Beautiful Churches as a Catalyst for Vocations

St. Agnes Church, St. Paul, MN

Father Longenecker has posted a very interesting article on his blog Standing on My Head about whether beautiful churches produce vocations. As someone very much in favor of instilling beauty in all areas of our faith, I am in agreement with much of what he says. He puts the questions as thus:

Can a beautiful church produce vocations to the priesthood? Perhaps we should reverse the question and say, "Does an ugly church discourage priestly vocations?" To answer the question we must think through, and come up with a theory of aesthetics and think through the reasons for both ugly churches and beautiful churches. Once we understand the mentality behind both we will be able to answer the question of whether a beautiful church can help produce new vocations to the priesthood.

Now, I as I said I agree with most of what he says here, but with a caveat. Churches exist beyond the boundaries of time in which they are built and the members of a parish sometimes fluctuate to a point where the church and its parishioners no longer match. So I do understand that there can be cases where Fr. L's arguments don't ring true, I get that. This is an argument though towards what we see in modern places, in newer parishes where new buildings and new renovations have occurred.

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the correlation of internal to external

St. Josapht's, Detroit, MI

What we do have to consider though is how this link between external expression and internal belief actually correlate to one another. Fr. L talks about the how the way we build, decorate, and arrange our churches are in direct correlation to our internal belief, and I would agree. There is a saying in coaching that says, "You play like you practice." The meaning is of course that the effort we give in practice is the same amount we can ultimately give come game time, similarly when we build and decorate our churches what we are doing is physically and externally displaying our beliefs, theology, and internal concept of the Faith.

Fr. L. explains:

We then have to ask what these churches say about the faith, for the church building is a sacramental. It states what we believe. A building, whether we like it or not, is a statement of our values, our faith and our world view. A cheap building with no inner integrity of beauty--a cheap building that is 'dressed up' to look Catholic or 'pretty' with decorations is superficial and shallow and only skin deep....just like our faith too often I'm afraid! In our superficial, face lift world we build churches that are superficial where the 'beauty' is really on 'pretty' and skin deep.

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the utilitarian aesthetic

St. Joseph's, Capitol Hill, D.C.

I have seen this time and time again. As new churches go up in suburban America and growing population areas, we see an increase in auditorium style buildings that are cheaply built on the outside and fit what can only be described as an utilitarian aesthetic. The function is supreme to form, and form is often sacrificed for function, money, space, utility, and just about every other consideration. This has an affect not only on our interiorly but it also affects the Mass and Sacred functions that happen within. It is part of the cycle of belief matching form and form expressing belief, they are in essence a life cycle – a theological eco-system if you will but one that doesn't evolve to a higher ability, but one that dives towards entropy and where survival goes to the least fit, or most generic.

What about the liturgy that goes on in such buildings? Too often it also is superficial, sweet and comfortable and skin deep. Does such liturgy and do such buildings inspire vocations? Do they say to our young people, "Look what sacrifices we have made to worship God?" Do they say, "We have given all to build something beautiful for God"? or do they actually say, "It's okay to give God second best. It's okay to give him what's left over."? Do they come out of the building yawning and wondering what next for Sunday or do they come out full of awe and thankfulness for the beautiful worship of God?

Mariahilferkirche, Vienna Austria

Of course a beautiful church is not a panacea. It isn't a magic bean that creates a beanstalk to vocation-Heaven. It also isn't a prescription for the ills of modernity that plague our disbelief in the Faith, but it sure is a start.

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inspiration 'to' the Faith

There will be those that argue the external and institutional aspects of our Faith don't matter because we need to start at belief, without it nothing else matters. What I am arguing isn't that that isn't 90% right, but that we are creatures of holistic thought. We don't compartmentalize different things. The second we take our children to church they are being subconsciously affected whether we believe they are are or not. We are sensory creatures, we learn, believe, and internalize thing through all of our senses and so to deny certain ones over others is not only foolish, but arrogant.

So then, if we can inspire people in the Faith, then it would follow that we can inspire people to the Faith, in terms of vocations. It would make sense that a person inspired by the house of God, in the form of a Church, would be inspired to devote their life – a gift from God, back to God in the form of Ordination or obedience of a religious order. There is great sacrifice in both, a care and concern for what occurs in the present and in the future. In the past churches were constructed with generation upon generation in mind. While many modernists attempt to forge a legacy out of themselves instead, out of their own cult of personality, there is little hope of anything lasting into the future in that.

A church and a religious vocation are a legacy for sure, but built of something much studier – not that of a person but built out of the Grace of God.

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There is an old saying, Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi – We pray what we believe. Well, I would say the same  goes for building and decorating churches - We build, what we believe.

Sweetest Heart of Mary, Detroit, MI

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