sacred architecture: LATIN rite
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HOW SPACE CAN BE SACRED

Miracle of the Calais Immigrants

HOW HAVE SYMBOLS LEAD ME?

When faith, celebrated in the Liturgy in a special way, encounters art, it creates a profound harmony because each can and wishes to speak of God, making the Invisible visible.

Pope Benedict XVI

It Begins with God

God’s Revelation through Creation Is in Itself His Self-Revelation:
Through His creation, through its laws, God reveals Himself in its perfectness, in its wonders of physics. Go also reveals Himself in the inner reality of humankind, within our art and architecture.
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Through His word, within the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we are given our understanding of reality, our place in the grand scheme of things (Christian Anthropology). It is humanity’s attempt to go back to its origins:  to its Creator. And we intrinsically and constantly need to express this inner reality as a human race.

  • Architecture is an expression from humanity;
    • therefore, we must know ourselves well if we are to know our architectural expressions.

- SO, WHAT IS A HUMANITY ?

HUMANITY

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Imago Dei

Created in the image and likeness of God
Gen 1:27
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Beautiful Creature

In God's eyes, we are perfectly made, unique yet part of an intricate whole, functioning together towards one goal.
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Always Becoming

Hardwired to become more like God, “divinization” - to love and to create. 

Man has an intrinsic need to express himself.

The deeper he knows himself, the closer he is to the Imago Dei within. Humankind's creation also can go deeper – be more profound, it a way that speaks the Truth of the Gospel. The more others "hear" its gospel message, the more glorious this man-made creation is and the closer it is to God’s Image, which had began within: the divine spark of life of the Holy Spirit.

The creating/building itself is telling us that there is great meaning in the physical.

The human body is physical. Therefore, even the body and its actions can be profound. 
Our experience of the physical reality has the sole purpose of drawing us towards the beyond, towards the celestial, towards the sacred. We see this in God's creation of Adam and Eve, in His providence within human history. Every experience of man is divinely designed towards the Sacred. Additionally, the human senses too were designed to aid this experience.
However, Free Will allows us to dismiss the sacred.

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  • Home
    • Sacredness
    • Experiencing Sanctuary
  • Ancient/Classical
    • Judaean Architecture
    • Ancient Rome to Gothic
    • Renaissance to Art Nouveau
  • Industrial Age
  • Modernity
  • Contact