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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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Fr. David Friel

About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at St. Anselm Parish in Northeast Philly. He is currently a doctoral candidate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

Surprising Popularity!

One of our most popular downloads has proven to be the organ accompaniment to “The Monastery Hymnal” (131 pages). This book was compiled, arranged, and edited by Achille P. Bragers, who studied at the Lemmensinstituut (Belgium) about thirty years before that school produced the NOH. Bragers might be considered an example of Belgium “Stile Antico” whereas Flor Peeters and Jules Van Nuffel represented Belgium “Prima Pratica.” You can download the hymnal by Bragers at this link.

—Jeff Ostrowski
15 February 2021 • To Capitalize…?

In the Introit for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, there is a question regarding whether to capitalize the word “christi.” The Vulgata does not, because Psalm 27 is not specifically referring to Our Lord, but rather to God’s “anointed one.” However, Missals tend to capitalize it, such as the official 1962 Missal and also a book from 1777 called Missel de Paris. Something tells me Monsignor Knox would not capitalize it.

—Jeff Ostrowski
15 February 2021 • “Sung vs. Spoken”

We have spoken quite a bit about “sung vs. spoken” antiphons. We have also noted that the texts of the Graduale Romanum sometimes don’t match the Missal texts (in the Extraordinary Form) because the Mass Propers are older than Saint Jerome’s Vulgate, and sometimes came from the ITALA versions of Sacred Scripture. On occasion, the Missal itself doesn’t match the Vulgate—cf. the Introit “Esto Mihi.” The Vulgate has: “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in domum refúgii…” but the Missal and Graduale Romanum use “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in locum refúgii…” The 1970s “spoken propers” use the traditional version, as you can see.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

The Sacrifice is celebrated with many solemn rites, none of which should be deemed useless or superfluous. On the contrary, all of them tend to display the majesty of this august sacrifice, and to excite the faithful, when beholding these saving mysteries, to contemplate the divine things which lie concealed in the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

— Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566)

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