Dedication of the Church 2023
From the beginning, God has prepared for us and for Himself a city. God has for ever dreamt of this city. He has seen it in His wisdom. He has loved it in His Heart. He put us first in a garden but only to lead us, gently, graciously, towards this city of His Heart. The Bible is the journey from the garden of Eden to the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem. This journey is ours. It is the journey of the world as a whole. It is the journey of each of us, of each of lives, both individual and community.
Because men were born for this city, they first tried to build it by themselves. They built for themselves a city and a tower, but God soon stopped their endeavours by confusing their language (Gn 11). We should remember, though, that this city of Babel is built by us each time we want to reach heaven and be the authors of our blessedness by ourselves. We have always to learn again that the City of God must be received. It is not some perfect kingdom of the earth, not even the dream of a pure Church, but something very different and indeed much better than all we can imagine.
The first draft of the city of God was given to the Hebrews at the time of King David. Among all the towns of the Land of Promise, God chose Jerusalem to make of it His dwelling-place. There was to be the temple, with the ark of the covenant. There only was the People of the covenant to worship. There God had decided to make His Name dwell.
The Psalms sing the beauty and the glory of this city:
Ps 46: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved”.
Ps 87: “On the holy mountains stands the city He founded; the Lord loves the gates of Sion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.”
Ps 122: “Jerusalem built as a city which is bound firmly together, to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, to give thanks to the name of the Lord”.
Despite all these joyful praises, the city was besieged, taken, and destroyed a first time in the sixth Century BC. It was rebuilt, but only to be ruined again in 70 CE by the Romans. Had God changed His mind? No, but He had prepared for those who believe in Him another city which Jerusalem only foreshadowed (cf. He 11:16). The true sons of Abraham walked towards it. “They died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” (He 11:13) They longed for their true homeland: “Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem”, filled with “innumerable angels in festal gathering”. In it live “the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven”, “the spirits of the just men made perfect”, and “Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant” (cf. He 12:22-24).
The last chapters of St John’s Apocalypse describe “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (21:2). This city does not grow out of human efforts, but graciously comes down from God Himself as a gift of love. This is the place where “He will dwell with men and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be with them”. (21:3) It has “the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal”. In this city of light, darkness is definitively overcome. There is no temple in it “for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb”. The city “has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (21:22-25).
Today’s liturgy invites us to look at our abbey church, consecrated on this day one hundred and eleven years ago, in the light which radiates from the city of God. In our local Jerusalem, God dwells among us in the Blessed Sacrament, reserved above the altar. He is present in the hearts of the community of believers who gather in this church seven times a day to listen to His word, sing His praises, and offer the sacrifice of our redemption. The light in our church comes from the Lamb. He is the Word of Light who created the world. He is light for our eyes through the windows and the candles. He is light for our hearts in His word, His chants, and His Bread of Life. For this building, by its architecture and indeed its beauty, does not speak only of us and our religious needs. It proclaims God’s glory from which true beauty comes and to which it points. More especially, it speaks of the glory of Christ, the Innocent Lamb who was offered up for our salvation.
This is the City of Christ, the Holy Church, in which we receive the light of God: the revelation of the Father’s mercy and the gift of the Holy Spirit of love. For the Spirit is “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city” (22:1-2). Come, ye faithful, and “Let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price” (22:17).