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Views from the Choir Loft

Beautiful Churches?

Fr. David Friel · November 9, 2011

Around this time last year, Pope Benedict XVI traveled to Barcelona to dedicate the extraordinary Sagrada Familia Basilica. The Holy Father’s homily was equally extraordinary. He said at that time: “Beauty . . . reveals God because, like Him, a work of beauty is pure gratuity.” What a line for meditation: “A work of beauty is pure gratuity.”

Today, we celebrate the dedication of St. John Lateran, which is the mother church of the universal Church. Most of us can’t be in the Lateran Basilica today, but we join in the celebration because we’re in union with our Holy Father, whose cathedral it is. Many people would think it funny that we celebrate the dedication of a building centuries-old and thousands of miles away. They would also think it funny that so much time and money has been spent on Sagrada Familia.

But ours is an Incarnational faith, and so we see value in art and beauty. Beauty is certainly found in creation, but God takes especially great delight in what we create out of His creation. He enjoys the beauty of things that “Earth has given and human hands have made.”

Yes, the beauty of our churches and chapels is, indeed, gratuitous—that is, not necessary. But God’s love for us is gratuitous! His mercy is gratuitous! The fact that we even exist is gratuitous! So, the fact that beauty is unnecessary doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t bother with it. Instead, we, who are “temples of the Holy Spirit,” become more beautiful and more pleasing to God precisely by our gratuitous acts of charity.

Mother Teresa famously encouraged us to “do something beautiful for God.” Today, let’s do something gratuitous for God. It may not mean the building of a basilica, but it will certainly mean the building up of the temples of our own souls.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at Saint Anselm Church in Northeast Philly before earning a doctorate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America. He presently serves as Vocation Director for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and teaches liturgy at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

    Vespers Booklet (4th Sunday of Lent)
    The organ accompaniment booklet (24 pages) which I created for the 4th Sunday of Lent (“Lætare Sunday”) may now be downloaded, for those who desire such a thing.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Vespers Booklet, 3rd Sunday of Lent
    The organ accompaniment I created for the 3rd Sunday of Lent (“Extraordinary Form”) may now be downloaded, if anyone is interested in this.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Weeping For Joy! (We Hope!)
    Listening to this Easter Alleluia—an SATB arrangement I made twenty years ago based on the work of Monsignor Jules Van Nuffel—one of our readers left this comment: “I get tears in my eyes each time I sing to this hymn.” I hope this person is weeping for joy!
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

Indeed I might add that although unfamiliar with it myself, the Extraordinary Form expressly reminds us that Mass in either form is not merely a communion meal but a ritual of love, a sacrifice at Calvary, by which, for you and for me, yes, here and now, Jesus Christ lays down his life.

— ‘Most Rev. Philip Egan, Bishop of Portsmouth’

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