LOOKING TO THE FUTURE--DESIGNING WORSHIP SPACE

I am fascinated by the lobby of an office building across from the Mount Auburn Street post office in Cambridge. Each week I park in the lower garage and take the elevator to the first floor. I am drawn to this space because the lobby is so handsome. It is well lit. Its central section opens upward a few floors. The floor plan is square. The floor is a highly polished, beautiful wood. A few attractive art pieces and plants make this wonderful space. It would make a great gathering place.

In contrast I am disappointed by most Catholic church spaces. I find them boring, lacking in beauty, and inadequate for a renewed Catholic liturgy. Some are devotional nightmares. They are cluttered with unused, unnecessary, ugly furniture. They are colorless. The environment is drab. These spaces are poorly lit. Altars are designed for elephant sacrifice. The ambo, i.e., the place where the Word of God is proclaimed, is stingy. Some churches have no baptismal font, an oddity for a church that has spent much ink on liturgical texts and pastoral commentaries on adult and infant baptism. Even where there are fonts, many cannot contain ample water and do not allow for the preferred immersion our documents call for.

In the first space I am attracted by beauty and drawn into mystery. In many church spaces my spirit droops and my heart drops. Furthermore, I feel distress when space is unable to minister the Assembly's action of communal prayer round font, book, and table. The space does not foster full, active, and conscious participation because people cannot see or hear. Some seating arrangements distance people from each other making it impossible for us to be the Body of Christ. Some churches convey an obsolete piety that makes us consumers of ministry and passive recipients of others' official ministry. Both liturgical pioneers and liturgical documents for the last thirty-five years envision us actively doing the public work of communal prayer.

Good buildings/spaces nourish and foster faith. Poor buildings/spaces hinder and destroy faith. The time is ripe to convert from seating which distances us from each other and from font, book, and table, from seating which encourages private piety and uninvolved individualism, from seating a crowd rather than a community. Ugly spaces breed an aesthetic mediocrity. Inadequate spaces create boredom. Roping off pews and verbal scolding alienate good will. Our churches need redesigned and reconfigured plans and spaces.

Observation and questions are tools used to critique spaces. Ask yourself, what does the space leading up to the church building say to you? Is it beautiful? Does it draw you into sacred mystery? As you enter, is there space for gathering and greeting? Is it well lit, colorful, lovely in arrangement? Do you see a baptismal font? Where is it? What do its design and size convey? Is there unused, unnecessary furniture anywhere in the building? Is the furniture store-bought ugly or is it genuinely produced by skilled craftspersons? Can you see and sing, hear and move in the place where you sit? Is the ambo significant enough to bear the weight of God's Word? Is the table too big or small? Is it overwhelming or does it invite you to gather round it?

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