Posted on 10/13/2014 6:44:20 AM PDT by marshmallow
Some time ago, as part of the media buzz surrounding the purchase of the Crystal Cathedral, the Catholic Diocese of Orange opened the floor to online suggestions as to what the new church should be named. I offered that it should be titled the Cathedral of the Transfiguration; after all, the feast of the Transfiguration is traditionally the patronal festival for churches dedicated to Our Lord, and its suggestions of illumination, splendor, and above all, a glimpse of Heaven afforded through physical change, seemed perfectly suited to the project, even not without a bit of reverent wit. The name chosen, of course, was the blunter Christ Cathedral, direct but falling rather oddly on the ear--the Anglophile in me senses it is missing a Church in between Christ and Cathedral--and lacking the elusive specificity of the incandescent mystery of Mount Tabor.
One name conjures up Moses and Elijah, and a foolish, sprawling Peter, the painter Raphael, the siege of Belgrade and Calixtus III; an entire stained glass window filled with little colored scenes, all purple and scarlet, ranged round an explosive and nuclear bloom of gold and white. The visual image presented by Christ Cathedral, by comparison, seems rather transparent, and oddly incomplete: not particularly specific, and universal only in its vagueness. I couldn't help returning to this contrast when I began to review the designs for the renovated church by Johnson Fain and Ross Clementi Hale Studios released at the end of last month. One longs for a bit of color, or even a speck of good Christian dirt in the glacial interior.
As I commented in an article written for The Living Church some years ago (which, I understand, the renovation committee read with great interest), the project of Catholicizing the Crystal Cathedral......
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What a HUGE waste of space and materials. It’s merely “pretty.”
You speak “Truth in Jest.” Wife and I visited in the early 80s and as you suggest, we spent the whole service looking around and gawking. Not what we were supposed to do in church, but on the other hand that is why we went.
Similarly we visited the National Cathedral. Tried to have a worshipful experience until the priest gave the most blantant social gospel I’ve ever heard in person. As the youngun’s say “I threw up in my mouth.”
Looks like a shrine to man and not to God.
It looks like a big ostentatious waste of space for no apparent reason and a great echo chamber that will cost a fortune in energy bills, so I’d suggest they name it after “St. Algore”, the Patron Saint of Hot Air.
Cement and glass doesn’t seem opulent to me.
This might be opulent: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_u7ryccJN3ZQ/S7QZmxGitcI/AAAAAAAACL4/oIcJWWc-vX8/s1600/interior.jpg
Opulent is fine with me. I would rather be like the woman with the alabaster jar than Judas.
“Looks like a shrine to man and not to God.”
That depends on what happens inside it. Since the sacrifice re-presented there will be of Christ to His Father it will be a shrine of and to God and not man. Still, they could have made it look better. If you’re going to have a church made with lots of glass, make it count: http://netdost.com/profiles/blogs/the-most-beautiful-stained-glass-churches-in-the-world
What I take comfort in is the closeness of the Lord in quiet places that aren't busy with technology. That can be in my backyard or the sanctuary of my church at times.
The Christians in the middle east aren't willing to die because glitz. But it is the real presence of the Holy Spirit in them as promised that sustains them. Ok, end of sermonette.
Now the sect calls its new house of worship the Shepherd's Grove--another odd name, since shepherds are associated with pastures or ranges, not groves.
It would be nice if they could reinstitute the Glory of Christmas and the Glory of Easter.
We always enjoyed going to those at the Crystal Cathedral.
the Catholic Diocese of Orange opened the floor to online suggestions as to what the new church should be named.
How about “Our Lady of Perpetual Windex”?
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