Churches!

The last two days have been church tour days. On Tuesday we went to St Sabina's, a very beautiful, very ancient church on the Aventine hill. The church was restored in the 20th century in line with its original simplicity so one senses are not attacked in a riot of baroque opulence. The light in this church is extremely gentle and comes from lattice worked windows. The look most unusual but when you discover that the 'glass' in them is not glass but rather think sheets of mica, it all makes senses - the small sized of the sheets and the softness of the light. The church has been for centuries a Dominican church and has one of the best-priced gift shops in Rome especially for Dominican cards and pictures. After looking at the ancient structure of Roman churches we went up the Rome to Sant' Anselmno's, the 'study house' of the Benedictines and were given a tour by the Abbot Primate's secretary, Fr Henry O'Shea, though a monk of Glenstal Abbey in Ireland, we could never quite work out if he was Emglish or Irish, the sense of humour and view of Europeans seemed closer to eccentric English. We concluded the day with a tour of Santa Maria in Cosmedin - another ancient church. Not such a successful tour as we had to contend with hordes of teenage groups who had come to the church for the relics of St Valentine!
Yesterday was the the Parish church of rome and the Mother of all the Churches - St John Lateran. Of the major basilica's of Rome I think this is my favourite. When one is in the body of the church there is a sense of lightness and space. The apse mosaic is very beautiful and I like the scenes of paridise at the bottom - little figures below Christ, Mary and the saints, boating, fishing resting aloneside the river of life that flows from the Holy Spirit through the jewelled Cross. We took time in the adjoining cloister, saw the ancient vestments and then went down the road to San Clemente. But this time my body was thorougly tired os steps. Up, down, down up. So when the others when down the ancient basilica and mithrium beneath that, Istayed up in the church and took time out.
Much as I learn from the ancient churches I find the fixation on them bordering on obsession. The imagery in the mocaics and other art works can be a way of bordering our horizons and deepening our faith but that dynamic doesn't seem much in eividence. It just seems to be a glorification of the past. 'This is x number of centuries old and we must go Ahh how wonderful.' Yet when you look at the the works you can see that the people of the past did not respect the earlier works -eg some of the best mosaics have been covered over with baroque arches in a way that would now be called vandalism.
Unfortunately some of the modern art that is in churches is modern ugly.
Studying these churches really makes me ask where are we putting our energies as members of the church for example, how much goes into maintainng the past, how much into understanding the present, how much into tranlating what the gospels are about into a language for our time.