+WORSHIPING IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH Church Dedication, 15 Nov.’23
Jesus tells us in our gospel that true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth! It does not matter where we are or what we are doing, we are given the opportunity to worship our Lord in Spirit and truth. We worship God as often as we open to the presence of the Holy Spirit, allowing our lives to carry out the will of God, however this may become manifest from day to day.
Jesus telling the Samaritan woman that the time for true worshipers “now is,” revealed to her that something entirely new was happening in and through his presence. Authentic worship takes place as the result of God’s eternal Word taking on our human condition. Our human nature being united with God’s allows us to be true worshipers of God. Through this union of natures in Christ, St Paul tells us, we “are no longer strangers and sojouners, but.. fellow citizens with the holy ones and member of the household of God… Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord.”
This Church of Gethsemani was first dedicated back in 1866 after the hard work of many monks and hired laborers, some of whom were black slaves though Gethsemani never own slaves of its own. The first abbot of Gethsemani, Dom Eutropius had hired back in 1852 the architect William Keely, to design a three storied monastery and the church modeled on that of our motherhouse of Melleray in France. Under Dom Benedict Berger, Eutropius having resigned, was the abbatial church finally finished and consecrated. Later on, in 1949, it was blessed as a minor Basilica.
The Divine Office and the Eucharist have been daily prayed and sung in this place ever since, except when it was being renovated in the late 1960’s. Consecrated indeed as these walls are, what makes them holy, truly dedicated, are the living members of this community as the lighted candles along the walls would remind us. Gathering here day after day, we open ourselves to the transforming grace of the Work of God and the Eucharist. In a profound way this Solemnity celebrates our life together. In this place, we share in Christ’s very own prayer for the whole of humanity. As we allow it to rise up from the depth of our hearts and minds, these walls are made sacred and give glory to God.
What we are about to do at this altar takes place every moment of our monastic lives and of those who come here to share our prayer, as we freely and joyfully embrace the divine will of God as Jesus did throughout his life and especially in the garden of Gethsemani. Every morning bread and wine are brought to this altar and become his very Body and Blood.. What takes place at this table is to take place all day long, as often as we allow the Holy Spirit to be present in all that we think, do or say. The mortar that holds together the bricks of these walls is above all the love we have for God and one another, amid all our flaws and human weakness. In us, in the heart of every Christian true to the faith, God’s own beloved Son takes flesh for the transformation of our world today.
As we just heard in the first reading, Solomon’s temple was filled with a cloud, so much so that the priests could no longer minister because the glory of the Lord “filled the house of God.” It is this glory that seeks to fill each and all of our hearts so that God may be worshiped in Spirit and truth. It is thus that God fills this church, making of it a living temple of praise and thanksgiving.
(2 Chron 5:6-10, 13-6:2; Eph 2:19-22; John 4:19-22)