Looking Upwards

I mentioned last week my enthusiastic interest in architecture, especially church architecture (I guess there’s no surprise about that!). The architecture of our own church at Holy Faith is quite distinctive. It’s construction was completed in 1982. It received awards at the time for its design. I entered seminary in that same year. Since I had gone to school at UF and was working in Gainesville at the time, I remember visiting Holy Faith to see this new building.

As I strain my memory, I cannot remember a great deal of what I thought of the new Holy Faith Church except I was impressed. I most remember the ceiling. I remember admiring the lofty wood ceiling at that time and still I think its one of the most striking features of our church. I have heard the same admiring comment again and again from others. We sometimes forget about the ceiling, it is so familiar, but I recently came across this photo of our church on the Internet that shows the ceiling’s beauty.

A very interesting thing about our interior ceiling is that it forms the shape of a Maltese Cross. You can also see that shape from aerial photos. When it was first pointed out to me this feature of the Maltese Cross, I immediately thought of the Knights Templar, a fascinating subject on its own. I later asked our founding Pastor, Fr. Flannan Walsh, if the architect liked the Templars. He said he actually did.

The Maltese Cross, however, was not the original Cross of the Templars at all. It is actually the cross of the 11century Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and Malta, otherwise known as the Order of Malta. One would expect the Cross of Malta to be Maltese. (Read about the symbolism of the Maltese Cross here)

The Order of Malta’s mission is to help the poor, which is a wonderful link with our particular parish mission "to build a community of compassion in Christ."

Back to our ceiling, one of the enduring architectural features of many churches is a lofty ceiling. The high ceilings of Gothic cathedrals, for example, lift up one’s sight (and mind) to the transcendence of God and our smallness before God. And yet, we humans built such lofty and awesome buildings like those cathedrals, so it is also a tribute to human art and the ability to create high beauty in imitation of God’s creation. (See some examples set to beautiful music here)

I often imagine the presence of the angels and saints at our worship. This is what our Catholic Faith tells us is actually the case when we celebrate the Mass. We are participating also in the Heavenly Liturgy, i.e., all the angels and saints, the blessed deceased and with the Virgin Mother of God in their worship of the Triune God in heaven. (See Catechism#1090)

I sometimes playfully say, our churches must have high ceilings to make room for all these heavenly hosts with whom we worship!

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Magical Holy Place

I wrote last week of my coming to admire and seek the companionship of various saints as I grew in my Catholic Faith. Later as a priest, on a visit to Italy, I discovered a monastery which combined several loves: my devotion to St. Benedict, my love of St. Francis and my enjoyable interest in architecture, especially church architecture.

I had read a little in a tour book about the monastery of St. Benedict in Subiaco, about 40 miles south of Rome. My traveling companion and I rented a car and drove up the mountainous region where Subiaco is located. The setting was kind of magical because there are lots of woods and it was a cool light misty, rainy October day. There were only two others there that day and so there was a beautiful quiet.

As you can see from the picture to the left, the monastery is built on the side of a mountain. It is a very important mountain because it was there in around 500 AD that St. Benedict lived temporarily as a hermit in a cave. [Read more about the life of St. Benedict HERE] The cave is venerated today, a place of pilgrimage, and the monastery and church were built to enshrine it. Benedict would later become the founder of Western monasticism, a communal way of life devoted to prayer and work.

Fortunately, we went down some stairs on the mountainside and entered the church from a lower level. Then it really was magical. There were all these flights of stairs and levels, one after another that one climbed, with side chapels and many painted frescoes, mainly from the history and legends of St. Benedict. The ascent was a kind of prayer experience in itself.

