“The Council of Trent said that the purpose of sacred art is to help elevate the mind and the heart up to God. It’s there to help cultivate piety for the Christian soul, to help the Christian remember these mysteries of the Faith.”

We continue the explanation of the symbolisms of the liturgical artwork which will fill the Immaculata, this month discussing the sacrament medallions fixed to the coffered ceiling of the nave and transept.

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Transcript of the Video

Welcome back to the Immaculata Church Project here in St. Marys, Kansas. Today we are going to give you a brief update on the exterior progress, then go inside, and Father Rutledge is going to discuss more about the liturgical artwork.

So as you can see right behind me on the west façade, the front of the church, the masonry work is almost complete; they will have that done in a few more days. Since the last video the back of the clerestory above the sanctuary stucco is complete and they are starting to put the lather and felt on the north side. So on the interior we talked about the cupola in the last video, that cupola now is completely painted and the finish trim is installed and it is ready for the liturgical artwork. The liturgical artist will be here on the 20th of this month to start applying those.

So Father Rutledge is going to start talking about the imagery on the nave ceiling. I'd like to talk a little bit about the specs on that ceiling. It is a coffered ceiling, and the ceiling is 65 feet above the nave floor. In that area the clerestory windows are very large and they're frosted with a frosted glass. That glass is meant to bring the light in and dissipate it to illuminate those paintings.

That's all I have for you today, now we're going to turn it over to Father Rutledge to talk about the liturgical artwork.

So last month we spoke about the artwork going up in the cupola of the church. This month we're going to step down a level and speak about some of the artwork that's going up in that coffered ceiling that Bill Drew just described to you. First I want to step back a little bit and explain why the church is so interested in having sacred art fill her church. The Council of Trent said that the purpose of sacred art is to help elevate the mind and the heart up to God. It’s there to help cultivate piety for the Christian soul, to help the Christian remember these mysteries of the Faith. And so it's supposed to be all around us to help elevate our soul up to God. The Church knows that were human. We go into a church and we have all the sites, we have all the sounds, we have the incense for our smell, and we have the organ for our ears. And so she wants to give us a very rich backdrop for us to see during the sacred Mass; even for the little children we want to excite wonder in their souls as they look up at the ceiling and they look around in the church when they're at the sacred mysteries so that they can go more deeply into the mysteries of the faith.

So now we want to talk a little bit about the progression of some of these images that are going up in the coffered ceiling. As you will see in the images there is a progression of the images of the seven sacraments from the back of the church all the way up into the transept crossing, all the way up to the altar. Remember that all the sacraments, all the grace that comes down on the human race comes from Our Lord’s sacrifice, the sacrifice of the Mass, as the sacrifice of Our Lord is represented to us now. And so there is this progression up to the altar because all the sacraments come from His sacrifice. But even amongst the sacraments there is a hierarchy.

There are sacraments that are for the sanctification of the individual, and then are what we call the social sacraments, the sacraments that are there for the sanctification of society. Those two sacraments are Matrimony and Holy Orders. And so we’ve relegated Matrimony and Holy Orders to those two center coffers up in the transept crossings. While we start with, as one would naturally suspect, we start with the sacraments that sanctify the individual. In the very back of the church we have the sacrament of Baptism depicted; then we have the sacrament of Confirmation which is, remember, a perfection of the sacrament of Baptism. The gifts the Holy Ghost given at Confirmation perfect those same gifts that were already given in Baptism. And then we have Holy Eucharist, which is the most perfect sacrament of all the individual sacraments, not only being a means of grace but containing Our Lord Himself, the source of grace. Then after we get past those three sacraments that are for the perfection of the individual, we have the two sacraments that are indirectly related to the perfection of the individual by getting rid of harm that the individual does to the soul through sin. I'm obviously speaking about Penance and Extreme Unction. So with Penance, that image will go right above the confessionals where the souls will be waiting for penance again to get rid of the sins that they've committed. And then we had Extreme Unction which continues and perfects this healing that has already begun in Penance.

So now we'll begin in the very back of the church with the first sacrament, as we said, for the sanctification of the individual. Here we're obviously speaking about the sacrament of Baptism. And in this sacrament, actually with all of the seven sacraments and each individual image, at the bottom on a little scroll be written the name of the sacrament in Latin. Then for the image for a Baptism we have a cross in the background and we have a scalloped shell that’s filled with water. We use the cross in the background to show that all the grace of the sacraments comes from Our Lord’s cross – as we start the Christian life through baptism it all comes from Our Lord’s sacrifice. Then we have the water in the shell which obviously is a symbol of purification – what happens in baptism is our soul is purified of original sin. And the scallop shell too: this is not just an instrument with which the priest pours the waters of baptism; the scallop shell has been used in Christian art for centuries. It's also used as a symbol of pilgrimage and the two ideas are connected – with the scallop shell you have these grooves these scallops that all lead back to one spot and the whole idea for a pilgrimage is that we all end in the same place but even for baptism that the grace that comes into the Christian's soul despite our backgrounds, our races, our talents, that we all end up in heaven through the grace of baptism.

