The Sacred Heart and Church Architecture

A stray thought this afternoon, while reading 1 Kings (the book of Solomon’s ascension to the throne after King David in 962 BC).  It’s not any sort of profound secret – maybe everybody knows this already and I’m just late to the party – but I’ve never heard or read it anywhere else, so I wanted to jot it down for you.

1 Kings Chapter 6 contains a detailed account of Solomon’s temple; here is an artist’s rendering that I found on this website (right-click, View Image for the full resolution):

Note the separation between the nave and the inner sanctuary.  Behind those gold doors lay the Holiest of Holies; the Ark of the Covenant, God’s promise to protect the people of Israel so long as they obeyed His Law, written by Him on the tablets handed to Moses.  That which the inner sanctuary housed was too sacred – too vulnerable – to be left out in the open.

Now consider the layout of a Christian Church:

The altar at the front of the Church is to the new covenant, as the Ark was to the old covenant.  It is the sacred symbol of God’s promise to us, raised up above the floor of the Church, but exposed; neither golden doors nor velvet drapes protect it from the profane world.  It is there, naked and vulnerable, for all of us to see and adore.

Now consider the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

That picture – what it represents – is so beautiful that it hurts.

Christ has made himself vulnerable to us, exposed the very core of his being to us, revealed all and given all for us, in an act of incredible, painful love.

The architecture of churches is just another reflection of this.