The Wounded Stag

The Feast of St. John Lateran, Dilexit nos, and the Heart of Christ (with original music)

The Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica is one of my favorites on the entire calendar. This feast, generally (and rightly) seen as ecclesial in its meaning, bears a mystical and eschatological significance which strikes me yet more deeply. St. John Lateran is dedicated to Christ the Savior, Christo Salvatori, but also to the two great Sts. John – John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, the disciple of love and the voice crying in the wilderness, the prophet of the Apocalypse and the prophet of the Lamb.

At Vespers the Church intones the Canticle of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb; the reading, from the Book of Revelation, is as follows:

I saw a new Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride prepared to meet her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne cry out: “This is God’s dwelling among men. He shall dwell with them and they shall be his people and he shall be their God who is always with them.” I saw no temple in the city. The Lord, God the Almighty, is its temple — he and the Lamb. But nothing profane shall enter it, nor anyone who is a liar or has done a detestable act. Only those shall enter whose names are inscribed in the book of the living kept by the Lamb.

2024 is a special year for the Church’s only Archbasilica; today marks the 1700th anniversary of the original dedication on November 9, 324. Yet even in other years, this feast is of such import that it supersedes the liturgy for Sunday (as it will, next year), and it also crowns the span of nine days commemorating the saints and the faithful departed.

This feast connects, also, to our Holy Father’s recent encyclical, Dilexit nos. The basilica we celebrate, originally dedicated as Domus Fausta, was rededicated as Domus Dei, House of God – one of the invocations later featured in the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Heart which is itself also a temple, a tabernacle, and a gate:

Heart of Jesus, Holy Temple of God, Have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, Tabernacle of the Most High, Have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, House of God and Gate of Heaven, Have mercy on us.

Cor Iesu, templum Dei sanctum, miserere nobis. 
Cor Iesu, tabernaculum Altissimi, miserere nobis. 
Cor Iesu, domus Dei et porta caeli, miserere nobis.

The Office of Readings offers this responsory:

I saw water flowing eastward from beneath the threshold of the temple, alleluia. Wherever the river flowed everything became alive;
— those who were saved by it cried out: Alleluia, alleluia.
When the temple was dedicated,
the people sang songs of praise and beautiful hymns.
— Those who were saved by it cried out: 
Alleluia, alleluia.

Dilexit nos applies this scriptural imagery to the Sacred Heart:

“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Is 12:3). The messianic prophecies gradually coalesced around the imagery of purifying water: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean… a new spirit I will put within you” (Ezek 36:25-26). This water would bestow on God’s people the fullness of life, like a fountain flowing from the Temple and bringing a wealth of life and salvation in its wake. “I saw on the bank of the river a great many trees on the one side and on the other… and wherever that river goes, every living creature will live… and when that river enters the sea, its waters will become fresh; everything will live where the river goes” (Ezek 47:7-9).

The encyclical recalls that for the early Christians, the Lord's Sacred Heart was venerated “under the image of the Lord’s wounded side, as a fountain of grace and a summons to a deep and loving encounter.” For, as the document proclaims as well, “From Jesus’ wounded side, the water of the Spirit poured forth: ‘One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water flowed out’.” (Jn 19:34).

The encyclical also notes how this worship was anticipated in the prophets of the old dispensation:

The dawn of the messianic era was described as a fountain springing up for the people: “I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and they shall look on him whom they have pierced… On that day, a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity” (Zech 12:10; 13:1)."

In like manner, Dilexit nos draws abundant material for meditation from the Church's history; here, from paragraphs 173-174:

Starting with Origen, various Fathers of the Church reflected on the words of John 7:38 – “out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water” – which refer to those who, having drunk of Christ, put their faith in him. Our union with Christ is meant not only to satisfy our own thirst, but also to make us springs of living water for others. Origen wrote that Christ fulfils his promise by making fountains of fresh water well up within us: “The human soul, made in the image of God, can itself contain and pour forth wells, fountains and rivers”.... 