It is interesting to learn that at one time all churches had their interior walls usually covered with frescoes and paintings of the saints and biblical scenes and images of Mary and Jesus and the angels. Over time some of these frescoes faded and were painted or plastered over. In some countries that turned Protestant (beginning in the 16^th century), sometimes the holy images were deliberately removed. In Catholic countries, statues and stain glass windows became the more preferred decoration for churches. But still in Eastern Orthodox churches one may see the ancient style of walls covered in icons, i.e. holy images. One worships surrounded by the images of the saints and the Bible. [See this example HERE]

Unexpectedly in Subiaco, I wandered into a small side chapel and was excited to find there St. Francis! There was a painting of him that is believed to have been painted while he was still alive. St. Francis liked visiting monasteries and spent prayer time in many Italian caves. Experts think that the rather primitive painting of St. Francis was done while he still lived because it does not show him with the typical halo or the stigmata, received in his later life. He was obviously famous enough to get his portrait in the church, however. It is thought it might be very close to what he actually looked like.

I truly enjoyed that visit. It still works its imagination upon my mind. Our Holy Faith property reminds me a little of Subiaco because of our trees and the closeness of nature, which itself speaks of God’s glory as do churches.

[See a Youtube video of St. Benedict’s, Subiaco HERE. It captures the mood of the place]

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The Saints: Our Traveling Companions

This upcoming Sunday’s Gospel is about the Kingdom of God (11^th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Mark 4:26-34). I have often said that the Kingdom of God is the Rule of God and "God is love." (1 John 4:8); thus, the Kingdom of God is about the rule of God’s love.

We also pray in the "Our Father": "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." If we were suddenly given a vision of heaven, we would see the Risen and Ascended Jesus, the Son Of God, with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, surrounded by the angels and saints, with Mary the Mother of Christ. As the Catechism teaches us:

"This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity - this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed - is called ‘heaven.’ Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness."  (Catechism#1024)

The saints in heaven enjoy the fullness of God’s love and each loves one another with the fullness of divine love. This is that love, that rule of God’s love, that we pray will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Growing up as a Protestant, the subject of the saints was almost entirely absent from my mind. Of course I was taught about the men and women of God in the Bible who are also saints, but that title of "Saint" was not used in my childhood religious education.

Perhaps the first Catholic saint that I came to know about was St. Francis of Assisi. I was a student at UF. Somehow I came across a small book called The Little Flowers of St. Francis, written in the late 14^th century.

I was totally charmed by these stories about St. Francis and his companions. Little would I know at the time that I would become a Catholic, be ordained a priest, and one day visit Assisi and many other haunts of St. Francis in Italy. I would also become the Pastor of a parish, our parish of Holy Faith, whose name comes from a Franciscan mission in Spanish Florida near present-day Gainesville. (See Parish History)

On my Catholic journey begun so many years ago, I took as my Patron Saint, St. John the Evangelist also associated with the Beloved Disciple in John’s Gospel (See John 13:23). Everyday I ask for St. John’s prayers and that I might become a beloved disciple of the Lord.

I, of course, came to also know and love Mary the Mother of God. At my ordination, whoever prepared the written program thought that my middle initial "M" stood for Michael. It actually stands for Morris, a family name of one of my great grandfathers. So I got named as John Michael Phillips and I decided I had been also given St. Michael the Archangel as an additional Guardian angel. I also came to love St. Benedict; I was taught in my first year of Seminary by the Benedictine monks of St. Meinrad, Indiana and did my further studies after ordination at St. John’s University and Benedictine Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota.

I could mention other saints, as well, that I have read, come to admire, and think of with devotion. Pope Benedict XVI has instructed us about having the saints as intimate friends:

"There are very dear people in the life of each one of us to whom we feel particularly close, some of whom are already in God's embrace, while others still share with us the journey through life: they are our parents, relatives and teachers; they are the people to whom we have done good or from whom we have received good; they are people on whom we know we can count.

"Yet, it is important also to have ‘traveling companions’ on the journey of our Christian life....I am also thinking of the Virgin Mary and the Saints. Everyone must have some Saint with whom he or she is on familiar terms, to feel close to with prayer and intercession but also to emulate. I would therefore like to ask you to become better acquainted with the Saints, starting with those you are called [named] after, by reading their life and their writings. You may rest assured that they will become good guides in order to love the Lord even more and will contribute effective help for your human and Christian development." (Pope Benedict, General Audience 8/25/10)

[For more on "traveling companions" on the Catholic Spiritual Journey read my reflections here]

As Catholics, along with the Orthodox Church, we have a glorious gift and heritage in the many saints we honor. They will pray for us and guide us with safe passage into the Kingdom of God, into the experience of his love!

