Back to morning mass today for the first time in ten days. And why not, when you worship in a church as beautiful as St. Mary Star of the Sea in Beverly?I know there are many who look at the Catholic Church as wealthy and its real estate as a tragic waste of resources. Couldn't all the money that went into building this church (100 years ago) and thousands of others have been better used to feed the poor?
Consider that each pane of stained glass, each star painted in gold leaf on the wall behind the altar was put there not to enrich some prelate but to praise God. An antiphon from morning prayer today asks us to consider praise as the proper sacrifice to God. By praising God in a church as beautiful as this, I momentarily disconnect from my selfishness and especially from my belief that I made myself, I control my life, I am in charge. For a few moments, I give up, I sacrifice this mistaken sense of myself as enlightened, powerful, right. And I can come into a state in which I am receptive to God's will and to the true beauty and goodness of His creation. The poor in me, that quiet kernel of goodness in me and in you, my brother and sister, is fed.
Blessed are the poor who can worship in a church as beautiful as this.
[Thanks again to Adam DesRosiers for his beautiful photograph. Adam's wife Jenn gave birth to their first child, Julian DesRosiers, last Thursday. Mother and son are doing fine, and Adam was last seen skipping down the street with a dazed look on his face.]