Marius Victorinus was convinced that the Holy Spirit has given of himself in such abundance that, “whoever receives him becomes a heart that pours forth rivers of living water.” Saint Augustine saw this stream flowing from the believer as benevolence. Saint Thomas Aquinas thus maintained that whenever someone “hastens to share various gifts of grace received from God, living water flows from his heart.” 

Among the words of the saints cited, the Holy Father includes the following: “Saint Ambrose recommended drinking deeply of Christ, ‘in order that the spring of water welling up to eternal life may overflow in you,’” and, quoting Ambrose a second time, adds: “Drink of Christ, for he is the rock that pours forth a flood of water. Drink of Christ, for he is the source of life. Drink of Christ, for he is the river whose streams gladden the city of God. Drink of Christ, for he is our peace. Drink of Christ, for from his side flows living water.”

These further words from Ambrose, though not cited in the encyclical, are much in the same spirit and particularly significant for me; I actually composed a chant some time back to set this passage to music. (It is linked at the end of the article.) 

Let us take refuge like deer  
beside the fountain of waters.
Let our soul thirst, as David thirsted, 
for the fountain.  
Let my soul say to this fountain: 
When shall I come and see you face to face? 
For the fountain is God himself.

Yet we are not drawn to the fountain by our own power or initiative, or even our own longing. Dilexit nos summarizes the response of the Mystical Doctor to the Song of Songs:

John of the Cross regards the image of Christ’s pierced side as an invitation to full union with the Lord. Christ is the wounded stag, wounded when we fail to let ourselves be touched by his love, who descends to the streams of water to quench his thirst and is comforted whenever we turn to him:

Return, dove!
The wounded stag
is in sight on the hill,
cooled by the breeze of your flight.

The Holy Father invokes, also, the Seraphic Doctor:

Bonaventure makes us appreciate first the beauty of the grace and the sacraments flowing from the fountain of life that is the wounded side of the Lord. “In order that from the side of Christ sleeping on the cross, the Church might be formed and the Scripture fulfilled that says: ‘They shall look upon him whom they pierced’, one of the soldiers struck him with a lance and opened his side. This was permitted by divine Providence so that, in the blood and water flowing from that wound, the price of our salvation might flow from the hidden wellspring of his heart, enabling the Church’s sacraments to confer the life of grace and thus to be, for those who live in Christ, like a cup filled from the living fount springing up to life eternal.

Perhaps the most beautiful writing on this theme cited in the encyclical is from the Counter-Reformation prelate and Doctor of Divine Love, St. Francis de Sales:

How lovely is this heaven, in which the Lord is its sun and his breast a fountain of love from which the blessed drink to their heart’s content! Each of us can look therein and see our name carved in letters of love, which true love alone can read and true love has written. Dear God! And what too, beloved daughter, of our loved ones? Surely they will be there too; for even if our hearts have no love, they nonetheless possess a desire for love and the beginnings of love.

Of course, just as the archbasilica is a symbol of the divine heart, it symbolizes our hearts too; as St. Caesarius of Arles preaches in the feast’s Office of Readings:

Do you wish this basilica to be full of light? God too wishes that your soul be not in darkness, but that the light of good works shine in us, so that he who dwells in the heavens will be glorified. Just as you enter this church building, so God wishes to enter into your soul, for he promised: I shall live in them, and I shall walk the corridors of their hearts.

Ratzingerian that I am, I want to close by pointing out that, for the Stoics, the heart was understood as the principle of individual unity, of self-preservation. The cardinal inverts this trope, writing as follows:

The pierced Heart of Jesus has... truly ‘overturned’ (cf. Hos 11:8) this definition. This Heart is not concerned with self-preservation but with self-surrender. It saves the world by opening itself. The collapse of the opened Heart is the content of the Easter mystery.… Thus in the Heart of Jesus the center of Christianity is set before us. It expresses everything, all that is genuinely new and revolutionary in the New Covenant. This Heart calls to our heart.

Take a moment, if you will, to listen to the chant. Let us take refuge like deer, beside the fountain that flows forth from the Heart of the Wounded Stag. In the waters of this living fountain, we too are to become oases of life and light in the midst of our world.