Tower of Light

 

Yesterday, Pope Leo XIV blessed the tallest of the towers of the basilica of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. It marked the mid-point of the Pope's historic visit to Spain, a country culturally steeped in Catholicism but which in the 20th and 21st centuries has experienced repeated and powerful assaults on that historic religious identity.

The Pope's visit began in the capital Madrid, where (after the usual formalities of reception at the Palacio Real) the Pope celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi with an outdoor Mass and traditional Eucharistic procession, attended by the King and Queen and some 1.2 million others. On Monday, he addressed the Cortes, the Spanish Parliament. Although the third Pope to visit Spain, he was the first ever to address its Parliament. At present, Spain has a socialist Prime Minister and is widely perceived as the most left-wing government in Europe, which inevitably recalls a long legacy of conflict between some 20th and 21st-century secular Spanish governments with the Church. In that challenging and problematic environment, Pope Leo spoke eloquently invoking Spain's rich Catholic history and heritage, citing Cervantes, Saint Teresa, the university of Salamanca, Francisco de Vitoria, and Miguel Unamuno, among others. To that body, he posed the basic question of any parliamentary politics: "beyond the legitimate diversity of positions, every legislative task ultimately confronts a decisive question: what conception of the human person inspires laws, and what kind of society do those laws build?" He stressed how "the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect and love those lives that are most fragile."

In Barcelona yesterday, the Pope and the Spanish and Catalan peoples celebrated the centenary of the Venerable Antoni Gaudi, the architect of the basilica of la Sagrada Familia. That basilica was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI during the last papal visit to Spain. During the Mass inside the basilica, which preceded the blessing of the newly completed central Tower of Jesus Christ, the Pope highlighted the basilica's theme of light, the light of Jesus Christ penetrating the world's darkness. And he highlighted the traditional imagery of every church building, which is itself an image of the Church itself:

This church is a single building made of many stones. A house that grows steadily over the years following a single plan. We are all the living stones of this edifice, which has Christ as its foundation and crowning glory, its beginning and end. Much more than a monument, the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia remains a work in progress today, reminding us that the Christian life is always a journey, because it is a project that God is carrying out.

We do not, therefore, dwell in an unfinished work, but in a temple still under construction. The fact that it is incomplete is not a flaw, for it bears witness to a desire; it does not signify a shortcoming, but rather expresses a promise that we wish to honor with consistency. Our gratitude thus becomes a commitment as we cooperate in God’s plan — that is, in the edification to which he himself calls us. Since we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 6:19), this work consists in our very lives, which God conceives as a masterpiece that we are to create together, and he calls us to collaborate with him (cf. 1 Cor 3:9).

The outdoor ceremony which followed the Mass, for the formal blessing of the tower, was one of the most beautiful rituals that could have been devised to mark this occasion and truly exemplified the power of art and the appeal of beauty in human life and in the Church's evangelizing mission. Not just the tower itself, but the entire basilica and the multitude inside and out were transformed in vehicles  VI and Queenof illumination and a true tower of light in a modern expression of Spain's historic evangelizing role in the world.

Today, beginning the final segment of his journey, the Pope travels to the Canary Islands. Throughout this apostolic journey, Pope Leo has emphasized human dignity and the necessity of national and international commitment to that human dignity. That concern receives a very pointed instantiation in Leo's history, first-ever, papal trip to the Canary Islands, which centers on the very real and very current European migration crisis. Visiting some of the focal points of migration from Africa to Europe, the Pope is vividly highlighting the plight of refugees and migrants making these excessively perilous journeys. “Human dignity," the Pope insisted today, "has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border.”

Photo: Pope Leo XIV, with Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, outside the Basilica of La Sagrada Familia.