 28th of April 1726, and ordered the commemoration of it to be celebrated on this present day. The great works undertaken by Blessed Pius IX, were completed by Pope Leo XIII: the principal apse, which was threatening to fall through age, was very much enlarged. The ancient mosaic, already partially restored at different times, was reconstructed on the old model and transferred to the new apse, which is handsomely and richly decorated. The roof and woodwork of the transepts were renewed and ornamented. Also, a sacristy and house for the Canons were added, and a portico connecting these building with Constantine’s baptistery. The works were completed in 1884.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The consecration of churches:
“Domum Dei decet sanctitudo: Sponsum ejus Christum adoremus in ea.” Such is the lnvitatory Antiphon which sums up the liturgical thought of the day: “Holiness becomes the House of God: let us adore therein Christ her Spouse.” What is this mystery of a house that is at the same time a bride? Our churches are holy because they belong to God, and on account of the celebration of the holy Sacrifice in them, and the prayer and praise offered to the divine Guest who dwells there. More truly than the figurative tabernacle or the ancient temple, they are separated, solemnly and forever by their dedication, from all the dwellings of men, and exalted far above all earthly palaces. Still, notwithstanding the magnificent rites performed within them on the day they were consecrated to God, notwithstanding the holy oil with which their walls remain for ever impregnated, they themselves are devoid of feeling and life.
What else, then, can be meant, but that the solemn function of the dedication, and the annual Feast that commemorates it, do not point merely to the material building, but rise to living and more sublime realities? The principal glory of the noble edifice will be to symbolise those great realities. Under the shelter of its roof, the human race will be initiated into ineffable secrets, the mystery of which will be consummated in another world, in the noonday light of Heaven. Let us listen to some doctrine on this subject. God has but one sanctuary truly worthy of Him, viz: his own divine life; the tabernacle, with which He is said to surround Himself when he bends the heavens. Though impenetrable darkness to the eyes of mortals, it is the inaccessible light in which dwells in glory the ever-tranquil Trinity (Psalm xvii.) And yet, O God most high, this same divine life, which cannot be contained by the heavens, much less by the earth, you deign to communicate to our souls and thereby to make man a partaker in the divine nature. Henceforth there is no reason why the Holy Trinity should not reside in him, just as in the highest heavens. Thus, from the beginning, you could lay it down as the law of the newly-created world, and could declare to the abyss, to the earth, to the heavens, that it would be your delight to dwell with the children of men.
When, therefore, the “fullness of time came, God sent his Son, making him the son of Adam, in order that in man might dwell all the fullness of the Godhead corporally” (Colossians ii. 9). From that day forward Earth has had the advantage over Heaven. Every Christian has participation in Christ, and having become the temple of the Holy Ghost, bears God in his body (1 Corinthians vi. 20). This temple of God, says the Apostle, is holy, which you are (1 Corinthians iii. 17): the temple is the individual Christian. It is also the Christian assembly.
Whereas Christ calls the whole human race to participate in His own fullness, the human race in its turn completes Christ. It is bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, one body with Him, and, together with Him, the one victim which is to burn eternally with the fire of love upon the Altar of Heaven. At the same time, Christ is the corner-stone on which other living stones, all the predestined, are built up by the apostolic architects into the holy temple of the Lord. Thus the Church is the Bride, and by and with Christ she is the House of God. She is such already in this world, where in labour and suffering the elect ones are chiselled, and are laid successively in the places assigned them by the divine plan. She is such in the happiness of Heaven, where the eternal temple is being constructed of every soul that ascends from Earth until, when completed by the acquisition of our immortal bodies, it will be consecrated by the great High-Priest on the day of the incomparable dedication, the close of time. Then will the world, redeemed and sanctified, be solemnly restored to the Father who gave it His only-begotten Son, and God will be all in all. Then it will appear that the Church was truly the archetype shown beforehand on the Mount (Exodus xxvi. 30) of which every other sanctuary, built by the hands of men, could be but the figure and the shadow. Then will be realised the vision of Saint John: “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God” (Apocalypse xxi. 2, 3).
