Be honest, do you ever daydream during Mass? I do. Yes, even I, as a priest, tend to let my mind wander and daydream. But what do you think I daydream about? Designing and building my own church. And actually, Ezekiel’s vision of the temple is exactly what I envision.

Picture this. From a distance you begin to see the top of a towering double steeple and dome, the rest surrounded by a wall that protects what is sacred inside. You park and start making your way to the entrance, greeted by a beautiful open metal gate, carefully crafted in the shape of silver trees and golden leaves that move and rustle with the wind. As soon as you pass through the gates, you enter a lush garden filled with pathways that lead to places of prayer and solitude. One leads to a grotto of Our Lady, another to the Stations of the Cross, and every corner reminds you of Eden, that symbol of creation living in right order.

You continue along the main path toward the temple. Near the entrance you are met with a large font, adorned with carved deer that thirst for running water. This font has a cascading opening on the side that faces the temple entrance, where the water falls into the ground and continues to flow like a river along the center of the path, leading into the narthex and pooling in the middle. There, droplets fall from the high ceiling into the pool. Each drop echoes through the air and proclaims God’s sanctifying grace being poured out over the earth. You stretch out your hand to receive this rain from heaven, the kind Job waited for so eagerly as he hid under the tree in the parched desert, and you cross yourself, clothing yourself with Christ and claiming your identity as a child of God.

As you walk through the second set of doors into the main temple, you notice that the water continues to flow from this pool, branching in different directions toward the sanctuary. It disappears beneath the floor as you continue toward your pew.

You make your way into the temple and notice that the entire building continues this theme of creation. The pillars and arches glisten with those same silver trees and golden leaves that greeted you at the entrance. The stained-glass windows tell the story of salvation, the movement of God’s grace through our difficult human journey, and our spiritual growth toward God.

The altar is elevated for all to see. Right above it hangs a great crucifix with the body of a man who loves without measure, lifted up from the earth and drawing everyone to himself. The inside of the temple is built on a gentle decline. As you take your seat, you look down and find, beneath your feet, those streams of water running through smooth river stones, protected by tempered glass so you can stand right above them. They are drawn from all directions toward the center, pulled by gravity to the foot of the altar, where the life of grace is nourished by the Bread from Heaven.

The streams meet at the center on the sides, where they unite and spill like a gentle waterfall into an underground baptismal font, the place where the life of grace begins.

What do you think? It is my dream temple. I once saw a simplified version of this in Nebraska, at the Shrine Chapel of the Holy Family, and immediately imagined it greater, a temple that personifies Ezekiel’s vision. If anyone knows a good architect and a generous friend, please let me know.

Family, today the Church places the image of the temple before us in several ways: through the description of the temple in the prophet Ezekiel, through Jesus’ declaration that he himself would replace the temple as he speaks of its destruction and rebuilding, through Saint Paul’s teaching that we are the temple of God, and through the feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.

We call this “temple theology,” and understanding it is key to having a proper relationship with God and with one another. Why is the temple so important?

First, enter Ezekiel’s vision of the temple. The natural imagery points us back to the first temple, the Garden of Eden. This temple symbolized God’s presence and harmony within all creation. God’s desire and will are that all may be one in Him, working together in communion, with both freedom and limitation.

After humanity became conscious of its existence and rejected its limits as creatures, desiring to be like God, that first temple was destroyed. We became slaves to our own thirst for power, the experience of Egypt. Yet God, who never abandons His children, remained close to us. This time He dwelt in the wilderness tabernacle as His people journeyed toward the Promised Land.

When Israel finally settled, the first permanent temple was built. Temples appear throughout human history because they foster a sense of peace, purpose, and connection through architecture, ritual, and symbolism. The human heart longs for these things amid the struggles of the world. The Jerusalem temple was designed to be a house of worship, a dwelling place of God, where people could see and experience what Psalm 18 proclaims:

“The Lord is my strength, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my refuge, my shield, my stronghold. Praise be the Lord. From His temple He heard my voice. He parted the heavens and came down. He drew me out of the deep waters, rescued me, and set me free because He loves me.”

