Angelus News | July 29, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 15

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
What’s in a building?
After the Exodus, as Israel sojourned
in the desert, God gave
Moses “the pattern of the tabernacle,
and of all its furniture” (Exodus
25:9). And so Moses commanded the
construction of this portable sanctuary
of God’s presence among his chosen
people. Centuries later, in Jerusalem,
God gave David “the plan of the vestibule
of the temple, and of its houses,
its treasuries, its upper rooms, and its
inner chambers, and of the room for
the mercy seat” (1 Chronicles 28:11).
God gave Israel’s kings the right to call
that Temple “the house of the Lord” (1
Chronicles 28:20–21).
The early Christians saw both the
tabernacle and temple as biblical
“types” foreshadowing the Christian
Church. They were earthly sanctuaries
that would find their fulfillment in the
worship of heaven and earth that we
find detailed in the New Testament
books of Hebrews and Revelation (see
Hebrews 8–10 and Revelations 11:19).
The Church at worship included what
Catholics traditionally call the Church
Militant, the Church Triumphant,
and the Church Suffering — the great
cloud of witnesses — the communion
of the Church on earth, in heaven, and
in purgatory.
Most of this was invisible to the eye.
It was made known, however, through
the preaching of the Fathers, especially
those we know as “mystagogues”:
Ambrose, Cyril of Jerusalem, John
Chrysostom, Augustine, and Maximus.
Mystagogy is guidance in the “mysteries,”
in things hidden since the foundation
of the world. The mystagogue
guided his congregation, especially
new converts, through the external, material
appearances to grasp the unseen
reality that is interior, spiritual, hidden,
“The Church Triumphant,” by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1617-1682, Spanish. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
and divine. Thus he could demonstrate
that the liturgical and sacramental signs
have been foreshadowed in both the
Old and New Testaments. He could
trace their development from shadow
(in the Old) to image (in the New) to
reality (in heaven).
Ancient mystagogy was intensely
concerned not only with rite and
gesture, but with architecture as well.
The Apostolic Constitutions (fourth
century) include a lovely symbolic interpretation
of the church building as a
ship sailing heavenward. It instructs the
bishop: “You call an assembly of the
Church as one who is commander of
a great ship. Appoint the assemblies to
be made with all possible skill, charging
the deacons as mariners to prepare
places for the brethren as for passengers,
with all due care and decency.
And first, let the building be long, with
its head to the east, with its vestries on
both sides at the east end, and so it will
be like a ship. In the middle let the
bishop’s throne be placed, and on each
side of him let the priests sit down;
and let the deacons stand near at hand
… for they are like the mariners and
managers of the ship.”
You see, there’s a divine sense to the
layout of a Catholic Church. But somehow
such ideas got lost in the shuffle
of the ages — so utterly lost that, in our
own age, the popes have issued urgent
calls for their recovery. Pope Benedict
XVI pleaded for a “mystagogical catechesis
… concerned with presenting
the meaning of the signs.”
To understand a church requires a
cultivated interior life. What do you
know about the way your parish church
is built? What are you doing to learn
more?
32 • ANGELUS • July 29, 2022