What is a Catholic church? Not “the” Catholic Church – that is a very different question. Rather, I am referring to the type and character of the building that is used for the celebration of the Mass.
A Place Set Apart
A Catholic church is a sacred place, set apart from the world we inhabit. It is where Christ is physically present in the form of the consecrated Host in tabernacle. It is where Earth meets Heaven and provides us with a foretaste of Heaven. Think of it as God’s embassy on earth.
A Catholic church is thus by definition a transcendent place. A place where we able to climb beyond our mortal frailty and inadequacy and experience the divine.
A Catholic church is consecrated, meaning it is set apart and given over to God. In the rite of dedicating a new church, the bishop anoints each of the church’s walls as a physical sign of this consecration. The church is within the world, but set apart from it, a sanctuary within which we can experience the presence of God without the distractions of our daily lives.
Engaging the Senses
The design of a Catholic church is intended to make it clear that you are in the presence of God. This is done by engaging the senses.
As you enter the church, all of your senses should perceive the shift from the outside world into the sacred - from your everyday existence to the eternal. You come from a bright, noisy, windy, hot parking lot smelling of car exhaust into a dim, quiet, calm, cool, place with the faint smell of incense. Physiologically, your body is telling you that you are no longer in your normal state of existence. Immediately, you feel calmer and desire quiet prayerfulness. You are aware that you have entered into the presence of The Lord.
A Catholic church must be designed to convey this. It must be different from your home, your office, or the shopping mall. It must be transcendent.
The Temple
God told us how to create this place. In Exodus, he instructs Moses on how to create a tent to house the Ark of the Covenant and to serve as His dwelling place as he led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. God visibly overshadowed and dwelled in this space. Solomon’s temple was based on this model, now built in stone and God blessed it saying His “eyes and heart shall be there forever” (1 Kings 9:3).
The sequence of spaces in the tent of meeting and in Solomon’s Temple from the courtyard through to the holy of holies is the basis of all Catholic church architecture. The Temple is symmetrically arranged along a central axis. You arrive through a gate into a large courtyard. From there you cross another threshold into the porch, then through a portal into the nave. At the heart of the Temple is the Holy of Holies, the sanctuary in which the Ark was kept. The transitions between each of these spaces are marked with doors, gates, or steps, to make it clear that you are moving from one level of sanctity into a higher one.
The form of the Temple and this arrangement of spaces perfectly prefigures the archetypical form of a Catholic church. The shape of the cross, the idealized plan of a Catholic church, can be found in the Temple, a thousand years before the life of Christ. It is therefore evident that the form of our church today is based on the very roots of our encounter with the God of Abraham.
Continuing the Sacred Tradition
In the three thousand years since Solomon's Temple was built, the Church has incorporated many new influences, adapting the architectural forms of the Greeks and Romans into a typical arrangement. This arrangement is driven by the liturgy: a narthex to serve as the transition into the sacred space; a long central nave for processions to and from the altar; the focal point of the sanctuary set apart from the nave; and the tabernacle to house the Real Presence of Christ.
This church form is part of the Sacred Tradition, which as Catholics we believe is part of God’s revelation. To ignore or deny this tradition is to deny that revelation, and to place oneself ahead of God. Pope Benedict implores us to use the hermeneutic of continuity when considering this tradition: that continuity is always preferable to rupture.
That approach has been soundly ignored over the last century by those building Catholic churches, to the point where “ugly” is the adjective most often used to precede “Catholic church”. This abandonment of Sacred Tradition has diminished the sanctity and effectiveness of our churches, playing a significant part in a larger decline in the Church and in the belief in the Real Presence.
Legibility
The most important thing that a Catholic church must do is to be legible as a church. Modernism has eroded our appreciation and understanding of aesthetics. We are no longer taught the fundamental lessons of truth, goodness, and beauty. Our ability to perceive the presence of God has been deeply wounded.
A church must look like a church. A very simple thing to say, but somehow it is rather difficult to put into practice. We are not all architects or theologians. Building a church that has meaning to only the most aesthete is a great disservice, it is the sin of pride. It excludes, and denies to those who do not share the same sense of fashion the inspiration and awe of being in the true presence of The Lord. A Catholic church must enable the communion with God to all – the uninitiated as well as the expert.
A Catholic church is not meant to be “of its time”, it is meant to be timeless. It is not a reflection of the world that it inhabits, it is meant to be the image of the eternal.
We have thousands of years of history and tradition that has established the form and character that makes a successful Catholic church. All we need to do is trust in that, just as we trust in the rest of the Sacred Tradition of the Church.
Conclusion
A Catholic church is designed to transform your mind and body into a state to be in the presence of God. When designed properly, the church building makes the liturgy accessible and meaningful to all. It is tragic for Catholics to worship in poorly designed churches where only a muted and distant Communion is experience in the Mass.
We have been given the greatest gift humanity can have ever imagined: the continuous Real Presence of our Lord, and the Sacred Tradition of how to encounter Him in a church. We only need the humility to appreciate that gift and respect it accordingly.
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