15.02.2012
Archbishop Gives Lecture on Vision for Cathedrals Today
The liminal experience of cathedrals and their spiritual space are their greatest asset and opportunity, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson has said. The Archbishop made his comments in a lecture entitled ‘Towards a Vision for Cathedrals Today’ which he delivered in the Irish Architectural Archive as part of a series of lunchtime lectures on the ‘Restorations of Christ Church’ organised by the Friends of Christ Church Cathedral.
Archbishop Jackson described the liminal experience of cathedrals in his 2001 paper as “the crossing of a threshold (Latin limen) into a confident space which takes for granted an architectural lay–out and its artefacts and symbols as pointing to and making possible an activity which carries meaning. This is utterly different from what lies outside”.
“Ten years later, it is clear to me that such a liminal experience and such spiritual space constitute the greatest asset and opportunity of a cathedral – provided they are not accompanied by a negative or punitive judgementalism to which churches are prone from time to time. This does not – and here my conviction over a decade remains firm – mean that the cathedral is a wadi for aesthetic refugees. It means that a number of things which become compartmentalised to the point of being optional extras or complete opposites are asked to embrace within the love of God – and people who come and see, in the idiom of St John chapter 1 and its invitation to discipleship, may make of them what they will. To my mind this is very important. A building needs a community. That community does not need to be large or grand. It needs to be faithful, authentic and tangible and friendly to strangers. Within a short time those who visit cathedrals know if there is a community of people who are Christ–focused who are both heart and hearth of a cathedral – or not!” Dr Jackson stated.
He also argued that a cathedral was a place of oscillation between stability and momentum. The stability came from the cathedral’s confidence in living through hsitory. The momentum derived from the eschatological urgency brought to its life by the dean and the bishop in collaboration with the organist and choristers, with volunteers and staff, with everyone who formed a community – both transient and permanent. Giving an explanation of the phrase ‘eschatological urgency’ the Archbishop said: “By it I mean the need to present the overflowing goodness of God as God wishes fervently to restore this to his creation at the End Time but also with intimations of power and love in the present times. This comes about through the generous presentation of the ultimate reality of God the Trinity as accessible to but not subject to manipulation by the churches”. He added that clergy in cathedrals needed to grasp the theological possibilities through good liturgy, good preaching and good pastoral care.
Archbishop Jackson said that the four characteristics of the life of a Cathedral were ecumenism, education, elasticity and expectations. He said: “these four are important both as a cathedral expresses its identity and as it finds afresh in each generation, and almost in each year of its life, its identity… I am increasingly convinced of the real need for the re–assertion of a doctrine of provisionality in the understanding of the work and role of the church and of Christian theology. A literal world, a Googling world, has little time for uncertainty. The difficulty with this is that church, religion and theology as we know them have not got the last word to offer on God – and it is God who matters most. Therefore we not only need to keep our minds wide open but our eyes wide open too. This is where cathedrals I think really do come into their own because they help us to grapple with what instantly becomes ‘ours’ on entering but what, in another sense, will never become ‘ours.’ Cathedrals at their best take the acquisitveness and territorialism out of religious experience and religious belonging. What is ‘ours’ is everyone’s and, perhaps even more exciting, what is everyone’s has to become ‘ours’.”
The Archbishop concluded that Christ Church Cathedral sought to break new ground. It also sought to be innovative and to expand the range of expectation of the tradition on the part of those who already know well the tradition as inherited. “All of this means that cathedrals are open to fresh direction as a way of expressing what I can only call – their personality. Such personality seems to me to be their greatest treasure and their greatest offering,” he said.
To read the full text of Archbishop Jackson’s lecture click here