PATRICK’S: A shepherd looking after his flock in America, Pope Benedict XVI offered Mass for the clergy and religious last Saturday in the St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown Manhattan.

The neo-Gothic cathedral built for 2,200 people is a must for Filipinos visiting New York. Its altars, Stations of the Cross, stained-glass windows and its Pieta (three times larger than Michelangelo’s) add to the ambience that recharges the harried traveler’s body and spirit.

Built largely of local white marble, the 130-year-old parish church with its spires rising 300 meters from Fifth Avenue used to dominate the neighborhood. Though dwarfed now by skyscrapers, the structure still stands out among the steel and glass boxes around it.

Try to feel St. Patrick’s spirituality — made more intense by the presence of the Holy Father offering Mass — by reading excerpts (below) from his homily.

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INSPIRING: Perhaps more than any other church in the United States, (Saint Patrick’s) is known and loved as “a house of prayer for all peoples.” Each day thousands enter its doors and find peace within its walls.

Archbishop John Hughes, who was responsible for building this venerable edifice, wished it to rise in pure Gothic style. He wanted this cathedral to remind the young Church in America of the great spiritual tradition to which it was heir, and to inspire it to bring the best of that heritage to the building up of Christ’s body in this land.

I would like to draw your attention to a few aspects of this beautiful structure which can serve as a starting point for a reflection on our particular vocations within the unity of the Mystical Body.

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MYSTIC LIGHT: The first has to do with the stained glass windows, which flood the interior with mystic light. From the outside, those windows are dark, heavy, even dreary. But once one enters the church, they suddenly come alive; reflecting the light passing through them, they reveal all their splendor.

Many writers — here in America we can think of Nathaniel Hawthorne — have used the image of stained glass to illustrate the mystery of the Church herself. It is only from the inside, from the experience of faith and ecclesial life, that we see the Church as she truly is: flooded with grace, resplendent in beauty, adorned by the manifold gifts of the Spirit.

It follows that we, who live the life of grace within the Church’s communion, are called to draw all people into this mystery of light.

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RENEWED HOPE: This is no easy task in a world which can tend to look at the Church, like those stained glass windows, “from the outside”: a world which deeply senses a need for spirituality, yet finds it difficult to “enter into” the mystery of the Church.

Even for those of us within, the light of faith can be dimmed by routine, and the splendor of the Church obscured by the sins and weaknesses of her members. It can be dimmed too, by the obstacles encountered in a society which sometimes seems to have forgotten God and to resent even the most elementary demands of Christian morality.

You, who have devoted your lives to bearing witness to the love of Christ and the building up of his Body, know from your daily contact with the world around us how tempting it is at times to give way to frustration, disappointment and even pessimism.

In a word, it is not always easy to see the light of the Spirit all about us, the splendor of the Risen Lord illuminating our lives and instilling renewed hope in his victory over the world.

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RENEW THE WORLD: Yet the word of God reminds us that, in faith, we see the heavens opened, and the grace of the Holy Spirit lighting up the Church and bringing sure hope to our world.

“O Lord, my God,” the Psalmist sings, “when you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.”

These words evoke the first creation, when the Spirit of God hovered over the deep. And they look forward to the new creation, at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and established the Church as the first fruits of a redeemed humanity.

These words summon us to ever deeper faith in God’s infinite power to transform every human situation, to create life from death, and to light up even the darkest night. And they make us think of another magnificent phrase of Saint Irenaeus: “where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace.”

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GOD’S PLAN: This leads me to a further reflection about the architecture of this church. Like all Gothic cathedrals, it is a highly complex structure, whose exact and harmonious proportions symbolize the unity of God’s creation.

Medieval artists often portrayed Christ, the creative Word of God, as a heavenly “geometer,” compass in hand, who orders the cosmos with infinite wisdom and purpose.

Does this not bring to mind our need to see all things with the eyes of faith, and thus to grasp them in their truest perspective, in the unity of God’s eternal plan? This requires constant conversion, and a commitment to acquiring “a fresh, spiritual way of thinking.” 

It also calls for the cultivation of those virtues which enable each of us to grow in holiness and to bear spiritual fruit within our particular state of life.