Don Bosco Philippines South Province

Homily on the Solemnity of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica; 9 Nov 2025, SLS-DB Chapel, Dumaguete

I am happy to be here. I am actually from Cebu. I have come to visit our Salesian community here in St. Louie School of Don Bosco Dumaguete. I drove all the way from Talamban, Cebu City up to the port of Liloan, Santander before crossing to Sibulan. The roads along the way are already clear from the mud and debris left by typhoon Tino. But our hearts are still bleeding for those who have lost their lives, their loved ones, their homes, vehicles and livelihood. The death toll has risen to more than a hundred, and several persons are still missing days after flash floods rapidly ravaged through entire villages along the waterways.

You yourselves must have seen the photos and footages uploaded in social media – many parts of Cebu have become like a killing field after a devastating war. What pains me the most is that many of those who perished were residents of Cotcot, Liloan. They are our very own parishioners in St John Bosco Parish, where I regularly celebrate Sunday Mass. Today I do not know where the community will gather for the Eucharist. Their parish church was not spared by the sudden rush and rise of the flash floods of Nov 3. Last Thursday when I came to visit them many evacuees were still being accommodated inside the church surrounded by a thick layer of mud and dirt plus dozens of cars that have been swept away. Thanks to Fr Dong, their parish priest, who quickly opened the doors for evacuees to take shelter and secure their lives and their loved ones.

A few blocks away from the parish church stands Don Bosco Boys Home which suffered the same fate. After its perimeter wall was thrown down by the rising flood in the adjacent property, a big volume of muddy water came rushing in causing heavy flooding all around up to knee deep inside the ground floor of the main building. Just last night, after five days of cleaning up, Fr Orly, the Rector, had its gates open for evacuating neighbors who feared a repeat tragedy of typhoon Tino, this time by super typhoon Uwan.

As we gather for this Holy Mass, let us pray fervently to God for all the victims of the natural calamities and man-made disasters that have been afflicting our people. And we include those who are under the direct path of super typhoon Uwan since last night. Let us earnestly beg the Lord to intervene immediately and save his people from further devastation.

Today we gather to celebrate a special feast, the dedication of the most significant basilica in the entire Catholic Church. It is the Basilica of the Most Holy Savior located in Rome, more popularly known as the St John Lateran Basilica.

What makes this basilica so special and so significant that even we who live so far away from Rome should celebrate this feast every year even on a Sunday?

Allow me to give you just one of the many reasons. St. John Lateran Basilica is the very first basilica ever dedicated to Christ in the whole history of the Church. It is important for you to know that right from the very beginning, we Christians were a persecuted Church. As the Apostles and their successors zealously proclaimed the Good News of Christ they also struggled for survival.

The good news is that despite all those difficult trials of persecution and martyrdom, the apostles persevered in their preaching and managed to gain a multitude of followers who accepted their message and believed Christ as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. St Peter and St Paul reached as far as Rome, the capital city of the Roman Empire.

In Rome the persecution against Christians became more intense. This lasted throughout a period of about three hundred years. Miraculously despite all these persecutions conducted by the Roman Emperors one after another, the Christians continued to flourish and they increased amazingly in great numbers by the power of the Holy Spirit.

You might ask where they were gathering for their Sunday liturgies. Since they did not have temples or churches yet in those times, they were gathering secretly inside the homes of Christians whose houses were big enough to accommodate the Christian community. These houses were called “Domus Ecclesiae,” literally translated in English as the “House of the Church.”

Them, in the year 313 A.D., one Roman Emperor changed the course of Christian history. His name – Constantine the Great. In his fight to be the next emperor at the battle of the Milvian Bridge he defeated Maxentius, his strongest rival to the throne. And he attributed this smashing victory to the Cross being venerated by the Christians as the symbol and source of the world’s salvation. How did he do it?

That night before his victorious battle against his rival, he had a vision of Christ and his cross telling him that by the sign of that cross he will conquer. The next day upon waking up, he followed the heavenly command, and had all his soldiers and horses marked with the sign of the Cross, before advancing triumphantly against the forces of his enemy.

And so when Constantine was finally crowned the next emperor of Rome, his first decree was in favour of the Christians – the Edict of Milan, prohibiting from then on any form of persecution against the Christians in the whole Roman empire. Thus were the Christians finally enjoyed total freedom to worship the Lord God openly.

Moreover, as a gift to the Christian community, he gave them the basilica formerly owned by the Laterani family to be the place where they could gather for their Sunday Liturgy in honor of the Lord who conquered evil by the power of his cross. In the year 324, this basilica was for the first time dedicated and consecrated to the Most Holy Savior by Pope Sylvester. That is why we call this basilica today as the mother of all Catholic Churches, and from then on other basilicas and churches were built in Rome and in other places throughout the world.

Today, therefore, we give thanks to God for two reasons: (1) the victory of the Lord’s Cross that gave us Christians the freedom to practice and celebrate our faith, and (2) the anniversary of the consecration of the first ever Basilica of St John Lateran.

But there is a much deeper meaning to this feast. The Church we honor today is not simply the physical edifice made of lifeless stones. For we are the Church of God made of living stones. We are the Body of Christ consecrated in the sacrament of Baptism. And it is from this sacrament that we have received our dignity as Children of God.

Every time, therefore, we serve the people of God, we serve the sacred Body of Christ. And every time we injure, abuse or exploit the people of God, we also injure, abuse and exploit the Holy Body of Christ.

For this reason we, as God’s holy people, continue to raise our cry of lamentation and protest against government officials. public servants and private practitioners who allow the denudation of our forests through mining, quarrying and luxury housing – all in the name of development but at the expense of the poor and the working class. And above all we demand accountability from those have pocketed taxpayers’ money worth billions meant for flood control projects in every city and municipality.

May the Eucharist we celebrate today inspire us to live holy and heroic lives not only as good Christians but also as upright citizens. May it also empower us to persevere with great determination in this Jubilee Year of Hope, walking with Jesus every single day, so that one day we too may experience the eternal joy of being one with God in the great company of all the Saints in our true home in heaven. GiGsss!

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