Thought For The Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Modernist Catholic churches are horizontal in their approach; an empty building takes away its entire purpose of Singing Us A New Church or Gather(ing) Us In, especially, you know, the rich and the haughty 😉
Certainly there is an element of truth in Father’s comment. But even “back in the day”I’d bet most parish churches would have been pretty simple and humble in appearance, unlike the great historic cathedrals that we all love. Many if not most would have been simple wooden structures with an altar, tabernacle, and perhaps stations of the cross, without much more.
Faithful-
It depends on back in which day.
However, whenever Catholics have been allowed to have churches in the open, they have tended to be better than the dwellings of the people who worshipped there, because of their to honor God.
See David’s shame in 2 Samuel that he lived in better lodgings than the Ark of the Covenant.
When I toured Bavaria as a college student in the mid-1970s, we walked many miles on rural two-lane roads between small towns and villages. Without exception, the Catholic churches in those small towns were graced with beautiful hand-crafted and painted altar pieces, complete with gold plating and trim, ornate stained glass, hand sculpted and painted statuary, and stunning crucifixes. These were not wealthy people, and on inquiry we were told that everything in those churches was locally made. It would be another thirty years before the Holy Spirit led me home to the Catholic Church, but the sights I saw in those little rural parish churches stays with me to this day.
The Bavarian village churches often were painted with religious scenes on the white wash exteriors. Also older homes were painted like that.
Shrines of different saints were built on sides of country roads. Wonderful to view such faith.
The Real Presence of Jesus Christ fills every church. With Circumcession all three Persons of God are present