Renovation & Reinvigoration

The concept of renovating a parish's Sacred Space has been brought up many time here at the blog. The concept is simple: take a bland, boring, space -- your typical modern parish and with simple and inexpensive updates, make a Holy, reverent, and Sacred space. The point is to transform a church building from a church into a parish. It calls to mind the old saying: "When does a house become a home?"

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Over the past few weeks, the New Liturgical Movement, a favorite website of ours, has been posting real life examples of such transformations. The results are stunning. Some obviously are the result of a little more capital then others, but in general we are talking fairly cosmetic changes, and not really structural. In other words, we are talking about adding to the look and not changing an auditorium style building into a cruciform one, for example.

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What this does for a parish is that it reinvigorates it. It takes the "old" and sheds it, while implanting the new into the heart and soul of each parishioner at the parish. [Well, I guess except for those SOV-II hold outs hoping for Pope McBrien.] It gives new vitality to their worship. This isn't because external and symbolic things are somehow crucial or even necessary to the worship of the faithful, but because we are beings of sense and spirituality, and the sensory 'speak' to our inner core, our soul if you will, and enliven it with thought and emotion.

I feel as if I harp on this enough in my posts regarding Sacred Space, so I will not repeat my past missives. What I will say is that many parishes are in need of many things few are are crucial as a renovation and reinvigoration of their Sacred Space. And again, this isn't because it is somehow necessary in a theological sense, but because the people are often in need in a spiritual sense.

Here are some of the sneak-peek examples:


St. John the Baptist -- Tryon, NC

Before...

...After

St. James Cathedral -- Orlando, FL

Before...

...After

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