Why Catholics Should Build Beautiful Churches

Beauty is attractive. It draws you in. It is an experience. I know a young priest who was raised a Baptist and went into a beautiful Catholic Church when he was fifteen years old. He immediately knelt and knew he was not only going to be a Catholic, but that he was supposed to be a Catholic priest. Beauty in a Catholic Church is something 'crazy' for God in a brutal utilitarian age. But that beauty speaks of the attraction of God himself and it helps to draw us into his presence.

P>GREENVILLE, SC (Standing on my Head) - Why should Catholics build beautiful churches? First, because beauty is eternal and the Catholic faith is ever ancient and ever new. God's love is eternal and the Catholic faith will last until the end of time.

Something that is beautiful improves with age, and so with the Catholic faith, and therefore a beautiful Catholic church speaks of the antiquity and permanence of the faith it proclaims.

Secondly Beauty is attractive. It draws you in. It is an experience. I know a young priest who was raised a Baptist and went into a beautiful Catholic Church when he was fifteen years old. He immediately knelt and knew he was not only going to be a Catholic, but that he was supposed to be a Catholic priest.

Beauty in a Catholic Church is something 'crazy' for God in a brutal utilitarian age. But that beauty speaks of the attraction of God himself and it helps to draw us into his presence.

Thirdly, Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty. That's all you need to know. We comprehend verbal expressions of Truth with our mind, but we apprehend beauty with our heart.

The heart has reasons that the mind knows nothing of, and it is beauty which unlocks the secret chambers of the heart. Beauty is the language of worship.

Beauty is the language of the soul, and how can our religion penetrate to the  heart of our soul unless it is beautiful? How can the liturgy be celebrated beautifully in a church that is harsh, utilitarian, nasty and cheap?

I hope if you like what you see in the beautiful design of our church, that you will get excited with us and do what you can to help us build this church. One thing you can do is to help give the project publicity.

Talk it up and help us do something beautiful for God. Go here to visit the parish website dedicated to the new church. Learn more about it and pass it on.
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Fr Dwight Longenecker is parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish and Chaplain to St Joseph's Catholic School in Greenville, South Carolina. Read his blog and connect to his website at www.dwightlongenecker.com  

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Fr. Dwight Longenecker is Parish Priest of Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, South Carolina. A former Evangelical, he studied at Oxford and was ordained as an Anglican priest in England. He was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in 1995 and ten years later, ordained a Roman Catholic Priest.He is a prolific writer, sought after speaker and dedicated blogger. Connect to his website and blog at dwightlongenecker.com