That physical temple, too, was destroyed because of human corruption when Israel went to war with Babylon. It was during this exile that the prophet Ezekiel received a vision of a new temple from which water flowed, turning salt seas fresh, filling them with life, and raising trees whose leaves became medicine. He was describing, in modern terms, an estuary, where freshwater rivers meet the sea.

When I was an aspiring biologist and completed my internship with National Geographic, that was my field of study, the health of the estuaries in Savannah, Georgia. Estuaries are important because they are the edge of change and adaptation, where the life of two very different environments, saltwater and freshwater, meets, adapts, and coexists.

Theologically, Ezekiel was announcing the day when heaven, the life-giving freshwater, and earth, the sea, would meet, and God’s dwelling place, the temple, would become an estuary, a place of grace that brings new life and heals the world. A place where our human temple would unite with God’s divine presence and never again be destroyed.

Now enter the new Jerusalem temple, rebuilt after the exile. In it, Jesus finds corruption instead of healing, mercy, and grace. He enacts judgment, overturning tables, speaking with the fire of the prophets, and offering the interpretive key to Ezekiel’s vision: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

John tells us that Jesus was speaking of the temple of His Body. No human-made temple, no organization, and no technology, no matter how advanced or well intentioned, can give the healing grace the human heart needs. The new temple is Jesus, lifted up on the cross, from whose pierced side flow blood and water, the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. One gives life. The other continually nourishes, heals, and restores, like medicine.

Saint Paul, as an educated Jew, knew what the temple signified. When he encountered the living presence of Jesus in the believers he had persecuted, it struck him with force. Jesus is in them. They are now the temple. “Brothers and sisters, you are God’s building. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

This revelation gave birth to a new understanding of the temple, which we now call the Church, made up of all the baptized members of Christ.

The first Christians, living under persecution, were not focused on building temples. They met secretly in homes and celebrated the Eucharist in simplicity. But once Christianity was legalized in Rome, this mystical reality began to take physical form. Homes were consecrated as places of worship, filled with sacred art and symbols that reflected this new presence of God.

And as the faith spread publicly, churches were built everywhere as visible signs of the new covenant and the new creation.

This brings us to the Lateran Basilica, which we celebrate today. It is located on the Lateran Hill in Rome. It was first dedicated to Christ the Savior, then to Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist, and later became the cathedral of Rome and the seat of the Bishop of Rome. Even though most papal ceremonies take place at Saint Peter’s, the Lateran Basilica is the mother and head of all churches in the world.

She stands as a living witness and sign of what the new temple, the Church, is meant to be: the sacrament of union with God and of unity among humanity. True unity begins with right worship and a shared understanding of divine revelation. For us, this happens through the primacy of the Pope, who, together with the college of bishops, teaches and declares on behalf of the Church, through the authority of Christ which he possesses, the truths of faith and morals that guide us.

This faith and moral teaching lifts our eyes toward God in right worship. Physical churches help us do this. Their beauty is meant to elevate our souls. When I worship God properly, God points me toward the mystical temple, toward you and toward one another. One leads to the other. The river meets the sea, not to destroy it, but to create something new, an estuary for the world.

This is how we understand temple theology in its fullness. On one hand, it means building churches that are visibly beautiful and rich in meaning. On the other, it means being transformed into the living temple of God, who goes forth to heal the world and care for the most vulnerable. To focus on one without the other is to miss the fullness of the temple’s meaning. There is both beauty and mission.

So, on this feast, we can draw three practical actions.

1. First, honor the sign. See and treat our church buildings as what they are, sacred places of worship that elevate the soul. Be good stewards of our resources and our space. Contribute generously to sustain and beautify them.
2. Second, receive the healing grace of God. At this Mass we live Ezekiel’s dream. The Eucharist once again opens the floodgates of grace, giving us the life and medicine we need to be in the world but not of it, like an estuary.
3. Third, become what you receive. Be the temple of God for others, creating estuaries where people can encounter grace. Bring forgiveness into conflict, hope into despair, and courage into fear.

As that river of living water flows beneath our feet, the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica reminds us what it means to be a people of the temple, a people of God. Christ has made His dwelling among us, and the temple is around you and within you. This is God’s estuary, a very holy place.