I recently had the chance to pass through a grand old Cathedral - you know the type. It was the sort of cathedral that was really something in its day but now the side altars along the nave are artistic displays or shrines (at best) or storage spaces (at mid-level), or spaces to show the importance of environmental awareness (at mediocre), or spaces to advocate for blatantly anti-catholic teachings (at worst). This sort of things isn’t new, most serious Catholics who make a pass through Rome have at least one moment of surprise where they walk into a church where the grandiose baroque counter-reformation art is covered with some kind of strange display. This is quite pedestrian for most folks in my estimation.
My observations that follow, however, I doubt are shared by most. It is merely the result of my preference that made me offer this consideration for you.
I hate guided tours. I think it’s my frustration with walking slowly, or perhaps a bit of prideful Ron Swanson’s “I know more than you.”
In reality, I don’t think it’s actually arrogance (although I am still open to the possibility, because there’s plenty in me that still needs to go), because I don’t like guided tours in any setting, not just things I know a lot about.
The point here is that I prefer to explore and let the church itself tell me where I should go, what I should look at, where I should stop and pray. (Some) Churches are very much capable of guiding their own tours.
Recently as I was huffing to myself how much I don’t like the guided tour I was on, something came to me. We were peering upward at a stunning painting of the Assumption of Our Lady; I realized that when I listened to the tour guide give us the gist of the meaning of the painting, I detected something peculiar in her tone, in the way she was talking about everything we saw…
For most, these things [Baroque paintings in this case] are in the past. They’re in ancient history. This is yesteryear to be looked at with a furrowed brow wondering how a city could think so backwards.
I found myself being less and less interested in the explanations of the massive paintings, not because I have a short attention span, but because the paintings, the art, the grandeur, these are in my ‘now’. This art is today. The personifications of the virtues, the elegance of the Blessed Virgin, the Church dressed as a lady in white, these are today.
The Saints are in the Hospital
Everyone knows the famous quip by Pope Francis about the Church being a “hospital for sinners” instead of a dusty “museum for saints”.
How can one read St. Paul about being surrounded by “so great a cloud of witnesses” and also consider the communion of saints uninspiring and unreachable? How can one be devoted to the saints, truly, and see them as anything except those giving urgent care along side our priests in the Hospital Church (if we’re going to continue along with this metaphor). How many young men and women are there who have been inspired to change their lives, to live a life of holiness by St. Terese, or Bl. Piergiorgio, Bl. Carlo? I was struck as I was passing by some paintings of St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Teresa of Avila. They were simply paintings in a tiny church…and yet…Theresa and Ignatius were there.
Perhaps this is why I carry sadness in my heart when I walk through a Church museum. The beautiful furnishings, the art, the statuary…everything captioned and graciously separated from the forward thinking people of today! Thank goodness we have graduated and grown up and don’t need these things anymore!
Saved from a Non-threat
I remember touring the Duomo of Milan and being amazed at the beautiful statues hidden away on the roof of the Church. Stonemasons worked for thousands of hours to make a statue that one may never really see, all for the Lord. These things are valuable because they express a return to the Lord for his goodness. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” you may protest! Certainly…but these exterior things help us to manifest an inward expression of contrition and conversion, because we are embodied creatures, we are the union of body and soul. Let us realize that these expressions of love for the Lord and His Church are not merely archaic expressions to depart from because we have so maturely graduated past them. Let us realize that beauty of exterior things in our church are part of our “today”, our “now”.
Certainly a post to come on the saints being “in the hospital!”