Throughout history, Church Architecture has played a great role in how Catholics worship and actively participate in the liturgy. Church Architecture influenced actual participation during the Liturgical Movement in that it guided reformation emotionally using visual images and objects. The Real Presence is represented throughout the beautiful details put into the doors, walls, columns, pews, altar, and windows of a church. Members of the Church are able to live a life in Christ, learning from the architectural components of the church building. The significance of the Real Presence can be found in a church’s architectural symbols and images, structural elements, and Catholic history.
Architectural symbols and images provide a material representation …show more content…
All throughout Catholic history, people have learned to see the word “church” as both the people and the building. As Catholicism evolved, its architecture has reflected its meaning of being a Catholic. It all began in its Jewish roots of Judaism. A synagogue was where people met to talk of the teaching of God, while a temple became a place of sacrifice. The present church is now both a synagogue and a temple. Members of the Church hear the Word of God and offer a sacrifice. McNamara touches on an impactful point of Old Testament architecture, “Understand the meaning of the temple instructs us how to build churches” (48). In stating so, he claims that the buildings in the Old Testament perfect those in the New Testament, as the proper structure and meaning is added to the beauty of the building. Even in the Old Testament, the significance of building components symbolized bigger meanings towards the presence of God, “Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. Then he arose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel” (Ex. 24:4). To understand the Real Presence, Catholics must rediscover what true beauty is: “the expression in material form of the innermost heart of the very identity of its being” (2). Catholics have been learning what Heaven and life in Christ is truly like as church buildings reveal noble beauty, worth, and becoming of the Real
Architectural symbols and images provide a material representation …show more content…
All throughout Catholic history, people have learned to see the word “church” as both the people and the building. As Catholicism evolved, its architecture has reflected its meaning of being a Catholic. It all began in its Jewish roots of Judaism. A synagogue was where people met to talk of the teaching of God, while a temple became a place of sacrifice. The present church is now both a synagogue and a temple. Members of the Church hear the Word of God and offer a sacrifice. McNamara touches on an impactful point of Old Testament architecture, “Understand the meaning of the temple instructs us how to build churches” (48). In stating so, he claims that the buildings in the Old Testament perfect those in the New Testament, as the proper structure and meaning is added to the beauty of the building. Even in the Old Testament, the significance of building components symbolized bigger meanings towards the presence of God, “Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. Then he arose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel” (Ex. 24:4). To understand the Real Presence, Catholics must rediscover what true beauty is: “the expression in material form of the innermost heart of the very identity of its being” (2). Catholics have been learning what Heaven and life in Christ is truly like as church buildings reveal noble beauty, worth, and becoming of the Real