The name of Church given to the Christian temple signifies the assembly of the baptised. The sanctification of the elect in its successive phases, is the soul and inspiration of that most solemn of liturgical functions, the dedication of a church. First of all, the temple with its bare walls and closed doors represents the human race created by God, and yet robbed of His presence ever since the original sin. But the heirs of the promise have not yielded to despair: they have fasted, they have prayed through the night. Morning finds them sending up to God the supplication of the penitential Psalms, the inspired expression of David’s chastisement and repentance. At early dawn there appears under the tent, where the exiles are praying, the Word our Saviour. He is represented by the Pontiff vesting in the sacred robes, as he clothed himself with our flesh. The God-Man joins His brethren in their prayer. Then, leading them to the still closed temple, He there prostrates with them and redoubles His supplications. Then around the noble edifice, unconscious of its destinies, begins the patient strategy with which the grace of God and the ministers of that grace undertake the siege of abandoned souls. Thrice the Pontiff goes around the whole building, and thrice he attempts to force open those obstinately closed doors. But his storming consists of prayers to Heaven, his force is but the merciful and respectful persuasion of human liberty. “Open, O ye gates, and the King of glory shall enter in.” At length the unbeliever yields. An entrance is gained into the temple: “Peace eternal to this house, in the name of the Eternal!” All is not yet finished however, far from it. This is but the commencement. The still profane edifice must be made into a dwelling worthy of God. The Pontiff, now within, continues to pray. His thoughts are intent upon the human race, symbolised by this future church. He knows that in its fallen state ignorance is its first evil. Accordingly he rises and, on two lines of ashes running transversely from end to end of the temple and crossing in the centre of the nave, he traces with his episcopal crozier the Greek and Latin alphabets, the elements of the two principal languages in which Scripture and Tradition are preserved. They are traced with the pastoral staff, on ashes, and on the cross, because sacred science comes to us from doctrinal authority, because it is understood only by the humble, and because it is all summed up in Jesus crucified.
Like the catechumen, the human race now enlightened requires, together with the temple, to be purified. The Pontiff makes use of the loftiest Christian symbolism in order to perfect the element of this purification which he has so much at heart: he mingles water and wine, ashes and salt, figures of the humanity and the divinity, of the death and the resurrection of our Saviour. As Christ preceded us in the waters of Baptism at the Jordan, the aspersions are begun at the Altar and continued through the whole building. Originally, at this point in the function, not only the interior and the pavement of the temple, but also the exterior of the walls, and in some places even the roof, were inundated with the sanctifying shower which drives away demons, gives this dwelling to God, and prepares it for the reception of fresh favours. In the order of the work of salvation, water is followed by oil, which confers on the Christian, in the second Sacrament, the perfection of his supernatural being, and which also makes kings, priests and pontiffs. For all these reasons, the holy oil now flows copiously over the Altar, which represents Christ our Head, Pontiff and King, that it may afterwards, like the water, find its way to the walls of the entire church. Truly is this temple henceforth worthy of the name of church: for thus baptised and consecrated with the God-Man, by water and the Holy Ghost, the stones of which it is built represent perfectly the faithful who are bound together and to the divine Corner-Stone by the imperishable cement of love.
“Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem, praise your God, O Sion!” The sacred chants which, since the beginning of the solemn function, have not ceased to enhance its sublime developments, now redouble in enthusiasm. And rising to the full height of the mystery, they hail the church, now so intimately associated to the Altar, as the Bride of the Lamb. From this Altar ascend clouds of incense which, mounting to the roof and stealing down the nave, impregnate the whole temple with the perfumes of the Spouse. And now the Subdeacons come forward, presenting for the Pontiff’s blessing the gifts made to the Bride on this great day, and the vesture she has prepared for herself and for the Lord.
In the early Middle Ages, it was only at this point that took place the triumphant translation of the relics destined to be placed in the Altar, after having remained all this time in the tent outside, as it were in exile. This ceremony is still, in the East, the conclusion of the Dedication rites. “I go to prepare a place for you,” said our Lord, “and when I have prepared it, I will come again, and will take you to myself, that where I am you also may be.” In the Greek church, the Pontiff lays the holy relics on the sacred disc (corresponding to our paten), and carries them raised above his head, honouring equally with the venerable mysteries these precious remains, because the Apostle said of the faithful: “You are the body of Christ and His members.” In the West, up to the thirteenth century and even later, the sacred Body of our Lord Himself in the holy Eucharist was sealed up in the Altar with the relics of the Saints. It was the “Church united to the Redeemer, the Bride to the Bridegroom,” says Saint Peter Damian. It was the final consummation, the passage from time to eternity.
