My wife and I spent a couple of days in Atchison, Kansas, recently. While there we visited the Saint Benedict’s Abbey Church. When we first walked into the church I was impressed with it’s size, acoustics, and formal atmosphere. We walked around for a few minutes and then turned to leave. I must confess that my thoughts where of the difference in theology between the Catholics and me. I was unimpressed by what I thought was an extravagant design, which held no significant meaning for me.
On our way out of the church, my wife discovered a brochure which offered a self-guided tour describing the church in detail. With the brochure in hand, we turned around and started off on a two hour tour of this beautiful facility. We read about the crucifix that hangs over the massive stone altar, the beautiful fresco. We sat in the choir loft, and walked by the many chapels. We were so impressed with the facility that we decided to take advantage of an opportunity to attend a “Praise Service” the next day.
The prayer service started at 12:05, but we arrived about thirty minutes early and sat in the back of the church. The room is so alive acoustically that a whisper can be heard everywhere, so we sat in silence. As we sat we looked around the room. Everywhere in the room we saw something that drew us to Jesus. Our minutes of silence turned into beautiful meditation.
A few minutes before noon the monks started to enter, also in silence. Each monk took a seat in the choir. At noon the clock chimed, and all remained in silence. At 12:05 the clock chimed again and the monks began to speak a psalm. The sang, and spoke together in meaningful unison. After about 15 minutes the monks recited a prayer, said “Amen” and exited as they came, in silence.
This experience caused me to think about the design of our worship center and Westside, and so many other contemporary churches. These centers for worship are intentionally void of religious symbols. I have argued for this design in the past, but my experience at the Abbey Church made me reconsider my position. The silence in the Abbey was one of my most meaningful worship experiences to date.
As I considered the design of the Abbey my thoughts went back to the Old Testament practices of building altars to remember God’s work among his people. The idea was to build an altar so that whenever you passed by you would re-tell the story of God’s work.
In the metaphor of pendulums I suppose we could argue that there are extremes of design for worship space, but I can’t help but wonder if some presence of symbols in a worship center would not be a positive contribution to the worship of so many contemporary worshippers. Of course the meaning is lost if it is not understood, and passed on.
For me, I’ll always remember my time in the Abbey and hope to return someday.
