Gianfranco Ravasi
"The world is like the eye: the sea is white, the earth is the iris, the pupil is Jerusalem, and the image reflected in it is the temple ". This ancient rabbinic aphorism explains in clear and symbolic function over time according to an intuition which is primordial and universal. There are two ideas underlying image. The first is the "center" cosmic sacred place must be, a matter on which the great scholar of religion Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) offered an extensive dossier documentary. The outer horizon, with its fragmentation and its tensions, and converge in an area that is appeased for its purity must embody a sense, the heart, the whole order of being.
In the temple, then, is "by concentrating" the multiplicity of reality that it is in peace and harmony: just think of the layout of some cities in radial stem from the sun "ideal represented by the cathedral in the mail central urban core (Milan, for example, "centered" on the cathedral is an obvious example, as New York is the testimony of a different view, more dispersed and Babel). From the temple, then, is "de-centering" a breath of life, of holiness, lighting that transforms the everyday and the daily unfolding of space. It is at this point that he enters the second theme underlying the above mentioned Jewish said.
The temple is the image that reflects and reveals the pupil. It is, therefore, a sign of light and beauty. In other words, we could say that the sacred space is the manifestation of cosmic and divine manifestation of divine radiance. In this sense sacred architecture who is unable to speak properly - indeed, "beautiful" - the language of light is not bearer of beauty and harmony is automatically invalidated by its function, it becomes "secular" and "profane." It is from the intersection of two elements, the centrality and beauty, blossoming what Le Corbusier called so dazzling "space indescribable", space truly holy and spiritual, sacred and mystical.
Of course, these two axes carrying with it many consequences: think of 'deafness', all'inospitalità, early, pull up the opacity of the many churches without regard to the voice and silence in the liturgy and assembly, watching and listening, all'ineffabilità and communion. Churches where you are lost as in a conference room, distracted as in a sports hall, rolled like a fronton, brutalized as a house pretentious and vulgar.
At this point we would like to propose a reflection of nature which has the most specific reference code exactly those Biblical Scriptures were indeed "the great code" of Western civilization itself art. It is indisputable that the relief they have a "theology" of space, even though - as you will - it is indeed a theology in higher education, the time and history (the Incarnation sums up these two dimensions put back in their hierarchy).
"For Your servants are expensive stones of Zion" (Psalm , 102, 15). This profession of love of the ancient psalmist could be the motto of the Christian tradition that the sacred space that has always reserved a special importance, since the "stone" of the Holy Sepulchre, a sign of Christ's resurrection, which is built around a emblematic of the temples of all Christianity. Among other things, it is curious that symbolically the three monotheistic religions is based on three keepers in Jerusalem sacred stones, the Western Wall (popularly called "the Tears "), a sign of the Solomonic temple for the Jews, the rock of the ascension to heaven of Mohammed Omar in the Mosque for Islam and, indeed, the stone rolled back to the Christianity of the Holy Sepulchre.
course is that without spirituality and Christian liturgy, the history of architecture would have been much more miserable: just think of the clarity of the early Christian basilicas, the refinement of Byzantine ones, the monumentality of the Romanesque, the mysticism of the Gothic churches of the radiance Renaissance, the opulence of the baroque, the harmony of the sacred buildings of eighteenth-century neo-classic to the nineteenth century, leading to the simple purity of some contemporary works (an example for all: the charming church of that Le Corbusier in Ronchamp).
Thus, there is in Christianity a constant celebration of space as a forum open to the divine, starting from that supreme temple that is the cosmos.
A great historian of theology Marie-Dominique Chenu (1895-1990), at the end of his life he regretted he had reserved too little space to both literary and figurative arts and architecture in its history of religious thought, because "They are not only aesthetic representations, but genuine theological subjects." Relegated to the anonymity in which the great cathedral builders just need to emerge, for example, an architectural and artistic genius Sugero as the abbot of Saint-Denis (XIII century).
That said, however, in the Christian concept is a very heavy component - as mentioned - the theological center of gravity moves from space to time. And it is this aspect that we now wish to fix our attention. Last page of the New Testament, when John the Seer overlooking the floor plan of the new Jerusalem of perfection and fullness, is faced with a given at first sight puzzling: "I saw no temple in it for the Lord God Almighty and the ' Lamb are its temple " (Revelation , 21, 22). Between God and man no longer need any mediation space, the meeting is now between people, you meet the divine life with human directly. From this discovery, we trace back through a sequence of scenes just as unexpected.