The next sacrament we have is Confirmation, and again remember Confirmation is a perfection of everything we received in Baptism, and so that's why it is shown next. In some Eastern Rites, in fact, Confirmation is given with Baptism to the little baby. But we show in this image a dove and seven tongues of fire. The dove was one of the manifestations that the Holy Ghost shows Himself in His mission. We see Him coming as Our Lord comes out of the waters of baptism actually at the River Jordan and the Father saying: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”. The dove represents simplicity and the subtlety of grace that comes into the Christian soul. We don't feel it when grace comes into our soul. Then we have the seven tongues of fire which kind of shows the other end of the spectrum of what grace does to the soul. Of course it represents the seven Gifts the Holy Ghost but what grace does to the soul is it puts it on fire, it lights this flame in the heart to excite it to the love of God and to pursue Christian perfection.

Next we have the sacrament of Penance and in this image we have three symbols: we have the violet stole, we have two keys, and we have a large anchor. The violet stole represents the priest’s authority. Christ gave authority to His priests, to His church to absolve sins. And so the priest wears the violet stole while he's giving absolution. Closely linked with that are the two keys. Remember in Matthew chapter 16, Our Lord told Saint Peter: I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whose sins you forgive they are forgiven them whose sins you shall retain they are retained. So Saint Peter, and through that same Petrine authority all priests, are given the power to bind and to loose sins with the same authority and conditions that Our Lord would have forgiven or retained sins. And lastly we have the anchor which has always been a Christian symbol of hope. Here in the stormy seas of this life with temptations and all the things that life throws to us, how many of us have had a sudden increase in hope through the sacrament of penance when the sins that weighed on us were taken off of our soul.

The last of the sacraments that we see coming up these center coffers is the sacrament of Extreme Unction, and what you see in the image is called an ampulla, it's a big container full of the oil of the sick. The two letters on that ampulla are oleum infirmorum O. I. that stands for oil of the sick. As you know, St. James in his epistle commanded the priests: Is any man sick amongst you, let him call in the priest of the church who will bless and anoint the sick. This is where we find a scriptural reference to the foundation of this sacrament of Extreme Unction. Lastly we see two candlesticks on either side of this ampulla which in the sacrament when the priest goes to visit the sick often he brings with him Viaticum and there he lays the Viaticum, Our blessed Lord in the Holy Eucharist in between these two candles, so often it accompanies the oils and Our blessed Lord when the priest is visiting the sick.

Now we move over into the transept coffers and we see the two social sacraments. So the sacrament first of Holy Orders which is there to help sanctify the church of Christ; and in this image we see the two priestly hands, these hands which are at ordination anointed with oils. It's these hands that are used to raise the host, to give absolution, to bless people. And that’s why after an ordination we kiss the priest’s hands because they are is such a means of sanctification for the church. And we also see in this image a white stole which represents the joy of the priestly ministry to teach, to govern, and to sanctify.

Lastly we have the sacrament of Matrimony depicted with two rings that are conjoined and crucifix. The two rings show this union between two people, two in one flesh as Our Lord describe it, a union which He says no man can put asunder. We also see the crucifix in the background which isn't just a filler; we have that crucifix for two reasons: one, to show the inherent sacrifice that comes with matrimony, but it's also a little bit of a nod to a local custom here, a custom that in fact comes from Croatia. There was a town in Croatia where the couples were said to make their vows holding their hands on top of the crucifix and this town was said to have no divorces, and so a lot of our couples who are married here in St. Marys asked to do the same beautiful custom when getting married, to put their hands together, to make their vows together on the crucifix.

So that concludes our explanation of some of the artwork for today. Next month we will come back and continue our explanation of the artwork that goes in the coffers that flanks each of these sacraments. We’ll talk more about that next month.

If you can, please continue to pray for the project, please continue to support the project. Share these videos, share our website aNewImmaculata.org with anybody you know who might be interested in the project. We have seven months of construction left to completion and we still have a little over $3 million to raise for the project. You've been extremely supportive of the project and we're very grateful but help us reach that finish line by sharing this with anybody who you think might be interested.