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A Royal Anointing

I don’t often think about the Queen of England. My father’s ancestry was all English (the name "Phillips" originated in Wales). I was watching, however, some of the celebrations of her 60^th anniversary of coronation and I guess my ancestral bonds to the English throne were stirred. Here’s a rousing chorus of the British National Anthem, sung at Westminster Cathedral, on the Queen's 85th Birthday:

God Save the Queen!

So I was poking around Youtube to see more of the royal celebrations and watched some of the coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. I was particularly reminded of that part of the ceremony where the Queen is anointed with the Oil of Chrism.

We Catholics should know something about Chrism since we have been anointed with this oil several times ourselves. But first, here is some commentary on the use of Chrism in the Queen’s coronation:

"What distinguishes the English, and formerly the French, Russian and Scottish, monarchs is that they are consecrated with chrism at their coronations. At the heart of the coronation rite, preceding the crowning, lies the anointing...The Archbishop of Canterbury anoints the Sovereign on the hands, head and heart. The monarch is then vested in priestly robes; then follows the actual coronation and the conferral of the regalia – the sword, sceptres and orb.

"The anointing goes back to the reigns of the Anglo-Saxon kings when Ecgfrith, the son of King Offa of Mercia, was publically anointed in 787. The mystery of anointing and crowning creates a special person dedicated to God’s service, a person not untouchable or infallible, nor all-powerful or absolute, but sacred, consecrated...." (Citation; emphasis added)

Our anointing with Chrism occurred at our Baptism. The Chrism is always blessed by a Bishop and it signifies special consecration (dedication) by the power of the Holy Spirit. Like the English monarchs, our Baptism and the anointing with Chrism "creates a special person dedicated to God’s service."(Ibid.)

When the infant’s head is anointed at Baptism, the Anointing formula for Baptism says: "As Christ was anointed priest, prophet and king, so may you live always as a member of his holy people, sharing everlasting life."

The word Christ means "Anointed One." As Christians, we are also "anointed ones" in Christ and share his prophetic, royal priesthood:

"The baptized have become ‘living stones’ to be ‘built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood.’ (1 Peter 2:5) By Baptism they share in the priesthood of Christ, in his prophetic and royal mission. They are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that [they] may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [them] out of darkness into his marvelous light.’ (1 Peter 2:9) Baptism gives a share in the common priesthood of all believers." (Catechism #1268)

Chrism is used also at our Confirmation. The grace of Confirmation is a strengthening of our Baptism by the Holy Spirit. It is a deepening, so to speak, of our Baptismal Consecration. We need the Holy Spirit to help us in our vocation to live and witness to the Life of Christ and his Church as the love which saves the world.

I, and all ordained Priests, also receive an additional anointing with Chrism at our ordination. The newly ordained’s hands are anointed and the following exhortation is given to the priest by the Bishop:

"The Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit, empower, guard and preserve you, that you may sanctify the Christian people and offer sacrifice to God."

In the same commentary quoted above, I was particularly inspired to read this about Queen Elizabeth’s Anointing:

"The sacral nature of the English monarchy has bearing on the character of Queen Elizabeth II and her reign. For her the anointing was no mere formality to be got through in a long and arduous ceremony beamed to the world through the then novelty of television. Somebody once asked the Queen what was the most moving part of the Coronation: was it when the Archbishop put the crown on her head? She replied that it was not, it was the anointing that took her by surprise by taking her out of herself. Peace flooded her soul. She sees her life not as an accident of destiny but as a vocation given by God and this is manifested above all in her sense of duty and her clear-cut, if modestly expressed, faith. The anointing was a source of sacramental grace which separated and strengthened the Queen for her holy task. Her consecration manifested indelible results which, in a religious context that overflows in her work and life, are obvious to all who think in these terms. (Ibid.)

Queen Elizabeth II has exemplified the power of true royalty as the power to serve. As the above commentary highlights, this service has been expressed in "her sense of duty" and in her faith. May our consecration have the same Spirit-filled results. And God save the Queen!

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