Pope consecrates Gaudi's basilica: hymn of praise in stone

On Sunday morning to the chiming of bells Pope Benedict XVI left the archbishop’s residence in Barcelona making the journey to the Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Familia, a structure that has been under construction since 1882. Again as in Santiago de Compostela people lined the route to the church with banners and waved Vatican, Catalan and Spanish flags; there were even balloons which were launched into the sky in the colours of yellow and white.

Countless years and thousands of hours of work have gone into bringing Gaudi’s masterpiece to this stage and even the last minute preparations for this consecration by the Pope had been painstaking.The Sagrada Familia is not due to be finished until 2026, but on this Sunday in Barcelona it looked breathtaking both inside and out. At exactly 10am Pope Benedict entered this soon to be Basilica, a place where art intertwines with faith.

Light shined down from the temple’s sculpted ceiling and penetrated its stained glass windows and the Pope dressed in gold walked down the nave’s glistening new marble floor in front of 6,500 guests including the King and Queen of Spain.

It seemed at this moment that amidst cheers and applause that the Sagrada Family had really come to life.

Following a greeting by the Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona Lluis Martinez Sistach, the man who has devoted much of his life to this temple dedicated to the Holy Family, Chief Architect, Jordi Bonet addressed the Pope in Catalan. Then the Pope gave this temple the key to its door.

Whereas the Pope, during his time spent in Santiago de Compostela had focused on the themes of pilgrimage and Christian identity, his words for this consecration of the Sagrada Familia and its altar fittingly concerned the family, beauty, and the importance of Jesus as a rock.

He began his homily expressing his joy at being able to preside over this ceremony and his happiness that this shrine has a special relationship with St Joseph, being of course, part of the Holy Family.

The Pope described the temple’s visionary architect Antoni Gaudi as a man who “as a practicing Christian had kept the torch of his faith alight to the end of his life.” And a man, he added, who made “stones, trees and human life part of the church so that all creation might come together in praise of God.”

He continued by saying that beauty reveals God, and it calls us away from selfishness, leading us to freedom.

Drawing on the theme of building and creating which has been such a part of the Sagrada Familia, the Holy Father called to mind Jesus being the “stone which supports the weight of the world”, and without Christ the Church itself is nothing.

The Pope also noted the importance of the timing of this dedication saying that it comes at a time when man claims to live his life without God, but he added “with this masterpiece Gaudi shows us that God is the true measure of man.”

In the latter part of his homily the Pope turned his attention to the defence of the family and the dignity of the human person.

He stressed that as well as technical, social and cultural advances there also needed to be moral advances as well, such as assistance to families.

The Holy Father brought home to the congregation the need to protect human life from beginning to end, the importance of marriage between a man and a woman and the need for them to be supported in this role.

Pope Benedict ended his homily in Catalan, asking Mary Most Holy to protect this house of God before divesting himself of his gold vestments for the solemn rite of dedication where he poured chrism oil on the four corners of the altar turning this place of beauty into a true place of God, wearing white robes.

At the end of a truly memorable occasion Cardinal Sistach raised into the air the certificate proclaiming this temple a Basilica. Then Pope Benedict left this House of God by the door of the Nativity façade to recite the Angelus.

To those who had waited patiently outside, the Pope told them, that it had given him great satisfaction to declare this church a Minor Basilica, a place where men and women of every continent can contemplate the façade of the Nativity. And he added that by creating this work Gaudi, sought to bring the Gospel to everyone.
With Pope Benedict in Barcelona I’m Lydia O’Kane.
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