DIVINE PRESENCE

FLORENCE: MY CELESTIAL PALACE

robert r. lackney architect

Catholics feel that there something special about a Sacred Place.

Why do we feel this way about a garden, a tabernacle, a sanctuary?

When we look around the world or look into the past time we find that there are special places where people felt something different.

Some say there is sense of “presence”, of “holiness”, of an encounter with the “divine”. Others report that they were struck by a power, something miraculous, and the extraordinary.

So what is this?

People have for centuries built stones rings, temples, and cathedrals.

These holy places were built with orientation to the celestial rotations in the sky, the rising of the morning sun, and sacred geometry.

Notre Dame Cathedral, in Paris, was constructed as a gigantic sound chamber designed to capture the songs and melodies of the angels. Attending Mass in the cathedral feels like being inside of a huge guitar.

There is another thing as to why we build sacred places?

We build with “intention”.

There is the devotion within the people who built these churches, those who come to pray and sing, and to participate in all the ceremonies that have been celebrated.

I have wondered, and deeply humbled, as I recall all the people who have prayed here, funerals, Christmas’s, and 1st Communions over the past 100 years in our sanctuary.

The power of the holy place, the power of the structure and the power of human love combine to create divine presence that surrounds and saturates not only the building but those who come to worship.

Our sanctuary is imbued with sanctity by the congregation over time.

The Church is the most important place in the life of the Catholic.

The Church building is a place of privilege where dedicated people meet and experience Christ in the present moment.

For, me it is my Celestial Palace:

A place to experience the Light of Christ … Divine Grace.

Peace and Only Good Things

Deacon robert r. lackney, My 4^th Day Journal June 2012.

PS: Sacred space is the intersection point between our humanity and Christ’s divinity, where Heaven and Earth intersect, where Spirit and Flesh meet. Our sanctuary is the “jewel” that mirrors the mystery of Christ. Where the invisible is made visible.