This is a monastery chapel. There is no “congregation” – there is only “choir” (maybe a few benches int he back for “congregaton” – which in this case would be visitors.
I was in a monastery chapel once and it had that same “feel” about it. I think maybe if I were a monk, I would want it like that. Timeless yet very suggestive of the medieval, functional, spare, serene, ascetic. Really beautiful in that way. It makes one think of certain kinds of monks; Trappists, Carthusians, etc. (Not so much Benedictines who, to me, seem more earthy.)
But I am a married guy with children and so many grandchildren I have trouble keeping count. I like color and, frankly, crowded, animated “family” things. A famous art historian once noted how full older European Catholic churches (as opposed to spare Protestant churches) are of women and “children” in motif. Male saints and Jesus, for sure, but also Our Lady, female saints, baby-faced cherubim all over the place. Lots of “movement”. I realized long ago that I don’t even like paintings that don’t have people in them, and the more the better. The more “active” the better. So I’m kind of inclined to the Baroque and Rococco. I spend a lot of time outdoors. Always have. Lots of Mediterranean styles appeal to me as well. I like sunshiny brightness with my cherubim, stautes, mosaics and paintings. A few grapes and ears of wheat in the artwork only adds to the whole.
But you know, when it’s late, and when all the little ones are in bed and it’s all quiet and full of repose, a spot of light on a good book or over a quiet conversation, is nice. There is nothing quite so spiritually reposeful either, as a quiet church lit only by a spot over the tabernacle and flickering vigil lights. Then, those statues and mosaic figures and paintings, so “loud” and “active” during the day, all stand watch, it seems, silently hearing and understanding. Brings to mind the “Communion of Saints”, or at least it does to me.
I think maybe people are attracted, in Church design and decor, to the things and themes to which they are also attracted in everyday life. I think “ethnic” churches often express much about the way those groups think and how they see life.
With absolute certainty, Eastern Catholic churches express their own spirituality and mysticism; that sense of being “drawn to heaven”, particularly through the portals of the large-eyed, overwhelming paintings or mosaics. (As well as utterly hypnotic hymns and incense) I think that’s what all the gold and jewels are about too; the incredibly ornate vestments. It’s not for ostentation. It’s to make us think of our real home. It’s almost like an invitation.
We “Latins” are a bit more earthy in our way of thinking of our lives and our relationship with the Divine. We are a bit less mystical, rather more comfortable, spiritually, in our humanness and in our “here-ness”. It is for that reason that, particularly in Renaissance church art, but also in Stations of the Cross and the crosses above the altar, to this day, there are figures with realistically bulging muscles, straining to do this or that; body “movement” that looks real, and figures that are realistic to the point that Easterners likely wonder what we’re thinking. We, much more than they, bring our “outside” world into the churches. Their churches tend more to bring them “inside” a very different world from what is outside the church portals; another dimension, really.
But I don’t have a problem with either, if done well and with insight. Each is beautiful and “resonates” with our souls, though in different ways.
