Nihil Obstat
Rev. Fr. Stephen Una
Catholic Diocese of Abakaliki
Assisting Chaplain, St. Joseph Catholic Church, Dodan Barracks, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria
I guess it’s now common place; people going into a church to do all sorts without compunction and daring punity, thinking it just an ordinary building. They go there:
- for playing and socialising instead of for praying
- for making noise instead of meditating
- for fashion display eschewing modesty
- for sowing seeds for earthly instead of heavenly rewards
- for pointing out clergy faults
- for eating, drinking and revelry and not for communing with the body of Christ
- for boastful giving, self aggrandisement and bigmanism and not to praise God
- to litter and soil instead of sweep and clean
- to quarrel, gossip, keep malice and form parties instead of to reconcile and bless
- for bawdiness and other immoralities instead of seeking purity of soul and body,
- for stealing and being fraudulent instead of for giving and restitution
- to even tamper with sacred items and vessels reserved for worship and use by church ministers.
These are some of the negative acts of omission and commission done in church which are not only grossly offensive and distracting to other worshippers but constitute a sacrilege to our Maker.
I also guess that because of the rampantness of such, the direness of their spiritual consequences is lost on many.
A lot of people are simply of the opinion that a church is a mere building utilised just for the convenience of shelter and comfort when the people of God gather for worship and the building itself has no supernatural tone or nuance that impact on the efficacy of worship, thus as long as a place is decent and comfortable, nothing more is required, it’s good enough to be labelled church and worshipped in.
Some would even ask what need there is in going to church after all, they’d say, penny catechism teaches that God is everywhere and the Bible itself underscores this assertion by stating that where Two or Three are gathered in His name, there He is!
So, why these seeming constricting rules that tantamount to regulating behaviour in church, to the extent that the church itself seems a factor that influences the strength of the efficacy of prayer and the depth of communion with God
Finding no answers, many have become fixated on their own self opinions with the consequence being a gross disregard for rules and the resultant disrespect of church.
Despite the above position of some however, the idea of the sacred nature of church buildings still holds sway among majority of religious adherents and this cuts across virtually all religions which hold that a place accorded an especial worship status is required and should be set apart to pray to God; a place where there seems to be more fullness of God’s presence than elsewhere and where worship, whether individually or collectively, takes on a higher note of reverence, making prayers more readily answered.
The Meaning of Church
The reference to church in this context is not in the collocation of the metaphysical reality of the totality of God’s people; the body of Christ or as expressed in the ethereal and tangible phenomena of heart and body respectively, which both bear the innate spiritual essence of the individual being and which behoves every Christian to consider as fundamentally superior over and above every other aspect of the composite of human existence and thus, must be nourished and built up as such, rather the reference is to another very important aspect, which is their geo-location in the form of the environment in which they are situate when they gather physically to specially relate and commune with Him both as individuals and as a group, a specific place which people see as a meeting point with Him, a tangible housing structure allocated to and set apart for Him.
Notably, the first of such a built structure, a tent was not done at the behest of man but of God when He ordered Moses to make a sacred tent which would house the ark of the covenant. Another important note must hence be struck here, which is that the gathering of people in a church building to pray does not overtly confer the title church on it, as some are won’t to think, rather, the consecration act does, just as was done when the building of the tent of the lord’s presence was finished. The consecration is actually what makes the church receive the transformative power of the touch of God and this act must be done by a consecrated person that has the spiritual authority to do so, namely a bishop, after which it would become a place dedicated to God for worship; a holy place, a sacramental; a relic of God’s special presence and power and also a means for receiving God’s grace and blessings.
The Purpose of Church Dedication (Consecration)
Wikipedia says that Consecration is the transfer of a person or a thing to the sacred sphere for a special purpose or service. The word consecration literally means “association with the sacred”. Persons, places, or things can be consecrated…’ and that ‘the origin of the word comes from the Latin stem consecrat, which means dedicated, devoted, and sacred.[1] A synonym for consecration is sanctification; its antonym is desecration.
Therefore, a church building is dedicated to set it apart for special use for God and so that it would be approached with the kind of honour and respect due to things connected with God and so that anything or action that might amount to abuse and insult or impinge on the secluded nature of God’s Divinity and Majestic Splendour is not just avoided but also forbidden there. Exodus 20:18-21
Consecration: Age Old Tradition
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “From antiquity, canon law required that a new church be solemnly consecrated, or at least dedicated to God by a blessing, before divine services could be held. In Judaism…’, ‘…taking this back down the line of Christian faith history, ‘…a formal consecration ceremony takes place, patterned after the traditional dedication ceremony of Solomon’s Temple. The doors are formally opened during the reading of certain psalms. The perpetual light is then kindled, and the scrolls of the Torah are put in their place’.
