When Gold Has It's Greatest Value

Our young priest recently said "the tabernacle is the most expensive and beautiful thing in our church, as it should be".

The building housing that tabernacle is also beautiful and expensive. The landscaping that surrounds that church is really only a beautiful thing directing towards that more beautiful thing inside. So the tabernacle if you understand it rightly is our focus and in many ways the center of our universe but only because of what is inside. I work so I can feed my family so we can use knees that are made to bend before that which is housed in that tabernacle. We have an entire life that is centered firstly on God and meeting Him at our personal end and the End. If I were gold, I could have no greater destiny than to be used as gold in a tabernacle, or a chalice. If I were fabric, if I could be a priestly vestment, or glass to be stained glass in a great cathedral or even a humble country parish. So how can I a person be these things in my life directed towards what it truly good and beautiful?

When Notre Dame was being built a man visited and touring for the day spoke to a number of men working. He asked a mason "what do you do here?" and the mason explained how he cut the stones used his skills and built strong walls. He asked a carpenter about what he was doing and was told about framing and roofing and scaffolding etc. A glass maker and his trade and how many years he had practiced his trade and so on. At the end of the day he met an old man pushing a broom and asked him about his job and the old man replied "I am building a Cathedral for the greater glory of God"

We can have all the skills and human respect in the world but if we lack the singular purpose of our existence we fail in all things. This simple truth is why it does not matter what we do for a living or how nice or talented you are but how much our lives reflect this one singular truth. This is the definition of civilization.

We are living in the ruins of a much greater civilization, one that understood this one singular truth and that is why they built truly great things. So why do I speak about what made Christendom? Because it is what we will need to rebuild Christendom.