The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-06-07
SERMON OF BISHOP LAWLER

from the material things around them
to the spiritual things beyond them,
from earth to heaven, from nature up
to natures God.
The Church rears great temples to
the Most High. Down through the
ages she has produced masterpieces
OF ecclesiastical architecture, monu-
ments of faith and of charity that i'm
press man with the Importance of re-
llglon and with the right idea of the
DIVINE Majesty. In her plan such
should be the character of the archi-
lecture. of house of God, such it's
| ornamentation, and such it's furnish
lngs as to cause one to feel and ex-
claim on entering it as Napoleon did
when he crossed the threshold of the
Cathedral of Chartres in France: "Oh,
now uncomfortable an atheist must
feel in house of worship like this"
e. The Catholic Church has
reason to be proud of the houses of
God she has erected in all the CEN
turies. They stand there on the track
| OF history as so many triumphs of her
active faith and deep devotion. So
grand are they that modern workman
ship can scarcely make feeble copies
| of them. Intellectual .pigmies and
they whose souls are warped by
bigotry may criticize her for what they
term a lack of economy and may sneer
at the Middle Ages-those ages of
faith that produced masterpieces in
all departments of noble achievement,
but all thoughtful and honest students
OF history know and admit that those
sacred buildings alone with their
wealth of artistic splendors placed the
Middle Ages far beyond us in all the
finer things of life. .'
1t is sometimes said that fine
churches belong to medieval times,
| to the days when feudal castles were
in vogue. To those who are governed
by utilitarian standards, who estimate
the values of things by the material
| profit derived from them, who consider
| this earth the terminus of all their
hopes, such remark sounds plaus-
| lble; but to those who are animated
by the truly Catholic spirit it is
thoughtless and materialistic. 1t is
| true that the days of feudal castles are
gone, but God, the Eternal One, re-
mains and His religion is of the pres
ent and of the future as we'll as of the
past. When did Christianity die out
and what has superseded it? When
did our Savior's presence depart from
the tabernacle and what has taken its
place? We have inherited glorious
temples of worship from the genera
| tions that have gone before us and
there is no valid reason why we
should not build in our new centers of
wealth and population churches as
nearly equal to them as our means
and the limitations of modern genius
| permit. We, who live in this land and
in this century, have as much right to
enjoy fine churches, hymns in stone,
| as the people of any land or any age.
The Rationale of Beautiful Churches.
1t is our belief in the real presence
of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist
which is the principal source of our
exalted idea of the beauty, dignity and
magnificence that become the house of
God. The Holy Eucharist is the great
treasure Of the Catholic Church. 1t
is the magnet that draws people to our
services in all moods, in all conditions,
in all kinds of weather. 1t has been
tsaid that the pomp and glitter of our
ritual are the things which attract, but
little they know of human nature who
lspeak thus. 1t is Jesus in the Holy
Eucharist who fills our churches with
devout worshippers. History tells how
true this is. Unsheathe the sword of
persecution, let it fash through our
sanctuaries, drive us from our
churches, hunt us down like animals,
and in caves and caverns we will
worship our Redeemer in the Holy
Eucharist with hearts as loving, with
posture as reverential, with audiences
as devotional as in the celebrated
churches of the world, just as the first
Christians did-just as our forefathers
did. a
Continued on page 81 t.