;)
"In a certain sense the high point of the history of this land of Catalonia..."
Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 10:56 From the Roman Pontiff's homily at the Dedication of the new Basilica of the Holy Family in Barcelona, here:
... What do we do when we dedicate this church? In the heart of the world, placed before God and mankind, with a humble and joyful act of faith, we raise up this massive material structure, fruit of nature and an immense achievement of human intelligence which gave birth to this work of art. It stands as a visible sign of the invisible God, to whose glory these spires rise like arrows pointing towards absolute light and to the One who is Light, Height and Beauty itself.
In this place, Gaudí desired to unify that inspiration which came to him from the three books which nourished him as a man, as a believer and as an architect: the book of nature, the book of sacred Scripture and the book of the liturgy. In this way he brought together the reality of the world and the history of salvation, as recounted in the Bible and made present in the liturgy. He made stones, trees and human life part of the church so that all creation might come together in praise of God, but at the same time he brought the sacred images outside so as to place before people the mystery of God revealed in the birth, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this way, he brilliantly helped to build our human consciousness, anchored in the world yet open to God, enlightened and sanctified by Christ. In this he accomplished one of the most important tasks of our times: overcoming the division between human consciousness and Christian consciousness, between living in this temporal world and being open to eternal life, between the beauty of things and God as beauty. Antoni Gaudí did this not with words but with stones, lines, planes, and points. Indeed, beauty is one of mankind’s greatest needs; it is the root from which the branches of our peace and the fruits of our hope come forth. Beauty also reveals God because, like him, a work of beauty is pure gratuity; it calls us to freedom and draws us away from selfishness....
It would be quite instructive to read an essay examining the points of difference between Antoni Gaudi's magnum opus and (... alas, I don't know the name of the architect) the new cathedral in Los Angeles.
Marc
Marc
I know Austen Ivereigh principally through his critics, so am trying to read the man in America's group blog; we'll see how long this experiment lasts. On the Dedication of the new Basilica of the Holy Family in Barcelona, he's good, although who knows what his suggestion that not many prayed the Angelus is about... if it was in Latin, he may be obliquely criticising the Roman Pontiff's insistence on the use of that language, perhaps he really did perceive that many of the thousands in attendance were mere spectators. Perhaps the level of religious education in Catalonia and the rest of Spain is as woefully depressed as it is in most parts of North America and the United Kingdom and all those nominal Catholics just don't know their prayers.
