When was the last time you experienced wonder in a church sanctuary?
I can remember one of the first times I experienced wonder in a church. I walked off bustling, noisy Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to discover the sacred hush in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The sanctuary door was a threshold from one world into the next, a transcendent reality that caused not only me, but all my fellow visitors, to quiet our voices, our bodies, and our souls. We stood still, beholden to beauty, wooed by wonder.
Not every church sanctuary has this effect on people; but the constructed space of worship can, and maybe should, be a conduit for wonder.
This fall, I visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona, named by Architectural Digest as one of “The 10 Most Beautiful Churches in the World.” While St. Patrick’s is mammoth and majestic, the Chapel of the Holy Cross, by contrast, is intimate and humble. Yet, walking into the Chapel of the Holy Cross evoked in me the same feeling of wonder I experienced all those years ago crossing the threshold into St. Patrick’s. Whether a cathedral or a chapel, sanctuary can be built for wonder.
The Chapel of the Holy Cross was the brainchild of sculptor and philanthropist Marguerite Brunswig Staude. During the construction of the Empire State Building, she noticed the cross beams of the skyscraper resembled a gigantic cross. Inspired, she thought this would be the perfect design for a church. It took almost 25 years for her idea to be built.
Reflecting later on this journey, she wrote some magnificent thoughts on the theology of the church:
When we consider that just as the soul inhabits a human frame, and the house is built to shelter that frame, it is the mission of the church to shelter and inspire both soul and body. It therefore should not only be a monument to faith, but a spiritual fortress so charged with God, that it spurs man’s spirit Godward,
It reminds me of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins’ memorable line: “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” And so should be our sanctuaries for worship be—spiritual fortresses so charged with God that we are captivated into God’s presence. The built space of the church, the gathering place of the people of God, stirs our spirit heavenward.
In worship, we bask in beauty but we also create, cultivate, and curate beauty. As Brunswig Staude wrote, “Throughout the ages the church has not only been a patron sponsoring the arts, but has used architecture, sculpture, and painting to illustrate her teachings, thus proving that truth is beauty through her prayers in color and stone.”
This task of creating, cultivating, and curating beauty is not an end in itself—it is to draw us heavenward to the God who makes beautiful things. The task inspires us to express the truth and beauty of our faith, not only in words, but also in color and in stone. The experience of beauty evokes the response of wonder and wonder draws us into grandeur, into the sacred, and into the unknown.
The era of grand church construction is probably long past. Most of us will never receive the commission to construct a sanctuary from scratch. But we can find and explore the beauty therein whether in a grand cathedral or a simple chapel, a storefront or a suburban campus. There is beauty to be found, and where there is beauty, there is wonder rousing us heavenward.
Thank you, Blaine, for reminding us to look for beauty–in sanctuaries, in the outdoors, in other people, wherever we are.
I pity the many people who have to worship in unwindowed auditorium illuminated only by electronic screens and lights, with all sounds electronically controlled at a mixing board. Everything controlled by the leaders. Is wonder impossible in such a place? Maybe not impossible, not with God, but certainly unwelcome. Without big windows, how can the angels get in?
I love this last sentence; it makes me smile as I picture this in my own imagination!
Such an important point – when we humans control everything, where do we let God in?
I visited the chapel for the first time a year ago. It’s a remarkable place, both in its architecture and in the way out it emerges from the rocky cliffs that surround it. The view out the huge windows at the back is more inspiring, I found, than that of the gigantic Superhero Jesus corpus over the altar. But maybe that’s just my Protestant prejudice. And yet some things troubled me. No Sunday masses are celebrated here, only some midweek services. There are no classrooms for Christian education, only a stunning sanctuary and a basement gift shop. (And no restrooms available, only portapotties at the base of the hill, but that’s probably a needed adjustment to the things of tourists.) I had the impression that the local faithful (it’s administered by St John Vianney Parish in Sedona) see it as a tourist attraction more than a place of worship. A place of beauty it is indeed. But one that arose more from the obsessions (and the wealth) of a local rancher than from the dreams (and ministry priorities) of a worshipping community. A word from the Grinch . . .
Wonder…even in a hospital room. Without looking for it, I realized wonder surrounded me at the bedside of my husband who was recovering from a stroke. The hospital wall revealed serene scenery and soothing music, as my husband (a retired pastor) quoted scripture. A miracle in itself.