Gregory IX consecrating the chapel of St. Gregory, detail of a fresco, 13th century; in the lower church of Sacro Speco, Subiaco, Italy
Alinari/Art Resource, New York
Apart from Solomon’s prayers at the dedication of the temple, Chronicles 6 and Jesus cleansing it later, Matthew 22:12-17 which basically lend credence to the need to have not just a marked out physical structure but a sanctified one, at that, for worship and prayer, it is seen that most of the places at which the patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob encountered God, were marked out as special with some remarkable monument set up as a sign of respect, of appreciation and for remembrance or for a revisit. We read in the Bible of the sacred trees at Mamre where Abraham worships God, of the stone at Bethel which Jacob pours oil on and of near Shechem where he builds’ …the ‘first altar and names it El-Elohe-Israel, which means “the mighty God is the God of Israel.”This is the first record in which an altar is named. (Does this ring a bell wherein in later times, churches are named based on someone or something connected with God?) Therefore, the notion of a sacred zone consecrated to God is not new and according to Wikipedia, ‘…the first time the word altar…’ which in early time old testament could stand for a place of worship, either as a one off or for a long period ‘… is mentioned and recorded in the Hebrew Bible is that it was erected by Noah, although it does not specify that there was an altar in (Genesis 4:3–4). Other altars were erected by Abraham (Genesis 12:7; 13:4; 13:18;22:9), by Isaac (Genesis 26:25), by Jacob (33:20; 35:1–3), by Moses (Exodus 17:15), and by Saul (1 Samuel 14:35)’.
The ancient sacred tree of Mamre where Abraham worshipped God)
Even though these places can be said to have been deconsecrated either knowingly or inadvertently, there’s the point that at the time they were in use, they were held as sacred and were not to be approached with levity or disrespect.
Consequences of Desecration
The Bible is replete with sacrilegious acts connected with the house of God that attracted severe punishment: the sons of Eli who appropriated to themselves parts of the sacrifice reserved for the Lord, the Philistines who had captured the ark of the covenant and taken it to their cities, Uzzah who tried to take hold of the ark of the covenant when it was about falling and King Uzziah who went to burn incense in the temple, a task meant for the priests only; these in addition to many others, show that this is a very serious matter before God.
Some would however argue in the contrary citing the fact of the temple curtain getting torn in two at Christ’s death and giving access to the holy of holies to everyone and not just the priestly order but the reply to such is whether that access is for reason of profanity or desecration?
A Catholic Tradition
Now, as to the Catholic church specifically, the principal place of worship, commonly called a church (but which takes on a different nomenclature in it’s various cadres: Basilica, Cathedral, Church, Chapel, shrine, grotto e.t.c) becomes consecrated (set apart) before they are labelled and used as church and this is usually with prayers and as rightly put by
Encyclopaedia Britannica “…includes anointing the walls with chrism…”.
Of special note is the apostolic relic that is buried at the altar or deposited in any other auspicious part of the building, when consecrated.
Thus doing, a physical as well as a spiritual mark is put on the building signifying a connection with the apostles and thus with Christ. Therefore, all that Christ stands for in his mystical body and thus in his head is represented by the building and so the building in all ramification demands our respectful love and awe.
Effects of Consecration
When consecration is done, the building no matter how small or insignificant, takes on the gigantic spiritual value of a sacramental, whose power the eye cannot see and becomes a place where God’s magnificence and majesty is fully espoused making it imperative for it to be given special respect at all times, whether mass or service is going on there and whether people are there present or not.
Considering Mount Moriah where the temple in Jerusalem was built, it would be seen that the spot where the temple was built was formerly a threshing floor belonging to Araunah the Jebusite but David paid fully for it and earmarked for the place where the temple of God was to be built. Apart from the history of the place being the spot where the Lord stopped the Angel of destruction from wreaking further havoc on Israel when David sinned by counting the Israelites, it was also the place of which David was inspired to make the famous saying “I will not give to the Lord that which costs me nothing’ Solomon, his son, after David’s death, went on to build the temple and then dedicated it with prayer, pomp and pageantry to make it fit to be called the temple of God, a place where people could go to pray. That is why it would be anomalous to use a rented, borrowed or shared building as a church, except as a temporary gathering site for once the building is consecrated, it assumes the full status of an exclusive place of God’s presence and glory and should not, for any reason whatsoever be toyed with and cannot be demolished, abandoned, neglected or even approached for any other reason but having God in mind to commune with.
(Shared Church Buildings)
It is imperative thus for a church to be designed and maintained bearing in mind the purpose it is to serve and then designated as such to conspicuous viewing to the extent that it would be actually seen and acknowledged to be such for God’s Majestic splendor, as all things connected to him, as long as they are made by man, should be given palpable signs to invoke reverence to accord them.
It must be mentioned here that, perchance there is need to move the church or stop using it as a church, a special process; a ritual, called deconsecration would be done to strip it of the dignity that had been accorded it as a church and this can only be done by a person in the position of the conferer, a bishop. Anything less would amount to sacrilege.
Mode of Consecration
In today’s Christian world, the mode of consecrating places of worship is not much different from that of old, towing the line of apostolic tradition. It would be an epochal event for many, if they were to ever witness it and coming with spiritual grandeur and divinely saturated activities, we are glad opening this blog with an editorial on it. This is the type of thing you’d usually find in this blog’s articles in our bid to add our own bit of value in the spread of the word of God. That added value is the reason detre for this publication and that is what you should hope to have from us on a weekly basis.
Now you can tell what’s special about a church building and why it must be kept sacred!!!
Ephphatha…there’s a lot more to talk about!
