bath & wells: topical thought

Let’s build something beautiful for God

During a few days in Barcelona I visited the great unfinished Cathedral Church of Sagrada Familia - the Sacred Family. It is the vision of the Catalonian architect, Antoni Gaudi. Begun in 1882 it is due for completion in twenty years or so. It is work in progress.

Inside the building today all is scaffolding and masons’ workshops - craftsmen using the many different types of stones to create a magnificent monument to the praise of God.

St. Peter writes about Christians being living stones. He says that Christ is building us into a spiritual temple. Peter has a vision of a world in which all humanity lives in harmony, despite our many differences.

One of the things that struck me most forcibly was the number of different types of stone being used in the construction of the Sagrada Familia. Each stone has a particular property. Some are sandy and soft, and used for scenes like the nativity and the passion of Christ, others are colourful and vulnerable and used to depict the saints while still others are valuable, like the marble from Iran, which is used to model the Dove of the Spirit, and the Cypress tree of peace.

Stone has three properties. It has colour and texture - each different, but in the whole contributing to colour and feel.

Stones also have the capacity to be resistant to the various structural pressures they come under.

Finally, stones are durable. Though each is not as strong as the other, there is something about them that enables a building to last for many centuries.

Gaudi observed: “Religious buildings essentially have to endure in the same way as the religion they house.”

Like the stones of the Sagrada Familia, all human beings, indeed all Christians, are different. Yet each has a place. Some are ornamental, easy to work with; others are vulnerable, yet giving the appearance of strength; others give evidence of durability; some are resistant to change, others able to absorb it. Each has its own colour, texture. Whatever, each contributes to the whole, and, by accepting the other, even when there is no agreement, we offer a beauty, an aesthetic if you like, that enables others to see something of Christ.

Gaudi spoke of the stones he used in his building as ‘evidence of the past, used in the present, and history for the future.’ What better description of Christians and their role in the world in bringing the grace and truth of Christ to this generation, and making him known.

Let us allow Changing Lives to build us into a spiritual temple.

Bishop Peter

Bath & Wells