Reclaiming The Sanctuary

There are new churches designed by tradition-minded architects that capture the true, the good and the beautiful. Many Catholic churches of a contemporary design, however, lack a sense of the holy in their design. They hardly evoke the thought that Almighty God is worshipped therein, and that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is Present - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity - in the tabernacle. Which is to say, God is there! And! - God Present, might it be appropriate to acknowledge the sanctuary as the heart of the universe? The centre of time? The soul of eternity? The hope of Christians? Though there are many God inhabited sanctuaries, they are all one because God is One. God is not divided.

The one Sacrifice of Calvary is manifest throughout time. The Mass unites the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection all-in-one. The Mass is not a repetition, but an entering into the Paschal Mystery.

As eternal, the Mass requires the absolute best of what we have and are. Some of its elements cannot change based upon the whims of contemporary culture because it supersedes any one given time, or place in re-presenting the fact that death has no more power over those nourished by it. We must always hear the tales of God’s intervention in history recorded in history and we must always repeat Christ’s actions. They are, after all, timeless. - Father Bryan Babick, SL.L.

Is it any wonder that, because church designs resemble shopping malls or lecture halls, many Catholics attach little importance to the call to holiness?

“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us,” mused Winston Churchill in 1943 while considering the repair of the bomb-ravaged House of Commons.

More than 70 years on, he would doubtless be pleased to learn that neuroscientists and psychologists have found plenty of evidence to back him up.

We now know, for example, that buildings and cities can affect our mood and well-being, and that specialised cells in the hippocampal region of our brains are attuned to the geometry and arrangement of the spaces we inhabit. - BBC

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170605-the-psychology-behind-your-citys-design

Viewed through the lens of that last paragraph, many if not most church contemporary church designs are likely to induce despair and strokes in parishioners.

To know what is missing is to identify a pathway toward a recovery of the dignity of the sanctuary and an authentic personal holiness.

The Sanctuary

1. The sanctuary is the sacred place within a church where religious ceremonies are performed. It is the area where the altar is located, where the word of God is proclaimed, and where the priest, deacon, and other ministers carry out their duties [1].
2. The sanctuary should be suitably marked off from the rest of the church, either by being elevated or by having a particular structure and ornamentation [1].
3. It should be large enough to allow for the proper celebration of the Eucharist and to be easily seen by the faithful [1].
4. In addition to the altar, the sanctuary may also contain other privileged places such as the tabernacle, the aumbry (the place where the sacred Chrism and other holy oils are kept), the chair of the bishop or priest, and the ambo [2].
5. The sanctuary is considered the most sacred area within the church and is separated from the nave by a veil, gate, or iconostasis in the Eastern Churches [3].
6. Only those entrusted with the sacred ministry are allowed to enter the sanctuary to perform the sacred acts [3].
7. The movements and processions within the church serve to direct the faithful towards the altar, which is the focal point of the sanctuary [3].
8. The sanctuary is a symbol of the Church and is a place where the Eucharist is celebrated and Christ is truly present in the tabernacle [4].
9. It is a sacred space that represents the heavenly Jerusalem and is a place of prayer and worship for the Church [4].
10. Apart from the church, there are also other sacred places, such as sanctuaries, homes, and places of work, that can facilitate the expression of popular piety and the manifestation of faith [5].

References

1. GIRM 295
2. Compendium of the CCC 246
3. Instruction for Applying the Liturgical Prescriptions of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches 104
4. Compendium of the CCC 245
5. Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines 19

Ritual Notes: A Comprehensive Guide to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Book of Common Prayer of the English Church, 11th Edition (1964), pp.17-18, by E.C.R. Lamburn.

[Ritual Notes captures important aspects of the English Patrimony that are preserved in the Ordinariates established by the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.]

The sanctuary is that space, including the altar steps and the pavement below them, which immediately surrounds the altar; in fact, that space which is within the altar rails. It is to be regarded as the most sacred part of the church; and reverence demands that those having duties within it should wear the cassock, and, at service-time, the surplice also. But this is, perhaps naturally, not enforced in the case of cleaners.

