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LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
17
•N.
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC
race between two powers, viz: the ecclesiastical and
the civil, the one being set over Divine, the other
over human things. Each is the greatest in its own
kind; each has certain limits within which it is re
stricted, and those limits defined by the nature and
proximate cause of each; so that there is, as we may
say, a world ’marked off as a field for the proper ac
tion oF each.’ Further: ‘all things which are em
braced in the civil and political order are rightly
subject to the civil authority, since Jesus Christ has
commanded that what is Caesar’s is to be paid to
Caesar, and what is God’s to God’ (Encyclical of Leo
XIII on ‘Christian Constitution of States’). I feel,
for one, that we can trust the Roman Catholic Church
and the American Republic in fellowship with one
another, and my appeal is this: let us all, Roman
Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants alike—nay, Jews
and Gentiles march together and shoulder to shoul
der for the safety of the Republic and the moral and
political leadership of the world.”
SYMBOLISM IN CATHOLIC CHURCHES
(Written for The Bulletin.)
It has been said that the liturgy of the Catholic
Church is the supreme art of the world. Even Cath
olics, without sufficient reflection, are apt to think
this statement somewhat extravagant. It is, however,
perfectly true. In its full significance; given the
benefit of its history, its proper setting, its strict and
reverent observance, the Catholic liturgy is a work
of art that surpasses all other works of art in its
beauty and inspiration.
There is no limit to what could be written in de
lineation of the many beautiful and sublime features
of our Catholic services. They reach all heights,
sound all depths, touch all bounds. The history and
significance of the sacred vestments alone, supply
matter for volumes; the sacred vessels another, the
ornaments on the altar another, the altar itself an
other; while a great library could be written about
the Mass without exhausting the subject. Indeed, if
the books that have already been written about only
one of the parts of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mas3
could all be brought together, no library on earth is
capacious enough to hold them.
This brief article, then, can give but the faintest
idea of the richness of the symbolism in our churches.
Take the very simplest features, those that are a part
of the church edifice and do not enter into the liturgy
except as a setting, so general that it is appropriate
to all of our Catholic services the most distant back
ground, as it were, in the picture—even of these
features only the barest sketch can be made within
our present limits. But from this sketch, particularly
in those churches where the financial means at hand
have admitted of a display of features of architectural
skill, it will be seen what valuable helps to Christian
devotion confront the Catholic worshipper at every
turn.
The church building itself, calls up some period of
Catholic history, perhaps several different periods, ac
cording to the order and style of architecture observed
in outline, or the combinations shown in detail. A
Gothic Church reminds us of that period when the
great Roman Empire, having exhausted its energies
to destroy the Church, was itself destroyed in the
rnigration of nations and the incursions of barbarous
hordes, during which the Goths brought in this order
of the art of building. A Byzantine Church carries
os back to the time when Constantine removed the
seat of Empire from Rome to Constantinople, after
which no emperor ever again sat in Rome, and the
City of the Caesars became known as the Rome of
the Popes. And so, each of the other orders of
architecture, and each style of each order, and each
various modification, as shown in columns and spires
and turrets and domes and crosses and doors and por
ticoes and tesselated pavements, has its particular sig
nificance and goes to remind the well instructed Cath
olic of some salient period or event in the history of
the Faith.
Within the church edifice likewise, every separate
feature has a symbolic meaning. There are no lost
lines in Catholic art, as there is no waste motion or
vain word in Catholic liturgy. One need not mention
the stained art-glass wnidows, for which Catholic
Churches have long been noted; they speak their own
lesson, as they witness their own unrivaled excellence,
in pictures of inimitable beauty and richness of tone.
Also, the fine-wrought mosaics, and rare frescoes,
which are never wanting in the well-appointed, finished
Catholic Church, tell their own story. Catholics look
upon these works of art with kindling devotion. They
grow familiar with the figures and scenes thus de
picted, and almost without effort acquire a liberal
education in sacred history, in the life of our Lord
and His Apostles, in the trials and triumphs of the
Martyrs „and the Saints.
But the more strictly symbolic features appear in
the interior architectural lines; where one may ob
serve, say, twelve pillars, when perhaps only eight
would be necessary to support the weight they bear;
they remind us of the Twelve Apostles. So where one
notes seven windows when a lesser number would
perhaps suffice, they are suggestive of the Seven Sac
raments. Two steps before the communion' rail are
symbolic of the. two natures in the one Person of our
Lord. Three steps leading up to the altar represent
the Trinity. Six half columns against the walls on
each side, and while pleasing and tasteful, obviously
not necessary to the strength of the edifice, suggest
the six Corporal Works of Mercy on the one hand,
and the six spiritual works of mercy on the other.
The gridiron of St. Lawrence, the scallop shell of
St. James, the lion of St. Jerome, the singular form
of the cross of St. Andrew, and like emblems mingled
with appropriate architectural lines, are rich with
symbolic meaning. There are emblems also common
to .groups of Saints, as the palm branch, indicative of
martyrs. Then, certain conventional emblems are
used for the evangelists—a winged lion for St. Mark,