The consecration of the Lateran Basilica:
In the fourth century of our era, the cessation of persecution seemed to give the world a foretaste of its future entrance into eternal peace. “Glory to the Almighty! Glory to the Redeemer of our souls!” wrote Eusebius at the opening of the tenth and last book of his History. Himself a witness of the triumph, he describes the admirable spectacle everywhere displayed by the dedication of the new sanctuaries. In city after city the Bishops assembled and crowds flocked together. From nation to nation, the good-will of mutual charity, of common faith, and of recollected joy, so harmonised all hearts that the unity of Christ’s body was clearly manifested in these multitudes animated by the same inspiration of the Holy Ghost. It was the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies: the living city of the living God, where all, whatever their age or sex, praise together the Author of all good things. How solemn were then the rites of the Church! The complete perfection therein displayed by the Pontiffs, the enthusiasm of the psalmody, the inspired readings, the celebration of the ineffable Mysteries, formed a divine pageantry.
Constantine had placed the imperial treasure at the disposal of the Bishops, and he himself stimulated their zeal for what he called in his edicts the work of the churches. Rome, the place of his victory by the Cross, the capital of the now Christian world, was the first to benefit by the prince’s munificence. In a series of dedications to the glory of the holy Apostles and Martyrs, Sylvester, the Pontiff of peace, took possession of the Eternal City in the name of the true God. Today is the birthday of the mother and mistress of churches, called “of our Saviour, Aula Dei (God’s palace), the golden Basilica.” It is a new Sinai where the apostolic oracles and so many Councils have made known to the world the law of salvation. No wonder this feast is celebrated by the whole world.
Although the Popes for centuries have ceased to dwell in the Lateran palace, the Basilica still holds the first rank. It is as true now, as it was in the time of Saint Peter Damian, to say that “as our Saviour is the Head of the elect, so the church which bears His name is the head of all churches. Those of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, on its right and left, are the two arms with which this sovereign and universal church embraces the whole earth, saving all those who desire salvation, cherishing and protecting them in its maternal bosom.” And Saint Peter Damian applied conjointly to our Saviour and His Basilica the words of the prophet Zacharias: “Behold a Man, the Orient is his name: and under him will he spring up, and will build a temple to the Lord. Yea, he will build a temple to the Lord: and he will bear the glory, and will sit, and rule upon his throne: and he will be a priest upon his throne” (Zacharias vi. 12, 13).
It is still at the Lateran Basilica that the Roman Pontiffs take official possession of their See. There each year, in the name of the Pope as Bishop of Rome, the episcopal functions are performed, viz: the blessing of the Holy Oils on Maundy Thursday, and on Holy Saturday the blessing of the Font, solemn Baptism and Confirmation, and the general Ordination. Could the great poet of the age of triumph, Prudentius, return to life in these our days, he might still say: “The Roman people hasten in eager crowds to the Lateran, from which they return marked with the sacred sign, with the royal chrism. And are we yet to doubt that Rome is consecrated to you, O Christ!”Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Amasea, in Pontus, the birthday of St. Theodore, a soldier, in the time of the emperor Maximian. For the confession of Christ, he was severely scourged and sent to prison, where he was comforted by an apparition of our Lord, who exhorted him to act with courage and constancy. He was finally stretched on the rack, lacerated with iron hooks till his intestines were laid bare, and then cast into the flames to be burned alive. His glorious deeds have been celebrated in a magnificent oration by St. Gregory of Nyssa.
At Tyana in Cappadocia, the martyrdom of St. Orestes, under the emperor Diocletian.
At Thessalonica, St. Alexander, martyr, during the reign of Maximian.
At Bourges, St. Ursinus, confessor, who was ordained at Rome by the successors of the apostles and appointed first bishop of that city.
At Naples in Campania, St. Agrippinus, a bishop renowned for miracles.
At Constantinople, the holy virgins Eustolia, a native of Rome, and Sopatra, daughter of the emperor Maurice.
At Berytus in Syria, the Commemoration of the Image of our Saviour, which being fastened to a cross by the Jews, poured out blood so copiously that the Eastern and Western Churches received abundantly of it.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors, and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