The pavement of the sanctuary should be a plane about 6 feet or more wide, not broken by steps, and covered with a suitable carpet up to the base of the steps. Green is the correct colour for altar carpets, but other colours may be used in carpets reserved for use on festivals; at solemn requiems the foot-pace is laid with a purple or black rug, the other steps being left bare. Care should be taken that carpets containing designs that are profane or unsuitable in character are not employed; and sacred symbols also should be avoided as it is unseemly to tread such emblems under foot. Actions taking place on the pavement, as opposed to the steps, are often referred to as being performed in plano.

The seats for the sacred ministers of Mass are on the south side of the sanctuary, and are known as the sedilia. They may be structural, i.e. let into the wall, but in this case they must make provision for all three ministers; such seats are, however, often cramped and liable to crease and injure the backs of the vestments. A better plan, therefore, is to have a bench about 7 feet long, covered at the time of Mass in green (purple on penitential days); such a bench is called in Latin scamnum. When Mass is celebrated without assistant ministers, a single seat (sedile) is often alone provided; the use of domestic chairs is prohibited.

The “bishop’s chair” is not a necessary furnishing of the sanctuary, and ought not to be a permanent feature. A temporary “throne” is erected on the occasion of a visit from the bishop of the diocese; at the visits of other bishops a throne is not used, but only a suitable chair, which should properly be outside the sanctuary; only if there is no room elsewhere do bishops other than the bishop of the diocese sit at the gospel side of the sanctuary.

Many ceremonialists suggest that the sacristy should be placed as near to the high altar as may be possible: others, pointing to the old Roman basilicas, suggest that a more suitable place would be at some distance from the altar, so that there can be a real procession to the altar at the opening of solemn Mass. It is desirable that access to the sacristy from the nave should be possible without going into the sanctuary—and, better still, without going into the chancel either.

Sanctuary - Catholic Encyclopedia/New Advent

The space in the church for the high altar and the clergy. It is variously designated apsis or concha (from the shell-like, hemispherical dome), and since the Middle Ages especially it has been called "choir", from the choir of singers who are here stationed. Other names are presbyterium, concessus chori, tribuna or tribunal, hagion, hasyton, sanctum, sanctuarium.

[...]

The Renaissance to a great extent restored to the sanctuary its original form. In the effort to increase the middle nave as much as possible, Renaissance architecture in many cases neglected the side naves or limited them to the narrowest aisles. The free approach to the sanctuary from all sides thus lost its justification. The sanctuary necessarily received a great breadth, but lost its earlier depth. In its preference for bright and airy spaces, the Renaissance also abandoned the method of separating the sanctuary from the rest of the church by means of a screen; at a subsequent period, the latter was replaced by the low Communion bench. Thus a person entering the church through the main door commanded a free view of the sanctuary, which, especially in Italy, was gloriously decorated with marble incrustations. As the sunlight, entering unchecked through the cupola covering the intersection, brightly illuminated the edifice, the effect was entirely different from that awakened by the Romanesque and Gothic sanctuaries. In the medieval church the sanctuary was shut off from the congregation and was as inaccessible as the Holy of Holies in the Temple of the Old Testament; the sanctuary of the Renaissance church stands out before us in a brilliance of light like Mount Tabor, but without blinding our gaze. We believe that we are nearer the Deity, our hearts are filled with joyous sentiments, so that we might cry out with the Apostle Peter "It is good for us to be here". In the medieval church, on the other hand, we are penetrated with a mysterious awe and like Moses feel urged to take off our shoes, for this is a holy place.

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For those among us not ready to embrace a conversion to beautiful architecture that embodies the divine Catholic Faith, we must continue to invite them into an encounter with the saving wisdom of the Church that guides us into a deeper appreciation of the nature of the house of God. Just as Churchill acknowledged the influence of the houses we inhabit, we must strive to shape our sanctuaries in ways that embody the transcendent- the True, the Good and the Beautiful. Church architecture is both poetry and prose. Poetic, as in the wisdom of the Psalms, the glory of God, the sublime Song of Songs. The poetic sense has been somewhat marginalized in recent decades.