The other night, our young son, who is not yet two years old was laughing and running around the house with reckless abandon and not a care in the world. As usual, he was happy and joyous about the smallest of things. My wife commented, “Why can’t we all remain this way forever?” I replied that Jesus said if we wanted to get to heaven, we had to be like our son. Sadly, our world can make us negative, brooding, and quite full of ourselves. There is a remedy to that, and it was provided by Jesus, the Apostles, and the centuries of saints who followed; our Catholic faith.
Our Catholic faith is beautiful in many ways; the sacredness of the Mass, the beauty of ancient architecture, along with the simplicity of helping those who could never repay us in this world. Sadly, some years ago, a few ugly, architecturally uninspiring churches came to be, though that era has largely passed. Yet we are still living with the aftermath of those who tinkered with holiness.
Occasionally, I will hear some say “Why do we spend so much money on beautiful churches when we have so many poor among us.” My answer is always, “Ask the poor. They love beautiful churches.” I personally found this out while visiting the interior of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico with my wife a few years ago. I have always had an affinity for the Mexican people. They have suffered much at the hands of Socialist tyrants who whitewashed their beautiful churches in the early 20th century and made many martyrs, including that of Father (Blessed) Miguel Pro, SJ, among many others.
Incidentally, a movie called Cristiada will soon be released about Blessed Miguel and the Mexican Martyrs. It will star Peter O’Toole, Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria, Rueben Blades, and Eduardo Verastegui, who was kind enough to open his home to me a couple of years ago for an interview and a preview of the pro-life movie Bella. Cristiada will hopefully show the depths to which some will go to destroy the beauty of our Catholic faith. The evil one hates the beauty of the Mass and the beautiful churches that house the Blessed Sacrament. We should never forget this.
Occasionally, we hear those who left the Catholic Church poke fun at the Mass and our sacred rituals. They make comments such as, “I left the Church because I like the hip megachurch down the street. They make church fun.” Sometimes, even Catholics make fun of fellow Catholics who wish to attend the Latin Mass, which is increasing in popularity because of Pope Benedict XVI Summorum Pontificum. Why would anyone make fun of those who want to take part in the Church’s beautiful liturgical history?
For those who walk away from the Catholic Church and mock us while leaving, it might be wise for us to remind them of the everlasting punishment promised by Jesus and St Paul to those who reject the Eucharist (John 6:22-69 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-30).
Our Catholic Faith’s beauty has attracted many. Dorothy Day, who started the Catholic Worker movement, credits her conversion from her Socialist and libertine ways to Catholicism in part to the sacred beauty of the various Catholic churches she saw while visiting New Orleans. A more recent example is that of Father Dwight Longenecker, the only graduate of the last admittedly anti-Catholic fundamentalist college, Bob Jones University, to become a Catholic priest.
Father Longenecker’s post-college transformation began while in Paris, where he was struck by the beauty of its Catholic churches. His amazing metamorphosis continued while he visited larger churches and small-town shrines which dot the European landscape. Let us be like the children Christ told us to be. Our ancient ancestors, who often could not read and write, were awe struck by the beauty which they saw contained within their churches. Let us continue in their footsteps and embrace the value of our Catholic sacredness by showing others the beauty of Christ’s message concerning His love and truth, which can be seen in our art, architecture, and sacred liturgy.