Church: A Place Where Mystery Happens - #6

How should a church be arranged? We assume that every church building we enter will be like the church where we go. Many Catholic churches are like this. People enter through the main door and vestibule. The first furniture they see are rows upon rows of pews stretching to the sanctuary at the far end. It is elevated - a few steps higher than the pews. The elevation helps the people in the pews see the actions of Bible reading, preaching, gift giving, and the offering the great prayer of thanksgiving, consecration, and blessing. Each of these actions takes place at a designated place. The scriptures and preaching take place at the ambo (literally, the reading stand) which has replaced the pulpit. The offering of the great prayer is done at the altar table.

The priest is pretty mobile. Sometimes he stays at the presider's chair for the opening and closing prayers. Sometimes he is at the ambo to proclaim the gospel and preach. Later he moves to receive the gifts when they are presented. He then goes to the altar and stands, facing the people, as he offers the consecratory prayer. Visually, it seems that a lot of action happens up front, a good distance from the middle and the back. It also seems a small number of elite people perform the actions.

If you are sitting in the middle of the church or if you have set up tent toward the back, you will see things very differently from those who are sitting in the front. First, sitting in the back affords you the advantage of the bob-and-weave (a great move in the NBA and WNBA) as you try to sit, stand, or kneel behind the various-sized bodies that are positioned in front of you. Even if your priest and other sanctuary ministers are people of amplitude, chances are they may look normal-sized from the middle and quite small from the back.

This picture scans from the back to the front. Now imagine yourself in a different position! Picture yourself looking down on this space from high above on the ceiling. The sanctuary area might look like the top of an opened book. Everything is in caps. As you look down, the pews look like the lines on a page. The people in the pews look like the letters that constitute the words you see on a line. The left side of the church reminds you of the left side of the page and the right side reminds you of the right page. You could start with the top line near the front of the church and work your way down the page until you come to the bottom at the back.

Surprised? You shouldn't be. This spatial arrangement for a church, especially the fixed pews, came to birth during the Reformation. The Reformation coincided with the invention of the printing press. The printing press made Bibles and other books available to the reading public. Lecture halls, theaters, and churches became kissing cousins. Lecturers spoke at an elevated platform up front. Audiences listened in fixed seating below. Actors performed on stage. Theater-goers watched the play.. Buildings became auditoriums and made participants actors or spectators.