+WORSHIPING GOD IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH 15th Nov. 2025
Dear Brothers and Sister, today we remember the Dedication of this Church, the edifice that surrounds and protects us as we gather here. As many of us heard at Vigils this morning from St Bernard, this feast:
“is so proper to ourselves that if we do not keep it, it will not be kept at all. It is our own feast, because it is the feast of the dedication of our own church. It is still more our own because it is the feast of our own selves. For what kind of sanctity can belong to these dead walls which cause them to be honored with a religious solemnity? They are undoubtedly holy, but it is because of your bodies. Will anyone question that your bodies are holy, since they are ‘the temples of the Holy Spirit’?”
What is it then that makes this church holy? What makes our bodies holy? Our readings this morning give us some very good clues. As we heard from the 2nd Book of Chronicles that “the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place beneath the wings of the cherubim in the sanctuary, the holy of holies of the temple.” In our sanctuary we have the very the ark of the new covenant, the very tabernacle holding the risen Christ’s presence. There is right here within these walls, the very One through whom all of creation came into being. Under this roof, there is preserved within the tabernacle the very Son of God who lovingly gave up his life to save us.
As we also just heard from Chronicles, the building of Solomon’s temple was filled with a cloud. The priests could not continue to minister because of the cloud, since the Lord’s glory filled the house of God. At every Eucharistic celebration in this place, the Holy Spirit is called down on our gifts of bread and wine so that they become the very Body and Blood of Christ risen in glory. We in turn, as we partake of His Body and Blood are being filled with the Holy Spirit so as to carry on his redeeming work in our world of today.
This is brought home to us even further as we just heard from St Paul:
“You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, ‘build upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone… a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
It is for us to own the holiness with which we have been endowed, a holiness that gives these sacred walls their real meaning.
In words that follow right after the gospel we just heard, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman of how:
“The hour is coming and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed, the Father seeks such people to worship him.”
As we worship here in Spirit and truth, this Basilica is truly holy, is transformed into the very house of God. The walls of this Basilica are holy as St Bernard told us, because our bodies have become holy to the Lord, because the Holy Spirit overshadows us in this place.
This celebration is something that is to take place all day long, as often as we worship God in Spirit and truth wherever we may be. This takes place all throughout our day in this monastery as often as we and those worshipping with us are vehicles of Christ’s presence for one another. And I am grateful on this day which is the anniversary of our Brothers Luke and John’s solemn vows for being all these years vehicles of Christ’s presence in this community. It takes place as often as our lives show the “fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Each of us is to become like the lighted candles lighting up this place, marking this anniversary. And I suspect that as we allow these walls to be filled with these fruits of the Spirit of love, there is no telling of how many people, young and old, will seek to fill this temple, this Basilica of Gethsemani.
2 Chron 5:6-10; Eph 2:19-22; John4:19-24