Our Beautiful New Church

Last year, I wrote about how excited I was for the construction of our new parish church. Now, I am very happy that the construction of the church has been finished and the new church is as beautiful as I expected it to be.

As I attended Mass for the first time in the finished church, the profuse sacred visual stimuli enthralled me. The interior of the church is richly and tastefully decorated with a gold-leafed altar; statues of Christ, Our Lady, the Apostles, and other saints surround the church, as well do stained glass depictions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and St. Pierre de la Columbiere, events from the life of Christ, the mysteries of the Rosary, the Eight Beatitudes, the Twelve Promises of the Sacred Heart, and other theological themes.

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But the best thing about the new church is that it is full of light – light streaming through the stained-glass windows, light shining on the gold leafing of the altar, light illuminating the white and pale-pink painted walls, light reflecting on the shiny marble floor.

 

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In the Bible, the concept of light frequently appears. The Bible mentions light as the first thing created, the star that led the Magi to Bethlehem, Christ as the light of the world…Light is a symbol of the presence and the glory of God. As Dante wrote in the opening lines of the Paradiso:

The glory of the One who moves all things
Permeates the universe and glows
In one part more and in another less. (Paradiso, Canto I, Lines 1-3.)

Confronted with such light, all that one can do is contemplate, pray, and remind oneself that such light is a puny version of what awaits in Heaven. Then, one ends prayer strengthened by such beauty, ready to face the challenges of living one’s faith in a world full of darkness.

Bringing beauty to the world is not the least of the Catholic Church’s contributions to civilization. The human being cannot live on bread alone; the human being craves beauty. The beauty that the Catholic Church brings to the world feeds the souls of everyone, including unbelievers who, even in their unbelief, yearn to perceive wholeness, harmony, and light. The Church’s tradition of bringing beauty to the world must be preserved.

For this, it is not enough to have interminable online debates on theories of liturgical art and architecture, or to demand that priests be trained in art appreciation. Our beautiful parish church was not the project of our parish priest alone- it was the project of the whole community. The architects, interior designers, and the construction workers were laypersons. The entire neighborhood – both the wealthy and the less wealthy – donated money.

For the building of our new church was an outpouring of everyone’s desire to do something for God, big or small. The result was something beautiful, which belongs not just to us. We are glad to share our new church with anyone who wants to get closer to God by admiring its beauty – especially its light.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Muntinlupa, Metro Manila, Philippines still welcomes donations to help defray the costs of constructing the church. For information on how to help, please contact sacredheart.muntinlupa@gmail.com or banalnapusonihesus@yahoo.com

Cristina Montes

Cristina Montes

Cristina Montes, from the Philippines, is a lawyer, writer, amateur astronomer, a gardening enthusiast, a voracious reader, a karate brown belter, an avid traveler, and a lover of birds, fish, rabbits, and horses. She is a die-hard Lord of the Rings fan who reads the entire trilogy once a year. She is the eldest daughter in a large, happy Catholic family.

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