Today we celebrate the feast of the dedication of the Basilica of St. Francis.
Brother Elias, the successor of St. Francis as Minister General of the Order, was responsible for the construction of the Basilica,
which took place just after the canonization of St. Francis in the year 1228, two years after his death.
And the first part was finished in the year 1230, just after another two years,
the what's called the lower canonization.
While the upper church, a magnificent structure, wasn't completed until 1253.
And we see how fitting it is that for St. Francis, the little poor man of Assisi,
who was entrusted and given the task of rebuilding the Church of our Lord,
after having done so faithfully for his life, during his life,
that then a great...
Church would be built then in his honor.
And St. Francis, actually, when he received this mission from our Lord to rebuild the Church,
took our Lord literally and started rebuilding with his own hands
three churches that were falling into ruin in the area of Assisi.
St. Bonaventure says that this was symbolic of what St. Francis would do
for the entire Church by rebuilding the Church by means of his three orders that he founded.
The first order of the friars, the second order of the poor clairs,
and the third order for the laity, the tertiaries.
And so the basilica as well has three parts to it.
It has the upper church, the lower church, and also the crypt.
And so today it's good to...
Reflect upon the importance of the Church,
the structure that we have,
and the significance behind it.
And first of all, we read in the introit of the Mass,
taken from the book of Genesis, chapter 28.
It says,
Terrible is this place.
It is the house of God and the gate of heaven.
And that's the first thing that we should understand
about the structure of the Church.
That it's not just simply any other place.
It's not a hall or simply a room for worship.
But it's first and foremost the house of God.
The place where he dwells.
And not simply a dwelling by his omnipresence,
the presence that God has in every place in the universe,
but the special presence, his sacramental presence,
where our Lord is present substantially.
That you can point to a place, the tabernacle,
and say, there is God.
And so this is the house of God.
And it's also the gate of heaven,
because it's here in the Church that one receives the sacraments.
This refers especially to baptism,
because it's by baptism that we enter into the Church
as a member, become a member of the Church,
and become a member of the Church.
And we enter into the Church as a member,
become a member of the Church,
a member of the mystical body of Christ,
and are able to enter through the gates of heaven.
Now, such a place, being the house of God
and the gate of heaven for us,
should be constructed in a fitting manner.
That is, we should try and build our churches beautifully.
They should be adorned with saints,
sacred art that inspires,
that helps to elevate both the mind and heart
to heavenly realities.
St. Francis himself stressed this,
the beauty of the place where we worship God
and his dwelling,
that it should be kept clean.
In fact, St. Francis traveled to the local parishes
carrying a broom
and quietly and discreetly corrected those priests,
who allowed the Church to become disorderly.
And St. Francis himself would then go about cleaning them
and exhorted his brothers to do the same.
Also, we should always remember
that we should dress properly
when coming into the house of God.
We should dress modestly and fittingly
when entering a church.
We should also enter with silence and reverence,
showing the proper respect for our Lord
and the Blessed Sacrament,
who is the master of this house,
by, of course, genuflecting before the tabernacle.
And now, as I mentioned,
the Church being a special place of salvation and grace,
because it's here that the sacraments are administered,
and we can understand all the effort,
all the time and effort and resources
that were put into constructing many of the churches
across the United States,
all for the salvation of souls.
And what a shame it is,
and how sad it is,
to know that there are dioceses that are closing churches,
those churches that were opened
with such great effort put into them.
And instead, now they're being closed,
especially in Boston,
and also Buffalo, that's closing more than 70 churches.
And it means the opposite happens, okay?
Because when new churches are opened,
sacraments are celebrated,
and souls are saved and sanctified.
So the opposite happens when we go about closing churches.
No more sacraments, no more Mass, no more baptisms.
And as a result, souls are saved, and they are sanctified.
Souls are lost.
So we shouldn't look upon this phenomena
of closing churches and take it lightly,
but we should all pray, especially today.
We should pray for the intercession of St. Francis,
that he can continue his work in the church,
especially the church here in America,
to help to rebuild it according to the desires of Christ.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
And of the Holy Spirit.