Church History

Description of the architecture of St. Christopher

The altar platform is a circle, the symbol of eternal life. In the midst of the circle is our altar where we celebrate the mystery of our faith - the Paschal Mystery or the dying and rising of Christ. Here we feast at the banquet of eternal life uniting our daily life to the dying and rising of our Lord.

The altar top is square which is the form of the ancient altars of sacrifice. But rather than be a solid square block it has four legs to represent a table. Thus the altar's shape reminds us that the Eucharist is both a saced meal where we receive the food of eternal Life, Christ the Lord, and it is a sacrifice which we participate in by joining our daily lives to the dying a rising of Our Lord.

Overhead is our lattice cross which is a combination of the Jerusalem across and the cross of the twelve apostles. The disciples of the Lord must also die and rise. The corpus, or the body of Christ was carved for us in Taos, New Mexico by Gustavo Victor Goler. He is known as the "Michelangelo" of the Santeros of the Southwest. A Santero is an artist who carves the saints. The first of our saint statues is that of Saint Joseph hoiidng the Christ child. He was carved for us by Alcario Otero another well known Santero from Los Lunas near Albuquerque. I turned to the Southwest to seek Santeros in order to match our religious art with the Mission style architecture of our church.

The four imitation alabaster windows over the Blessed Sacrament chapel allows brilliant golden light to stream into our sanctuary. The ancient Basilicas placed alabaster windows in the walls to symbolized the golden truth of the gospel proclaimed in the church. Our four windows represent the golden truth of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The three Romanesque portals leading to the Blessed Sacrament chapel represent the three theological virtues we receive in Baptism: faith, hope and charity. These virtues orient us to the Living God. To believe in God is a GIFT. To put our hope in God's promises is a GIFT and to love unconditionally, the way God loves us, is a GIFT. We do not merit or earn these virtues. They come to us in seminal form in baptism. It is then up to us to activate them, to practice faith, hope and charity and thus grow in the image and likeness of Christ.

At the rear of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel are four more windows. The design in these windows is that of the honeycomb. Saint Ambrose, bishop and doctor of the Church and one of the four great Western Fathers along with Augustine, Gregory and Jerome, taught that Christians come tot he Sunday Eucharist like bees to a hive. The bee collects pollen and brings it into the beehive to transform it into honey. So too the Christian is to bring the joys and sufferings of the week and by uniting them to the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross transforms them into the Eucharist, the great act of praise of the People of God. That is the meaning of the design. The four windows themselves stand for the four virtues which Aristotle said the Greeks needed to practice if there were to be peace in the Greek City States. 

The virtues are : 
1.) Prudence, 
2.) Temperance, 
3.) Justice and 
4.) Fortitude. 

These might be translated as 

1.) Common Sense, 
2.) Self-control, 
3.) Give to God what is God's and to your neighbor what is your neighbor's and 
4.) have the courage to do what is right

The Fathers of the Church took these and applied them to the Christian life in order to enculturate the gospel into the Greek and Roman cultures. They called them the Cardinal virtues. The word "cardinal" has its root word "cardo" which means the hinge on a door. If we put these virtues into practice then our door will swing open to our neighbor and we will live in peace and harmony as the Lord intended.

Our Catholic Tradition makes use of architecture, art, music and the yearly liturgical calendar to help us to grow in the image and likeness of Christ.