Dedication of the Church 2024
In many Catholic churches, the faithful are given the option, when the homily is a bit boring or the Mass feels too long, of opening their eyes and looking around. Their gazes meet with quantities of statues or images of the saints in the stained-glass windows, on the capitals, or even in the vaults and ceilings. Images are not the strong point of our beautiful Abbey Church. You can probably discern the statue of Our Lady above the altar, and, if you have a very good sight and the light is good, you can just glimpse the Crucifix behind the altar. Apart from that, you only see bricks. On an ordinary day, it is a small consolation. Today, however, bricks are very much at the centre of the liturgy.
Look at them all around us. There are thousands, hundreds of thousands of them. They present themselves in all sorts of colours and shapes. From afar they all seem the same. On closer inspection, you discover they are all remarkably different in surface and in colour, in shape and position. Even the mortar around them has different nuances; here it stresses their independence and, as it were, their personality; there, it seems to blur them into a continuum. In a sense, it is not so different from some abstract paintings where basic geometrical shapes are only differentiated by colours and lights – think of Mondrian, for instance.
At first, the abstraction of geometry is not something that appeal to everyone. But again, today, things are different. As we celebrate the anniversary of the Dedication of this Abbey Church, we meditate on the meaning of this sacred building. These bricks beckon to us with a friendly smile. In fact, these bricks speak of us. Each of us is one of these bricks. We are part of the walls and pillars and arches which build up the house of God that is the Church. We are “living stones”, says St Peter, or, translated into our local dialect, “living bricks”.
See the brick in the wall. This very brick, near this other one, under that one, above that fourth one. True, it’s a bit cramped, but each one has found its own place, its own personal space. Each one feels and is necessary. Take one brick away and things will not be the same. Take a few more and the walls will begin to crumble down. Admire the peace and the order of the whole. Each brick stays where it has been placed by the layer, gently and without questioning. Note, too, how they support one another: on each side, like brethren elbow to elbow; upwards and downwards: each of them both supported and supporting.
And now, listen to them. Can you hear anything? Do you, by any chance, hear millions of voices shouting on the top of their voices: “Look at me! Look at me!”? – No. Then, do you maybe hear a symphony of voices melted into one voice and crying: “Look at us! Look at us!” – No. In fact, they are perfectly silent. They build up a silent space and, in this space, they welcome us and, first and foremost, they welcome the Lord: Jesus, the Risen Christ who dwells in the hearts of the faithful and is present in the tabernacle under the sign of the Eucharistic Host. Their silence says loudly: “Look at Him”. Their order, their beauty, the necessary contribution of every one of them – the most visible ones as well as the hidden ones; those which occupy prominent places as well as those who seem humbly lost in the anonymity of the walls – all this tends towards Him who is their Lord and our Lord, whose light, whose beauty, whose necessity are communicated to all and each of the bricks which make up the Church.
We see Jesus at the very bottom. He is the foundation on which the whole building rests securely. By His incarnation and His death of the cross, the Son of Man went to the lower part of the world.
Again, we see Jesus at all the main structural points of the building. He is the corner stone through whom and in whom the different parts of the building connect, are related with one another, and stand powerfully together.
We see Jesus, too, at the top of the arches and at the very summit of the sanctuary tower. He is the Head from whom the whole body receives life and light, order and beauty.
We see Jesus filling up the inner space of the sacred building. He enters the innermost sanctuary of human hearts by His Holy Spirit. In the Holy Eucharist, He comes to dwell in us and make of us again and again temples of His divinity.
You see a brick, you have seen Christ. You see a Christian, you have seen Christ. You see the Church, you have seen Christ. Christ is all in all. The Church is Christ taking possession of the inner space of His creation and filling it with His saving and loving presence. The Church is Christ making of us one life in Him, as members of the one Body of whom He is the Head.
Today, we give thanks for the bricks of our abbey church; for the skilled workers who laid them; for the great architect who presided over their order; for the generous benefactors who made sure that we could have them made in Belgium and shipped over to the Island.
We give thanks for the living bricks of the Quarr community: the Solesmes monks of the beginnings, all those who came after them, not forgetting the ancient monks of Old Quarr who mysteriously take their place in the building of the one Abbey of Quarr.
For the ‘two abbeys’ of Quarr – the medieval and the new one – are indeed the one abbey of Quarr. The stones of the ruined monastery and the bricks of our house of prayer share in the same mystery of the one Church of Christ. Through the sacred sign of our sacred buildings, the one Church continues its growth in us and with us. Already when we enter this Church with faith, we abide in Christ and Christ abides in us. Already we anticipate in hope the moment when we shall all be perfectly one in Christ in the heavenly Jerusalem, to the praise of the glory of the Father.