The Centrality of the Church

In the earlier pages of "The Seven Storey Mountain,"  Thomas Merton in very descriptive language speaks of a village in France with the church at its physical center.  Merton wrote, "The church had been fixed into the landscape in such a way as to become the keystone...The whole landscape was unified by the church."  In this village of his childhood memory all the streets led to the church and whatever journey was taken into the countryside, the eyes were drawn back to its sacred spiral in the village.  It is a page proclaiming the centrality of the church as well as the drawing power of the Sacramental Christ.   

The world in which we live today is so different.  There are several dozen churches in even the smallest of towns and few there are which really dominate the landscape and capture the eyes.  Yet, is also true that for many of us the church has been and is the central point of our lives.  The church upon which our life centers may not be a single physical structure, but instead an invisible spiritual community which has always existed and will always exist in our heart and spirit.  To it we are always turning.  It is the dwelling of the incarnate sacramental Christ and it continually points us toward Him.  

Our lives are not just transformed by this invisible holy community, they are also both turned toward and directed forward by the Christ whose Spirit dwells in the invisible Kingdom which is always hovering over and filling our lives with an awareness of holy presence. While it is true that there are many around us who only have eyes that see things which are temporal and passing in nature, how blessed we are if we have eyes to see the church as an invisible presence present in whatever place in the world we are divinely placed to stand.