Buildings crumble, the church stands

CatholicAnchor.org
Imagine you are comfortably seated in your pew at Our Lady of Guadalupe Co-Cathedral in Anchorage, patiently waiting for Mass to begin. Suddenly a disheveled looking man wearing a black hoodie strides down the center aisle, ascends to the sanctuary, turns to the ambo and in a voice that could be heard above the scream of nearby jet planes, makes the following pronouncement: “My friends, look about you: do you see these beautiful etchings of saints on the walls, so recently blessed by the archbishop, the handsome black marble altar, that beautiful stained-glass window high above the altar, the baptismal fountain in the narthex, the beautiful vestments hanging in the sacristy? Well, let me warn you, dear congregants, the day will come when none will be left, they will all be destroyed.” With that the man in the black hoodie takes up his staff, walks down the aisle and disappears.

You say to your friend next to you, “Hey, this is craziness, it’s never going to happen to our cathedral; it took years to pay off this building; we will pick up arms, surround the parking lot and defend it; this handsome building will stand until the end of time.”

All this, of course, is just a sketch of the imagination, but could it be the way we Americans imagine the indestructibility of our churches, cathedrals, basilicas and indeed our houses of government, business and finance?

Nonetheless, such a naïve attitude sounds very similar to the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Saint Luke that we will hear on the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time.

By the time the Gospel according to Saint Luke appeared in written form by the middle 80s, the magnificent temple in Jerusalem was not standing. Titus, the Roman general, and his armies had destroyed it in the year 70. Literally, not a stone was left upon a stone. Gone too were the elaborate liturgies and feasts that the Jewish people came to attend each year. All that was left were the small synagogues in the rural villages of Galilee where Jesus had so often preached and where the early Christians would often come and proclaim God’s kingdom.

What then shall we say about the parish churches to which we are so attached? The important question to ask is this: are these buildings of ultimate importance in and of themselves? In truth the sacred buildings find their importance within the context of the sacred liturgies that the church itself, the worshipping Body of Christ, celebrates every Sunday.

Christians today who more clearly understand the meaning of church than we in the First World can be found in such places as Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and other countries in the Middle East. A recent photo in the New York Times showed a small group of Iraqi Christians praying around a battered altar in a chapel having only three sides. Hardly a stone was left upon a stone. Even with a decimated building, however, they knew that they were still the Body of Christ in his church and had come to celebrate Holy Communion.

Finally, as you drive into the parking lot of your beautiful church each Sunday, speak a word of thanks that there is, indeed, a sacred building whose very structure and beauty reminds you who you are: the church of God at prayer.

Scriptures for Nov. 13

Malachi 3: 19-20

2 Thess. 3: 7-12

Luke 21: 5-19

The writer formerly served the Anchorage Archdiocese as director of pastoral education. He now lives at Notre Dame in Indiana.