Imagine chasing this red wire to the head by grasping the opposite extreme. David decides to build a temple in the capital of newly created, Jerusalem, in order to have God as well as the citizen in his kingdom. But here's the surprising answer given by the prophet Nathan oracular negative: the king will not build any "home" to God but the Lord will give a "home" to David, "You the Lord will do great, because a house will make you the Lord "(ii Samuel, 7, 11). In Hebrew it plays on the ambivalence of the term Bayit," home "and" family. "God, therefore, to sacred space of a house-church prefers the presence in a house-house, is in the history of a people, the Davidic dynasty that will color the messianic tone.
course, space is not desecrated.'s son David, Solomon, will raise a temple that the Bible describes with admiration and emphasis. Yet when he is pronouncing his prayer of consecration, it must necessarily ask: "Is it really true that God can live on earth? Behold the heaven and heaven of heavens can not contain, much less this house that I built! "(1 Kings , 8, 27). The church, then, is just the context of a personal encounter and life (not for nothing in the Bible speaks of "the tent of meeting") that sees God bend "the place of his abode, from heaven" of his transcendence to the people who rushed into the sanctuary of Zion with the reality of his painful history of which lists the various dramas.
The prophets will come to the point of undermining the foundations of the temple and its religious worship if it is reduced to just be a magical and sacred space, dissociated from life the civic square, which is ethical and existential commitment, and given only to present a purely ritual and hypocritical.
Suffice it, among the many prophetic passages of similar content, read this section of the prophet Amos (eighth century before the Christian era): "I hate, I despise your feasts, and I do not like your meetings. Even if you offer me burnt offerings I do not accept your gifts. Victims of peace even look at them fat. Far from me the noise of your songs, the sound of your harps I can not stand it! Rather flows like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream! " (5, 21-24).
But let Christianity in a direct way. Christ, like any good jew, like the Temple of Jerusalem. Do not hesitate to challenge and to lead a whip blows against the merchants who desecrate with their businesses, he attended the liturgy in the various solemnity, as will his disciples that they will reserve a space for them even in the so-called "Portico Solomon. " Yet Christ himself in that sunny afternoon at Jacob's well, in front of Mount Gerizim, the sacred place of the community of Samaritans, not afraid to say that the woman is drawing water, "Believe me, woman is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father ... It is time, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth "(John , 4, 21-24).
There will be another turning point that will install the divine presence in the same" flesh " humanity through the person of Christ, as stated by the famous prologue of the Gospel of John: "The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us" (1, 14), with obvious reference to the "tent" the temple of Zion. Among other things, the greek word eskénosen , "pitched tent" reflects the radical skn the word Hebrew which is called the "Presence" of God in the Temple of Zion, Shekinah. Jesus will be even more explicit: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it."
The evangelist John writes: "He spoke of the temple of his body" (2, 19-21). Paul goes further and, writing to the Christians of Corinth, he would declare: "Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you ... Therefore honor God with your body!" (I, 6, 19-20).
"A temple of living stones," therefore, as St. Peter writes, "used to build a spiritual house" (I, 2, 5) a sanctuary not extrinsic, material and space, but an existential, a temple in time. The temple architecture will therefore always necessary, but must have within itself a function of the symbol is no longer an untouchable sacred and magical, but only a necessary sign of divine presence in history and life of humanity. The temple, therefore, does not exclude or exorcised the square of civilian life but fruitful, transforms, cleanses the existence, giving it a further meaning and transcendence. That is, once they reach full communion between the divine and human, the temple in the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of hope, will dissolve and "God will all in all "(1 Corinthians , 15, 28).
conclude our discussion with three examples. The first summarizes the steps of the speech made so far. It is a chant reminiscent of medieval Jewish Kabbalistic various steps to find the place where God is truly meets the chorus in Hebrew, assonant refrain that is repeated in each stanza: hu 'hammaqôm shel-maqôm / we'en hammaqôm meqomô. a play on words and intuition striking it says: "He, God, is the location of every place, / but this place does not take place."
The second witness is linked to the figure St. Francis and is derived from Chapter 37 of the second Life of Thomas of Celano, Abruzzo Franciscan. A monk said to Francis: "We have more money to the poor." Francis replied: "Rake the altar of the Virgin and Vendin furniture, if you can not otherwise meet the needs of those in need."
She added: "Believe me, the Virgin will be more expensive it is to observe the gospel of his Son and his bare altar, rather than see the ornate altar and despised son in the Son of Man" . We must, therefore, only remains of the temple and its beauty? No, because Francis is convinced that God will give us time again, with all the trappings: "The Lord will send people to return to the Mother as it gave us on loan for the Church."
The third and final consideration is offered to us by the Orthodox spirituality. A well-known Russian lay theologian of the twentieth century lived in Paris, Pavel Evdokimov, stated that between the square and the temple there should be a locked door, but open to a threshold where the scrolls of incense, chants, prayers of the faithful and the glitter of lights are reflected in the square ring where laughter and tears, and even the blasphemy and the cry of despair of the unhappy. In fact, the wind of the Spirit of God has to run between the sacred hall and the square where human activity takes place. It is found, so genuine and profound soul of the Incarnation that weaves itself in space and infinite, and eternal story, and absolute quota.
(© L'Osservatore Romano 17 to 18 January 2011)
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