After the cathedral has done its job in reminding us of our proper place in history and cosmos, it then moves us in the opposite direction. Like the liturgy within, the whole thing begins in genuflection towards the altar and the confession of our unworthiness but then raises us up with ancient and holy words, "Lift up your hearts," and the invitation to come and partake -- to participate in the whole drama. There is a summons within the cathedral; the building itself is a call to worship and to work. The very walls cry out for us to rise and do and be about the building of something greater than ourselves.
Those common laborers come to mind, the ones who laid the stonework, or the skilled masons who carved the gargoyles, and the artists who accepted the daunting task of sculpting saints. There was the pre-imminent architect Christopher Wren, who after the Great Fire of 1666 built 52 churches, including the masterpiece of St Paul's Cathedral. There was the man and his great monumental vision for the glory of God; and then there were the myriads of now-forgotten workers who raised it up and kept it standing.
These cathedrals are a testament, a symbol of the will of a people and the eternal hope for the city of God.
I am thinking now of the night of December 29/30, 1940 as German bombers continued on their months-long blitz of Britain and Northern Ireland. For 57 nights straight Luftwaffe dropped bombs on the city of London. In all, a million London homes were damaged or destroyed, and 20,000 Londoners were killed. Yet the Cathedral was spared, primarily because Churchill ordered a special team of firefighters to stand watch atop the dome. They threw flaming incendiaries off of the roof of the cathedral, as men like them did the same in Canterbury and in other cities throughout the United Kingdom. And there, somewhere in the early hours of December 30, photographer Herbert Mason stood atop the roof of the "Daily Mail" and shot an iconic image "St Paul's Survives" that captured the not only the monumental resilience of a building but also that of a whole nation.
Who were those firefighters? Their names, recorded now in some esoteric book about the London Blitz, will one day be forgotten once their children and their children's children pass away. But the building will still stand. The church will remain.
These cathedrals are a mirror, a look into the soul of a people, their values, their dreams, and their aspirations. They keep us looking up, towards the eternal, towards the coming of the great one on the clouds, towards tomorrow. They keep reminding us the answer to the psalmist's question, "What is man?" And his rhetorical answer, "a little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and with honor."
Heir of the kingdom 'neath the skies
Often he falls, yet falls to rise;
Stunned, bleeding, beaten back,
Yet holding still to the upward track,
Playing his part in creation's plan,
God-like in image, this is man.
Howard Thurman
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