What values do pastors of differing Christian traditions share when celebrating Eucharist in sacred spaces? Introduction: Current Challenges to Eucharistic Place and Piety For some thirty-five years I have served Roman Catholic parish communities throughout the United States as a liturgical educator, designer and consultant, a tripartite lay ministry, as I see it, inseparable from […]
Author: Michael E. DeSanctis
Eucharistic Liturgy · November / December 2020
Chalkware Catholicism: The Aims and Art of Catholic Statuary Reconsidered
What does a sacramental imagination make of the religiously mundane? Sleeping Among the Saints “Chalkware Catholicism” is a phrase I coined some time ago in my writing on sacred art and architecture to describe an approach to the faith, once widespread among the faithful, that relied heavily on the plaster statuary — or “chalkware” — […]
Eucharistic Liturgy · September / October 2020
Of What Use are Church Buildings in Times of Calamity?
Church Buildings have historically been considered as sanctuaries in difficult times. What meaning do they have when people are barred from entering them? Those Emmanuel readers with a special interest in Italy, even before the tragic turn COVID-19 recently took through that overwhelmingly Catholic country, may have known it as a place where devotion to […]
Eucharistic Liturgy · July / August 2020
Advice to Pastors on Preserving a Legacy of Artistic Expression
How do pastors convey the rich meanings of Catholic sacred art to a congregation naïve of religious visual language? Our Secularized Scene Not long ago, while wending my way through the collection of paintings from medieval Europe at a major metropolitan museum, I came upon a conversation between a boy and his parents that struck […]
Eucharistic Liturgy · May / June 2020
Topiary, Aviary, Bestiary, Breviary: An Organic Reading of Church Architecture
What do our great church buildings tell us about our relationship to creation? Our Mechanized Environment The Swiss-born Modernist architect LeCorbusier (1887-1965) is credited with having inspired several generations of architects throughout the world to regard their art as one aligned with the mechanization of human life, something akin to the business of boilermakers or […]
Eucharistic Liturgy · March / April 2020
The Truth About “Cold,” Modernist Church Architecture
Discussion about Modernist church architecture is often charged with emotion and rooted in personal taste. Why is this the case and how do we move beyond it? There’s a persistent refrain one hears from certain corners of the Church today that goes something like this: The wholesale reconfiguration of the Catholic place of worship presumably […]
Eucharistic Liturgy · January / February 2020
Church Buildings and the Disciplining of the Mind: Bringing an Un-Churched Generation into Sacred Spaces
With beautiful historic church buildings crumbling, and Catholic demographics shifting, how do we share the rich heritage of sacred architecture with an un-churched generation? Several years ago, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) launched its ingenious “I Look Up” campaign, an attempt to raise public literacy about the art of building by encouraging people of […]
Eucharistic Spirituality · November / December 2019
“A Crib Fit for a King”
Can a crib modeled on a Medieval counterpart awaken faith and wonder in the minds and hearts of modern, restless onlookers? For almost a decade, I have been building original Nativity scenes to display at Christmastime on the campus of the Catholic university where I teach courses in the fine arts and theology. I consider […]
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Eucharist: Living & Evangelizing · March / April 2018
My “Death Metal” Kids: Closet Sacramentalists
A father muses on the musical and existential journey of his eldest son and daughter. Could Easter and new life be at the end of their fascination with the grave and death? I confess to taking a perverse pleasure from walking through supermarkets, restaurants, and other public places with the eldest of my four children, […]
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