The community Mass will be celebrated at 11:00 AM, Fr. Vincent Collins presiding and preaching.
The Sunday Mass in Ordinary Time is replaced by the Feast of the Church of St. John Lateran, the episcopal seat of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. The property and palace on the Celian Hill of Rome, once belonging to the Laterani family, came into the possession of Emperor Constantine through his wife Fausta. He, in turn, donated it to the Bishop of Rome and the ancient Baptistry displays some of the inlaid marble panels of the original palace’s walls. The great hall of the palace became the first Basilica and was originally dedicated to the Holy Savior; only later in the middle ages was it rededicated to St. John the Baptist. The Basilica of St. John Lateran is one of the seven pilgrimage Basilicae of Rome. The Feast does not celebrate a building but the relation between our Savior, to whom it was first dedicated, and the primatial authority of the See of Rome.