Returning to God Through the Beauty of the Church

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Despair draped my soul on Holy Thursday. Although it was the beginning of the Easter Triduum, when we Catholics ponder the death of Christ, the gloom was uninvited and I could not shake its gray cloud. Much of it had to do, I suspect, with the contrast between the secular and religious worlds in which I live: In the one, there was the threat of the United States going once again to war, while at the same time, our Church was re-enacting the last meal of an innocent man who was soon to be executed, and Pope Francis was saying that he wanted to imitate that man, so he washed the feet of 12 prisoners and declared that this gesture is meant to sow love.

I live in both worlds, the secular and the religious, and the contrast was so great that it tore my soul. I do not want our country to become involved in yet another war, and not just because two of my nephews are of the age to be drafted. Nor is my objection primarily based on our Church’s position that war is a great evil. No, I fear war because I have seen what it does to people and to nations: I have known men who fought in Vietnam, and younger men who went to combat in the Middle East, and their stories of carnage and sacrifice make me weep. As for the country – I lived in South Korea for a year, and even three decades after the conflict that divided that peninsula the scars were evident in the psyche of the people as well as the landscape.

As it was the beginning of the Triduum, I took my misery into the cathedral to await the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. I meant to pray, but the sunlight streaming through the stained glass window struck the gilt of an angel across the room, and the resulting golden glow caused me to marvel at the beauty of our church. I confess that, until I had to get to work by taping Bishop Solis’ homily and photographing the Rite of the Washing of the Feet, I was more moved by the light playing over the exquisite interior of the cathedral than by the liturgy.

Then the Mass ended and the lights were dimmed so that only the tabernacle was lit. From the back of the church the mural of the crucified Christ behind the altar gleamed not only on the wall but through the reflection on the polished wooden floor. The attached photo does no justice to this glorious sight. I stood enchanted by the light and shadow and silence, then the Men of the Cathedral Choir chanted Compline and the music resonated so deeply in my soul that I felt the gray clouds of gloom shift and soften. With a final “amen,” Compline ended. The men filed out and once again silence fell. For long moments I simply stood in awe of the beauty I had seen and heard.

I returned again on Good Friday, when the choir once more raised glorious voices, first in Robledo’s “Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John,” then in the choral meditation after the liturgy. Somewhere in the midst of all this, the beauty of our church – not just its architecture but its music – dispersed the gray cloud in my soul and planted a seed of hope and made me think it might grow.

I acknowledge that I am at fault for failing to appreciate the liturgy of the Mass during those two holy days. My defense is that the meaning of the words and ritual could not penetrate my gloom. It was as the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar said, that without beauty there is no truth or goodness; until my eyes and ears were opened to the beauty, I could not pray.

Our Church offers so much beauty! The history of religious art and architecture and music stretches back through the centuries, but there are also the lives of the saints, and literature, and the different devotions. If for some reason your soul has grown cold to the liturgy, all of these are ways to find communion. Open yourself to them, and they will lead you to prayer, and that will return you to God.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic.