De Profúndis: Another Ugly-as-Sin "Church"

Initium sancti EvangélII secúndum Joánnem...

In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum 2 hoc erat in principio apud Deum 3 omnia per ipsum facta sunt et sine ipso factum est nihil quod factum est 4 in ipso vita erat et vita erat lux hominum 5 et lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non conprehenderunt

6 fuit homo missus a Deo cui nomen erat Iohannes 7 hic venit in testimonium ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine ut omnes crederent per illum 8 non erat ille lux sed ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine 9 erat lux vera quae inluminat omnem hominem venientem in mundum 10 in mundo erat et mundus per ipsum factus est et mundus eum non cognovit

11 in propria venit et sui eum non receperunt 12 quotquot autem receperunt eum dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri his qui credunt in nomine eius 13 qui non ex sanguinibus neque ex voluntate carnis neque ex voluntate viri sed ex Deo nati sunt 14 ET VERBUM CARO FACTUM EST et habitavit in nobis et vidimus gloriam eius gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre plenum gratiae et veritatis

+ Prayer Requests and Intentions + Updated 5 Nov.

+ Blessed Mother Mary Ever-Virgin; Holy Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Rafael; the communion of all Saints, and all holy men and women: pray for us... +

-For our Holy Father, H.H. Pope Benedict XVI
-For our Bishops and Priests, and all religious
-For our Holy Mother Church, the Bride of Christ, for Her defense from the Enemy
-For an end to all abortions and for a renewed culture of life
-For an increase in vocations, particularly to the Holy Priesthood
-For all our prayers, hear us.

-For all the faithful departed, especially Ramon and Willie, my grandfathers. Requiescant in pace.

19 December 2008

Another Ugly-as-Sin "Church"

It is a sad fact that most new Catholic churches today are a devastating affront to 2000 years of proud architectural and artistic achievement. From the smallest chapels to the most elaborate cathedrals to the majesty of St. Peter's Basilica, Catholics have always known how to construct edifices suitable to be called houses of the Lord, places where all worship and offer sacrifice in awe of God's majesty.

A fundamental belief of Catholicism is that we are both flesh and spirit, and while the spirit takes precedence in all things, the flesh manifests in an exterior way what the soul contains. Therefore, we dress modestly to reflect the sanctity of our human person and the fact that we are temples of the Lord. We stand when the Gospel is read in reverence and we kneel during the consecration at Mass in adoration. We build beautiful churches in which much time and energy has been invested so that they may be a lasting tribute to the glory of the Lord and the majesty of the Church.

God knows what went wrong in recent years. We went from beautiful and edifying to hideous and bland in the span of only 40 years. We've discarded a rich tradition of aesthetic beauty rooted in theologico-architectural synthesis in favor of an architecture, or lack thereof, that reflects the pathetically stripped-down sense of awe that we have of our Lord. Our bland, ugly, meaningless assembly halls of churches reveal quite adequately how little so many of the faithful really care about offering tribute to our God. Why? Because it is an affront to the poor? This is nonsense. For centuries churches have been sanctuaries, places of refuge for the poor. If a congregation can have both a beautiful and edifying place of worship as well as fulfill its mission to the poor, well, I see that as a wonderfully balanced Christian life. We've thrown out the aesthetic to save a few bucks. Look what we've got now:

St. Patrick's "Catholic" Church, Gainesville

This sad excuse for a church is disgusting to put it nicely. It looks like the public library in my hometown or like the community center in a retirement development. If an alien were to drop down and attempt to figure out what it is, he would say it looks little different from the other buildings he's seen.

Does this mean that we must build Notre Dames or St. John Laterans in every town and city across the world? Absolutely not. Even small and unimposing churches can be beautiful. What we see now is not beautiful. It shows little or no effort on the part of parishes or priests to disply some sort of care in the making of the house of the Lord.

We've gone from this:

...to this:

When our Lord told the rich man to divest himself of his goods and follow Him, he addressed himself to that one man, who wanted to more purely follow the Lord. He did not mean that entire groups of people should cast away all their possessions and thereby be incapable of providing for the ministry! What good is a materially and, worse, spiritually impoverished church going to do for those in need of sanctification? Obviously the notion of a place of worship was essential to our Lord. He taught frequently in the temple and promised that he would raise it up, meaning himself. The Lord himself is a temple. Should not our modern-day churches be reflective of that reverence which we owe our Lord, the temple of our souls?