The Lamps Go Out in Great Britain

Today was a remarkable day of remembrance all across the United Kingdom. After evening vigils, lights were turned off in public places and all were encouraged to observe the hour before 11:00 PM GMT by turning off all lights and leaving only a single lamp or candle burning.

100 year ago today, on August 4, 1914, Great Britain declared war against Germany. The previous day, foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey gave his famous speech to the House of Commons revealing England's attitude toward the war on the Continent. His memorable and symbolically prophetic words were the motive of today's observance, when he said, "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

There had been hope that England might maintain neutrality, as statesmen in London and Berlin worked right until the end attempting to reach a settlement regarding the status of Belgium. The British government insisted on upholding the 1839 treaty guaranteeing Belgian neutrality, while the Germans insisted that they had no interest in Belgian territory, but that their own (preemptive) defense (strategy) required their troops to pass through Belgium to head off the French before the Russians mobilized. German chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg expressed his amazement to the British ambassador that his country was ready to go to war "over a scrap of paper."

The two modern empires had been struggling to find some mode of peaceful coexistence in the first years of the twentieth century even as they sought strategic advantages and economic dominance in European and world trade and manufacturing. Belgian neutrality became England's war cry, though Grey had made it clear in his speech that British interests could not endure a German victory on the Continent. Meanwhile the war party in Berlin, having already used duplicity to egg on the Austrians and light the fires in the East, would now have their way by driving an unconscionably ruthless and destructive path through Belgium.

On the morning of August 5, 1914, England awoke and found herself at war. The players on the field were now complete, and the monstrous game was on.

"Please God it may soon be over," King George V wrote in his diary. Many of the English, convinced that the war would be over by Christmas, rushed to the recruitment offices to volunteer lest they miss their chance for battlefield glory. How terribly wrong they were in their expectations of brevity and of glory.

Indeed, the awful, impossible game was on.

The News: How Can I Know What to Worry About?

Tensions, conflicts, disagreements, arguments, violence, destruction. I find it every morning when I read the news on the Internet. July 24, 2014 is full of such stories, with details of facts, unconfirmed rumors, analysis, predictions, hopes, fears.

In more than thirty years of reading/watching the news, I have seen many "decisive moments" that were unimaginable and inconceivable before they suddenly happened. (Only in retrospect could we trace the lines building up to these moments.)

I've also seen huge amounts of attention and analysis poured out over events that never rose to their expected significance. Other issues have built up slowly over the years, and I know from the study of history that great changes often happen gradually, without drawing much attention to themselves.

Still, these times we live in today -- with so much admirable achievement and so much dissipation and chaos -- seem to point to the inevitability of a shattering conflict. Yet rarely has there been an age in history when thoughtful people haven't had expectations of imminent perils arising out of what has always been called "the evil of the times."

Human history is always ambivalent, because the human heart is ambivalent. As Solzhenitsyn says, "the line between good and evil passes through the human heart." We so often look at the day's events and wonder, "When is the great crisis coming?"

We don't know where events are leading. All of us have the responsibility, in different ways, to be attentive to our environment and our circumstances and seek to foster the good as much as we can, even as we work for victories of goodness within ourselves.

Still, there is so much that is beyond our control.

Allow me for a moment to use a homey, "old media" analogy: I could have read the newspaper today. Read about more escalation in Ukraine, more Gaza, more "Islamic State," more suffering, more refugees. But my newspaper would not come with red markings indicating that here is the big story. Here is the story that signals the beginning of the end of an epoch, a gigantic catastrophe, a great crisis that is apocalyptic at least in the sense that a world (if not the world) is coming to an end.

There are no red markings in the paper today that say, "a hundred years from now, this is what everyone will remember." It's eerie, reading the archives of the London Daily Telegraph from a hundred years ago, from July 24, 1914. Seven columns on every page packed with the news of the times. An English reader would not have guessed that the kerfuffle in Central Europe was about to put his nation at war with the Dual Monarchy and Germany, that a generation of Europe would be hurled into an abyss, that a world that began with the imperial ideal of Rome was entering its final days.

The English reader could not have known this, nor could he have done anything about it. However, he might have been very nervous about a growing confrontation that was the urgent talk of that day. Irish "Home Rule" had finally been granted by Parliament, but the controversy only seemed to grow. The Protestants of Ulster were furious, while Irish nationalists were not ready to trust what would have been "Dominion" status right under England's shadow and still opposed by powerful opposition in the English Parliament.

The page above notes the continued growth of opposition militias, the Ulster Volunteers and the Irish Volunteers. There was talk of civil war in Ireland, and in the next couple of days there would even be skirmishes. Ironically, both militias turned to Germany to purchase arms.

But then came the Great War. Home Rule was suspended and the men from both militias joined up with the rest of Great Britain's fighting generation to face a new and unexpected enemy. Only a few of the most radical of the Irish republican volunteers refused to join with the British army. They remained behind, apparently insignificant in 1914. However, their moment would come. Ireland would have civil war, independence, and continued conflict in the North that would still be writing headlines at the end of the century, and that today holds together only by a fragile peace.

Thus, the decisive moments of history continue to unfold, and our times are not different insofar as the struggle between good and evil continues in the world and in the daily challenges that our hearts face.

Only at the end will we see everything, at the true decisive moment -- a moment that is already ours in hope -- a moment when the world and all hearts will pass through the fires of Mercy.

The Strange and Tragic News of June 28, 1914

June 28, 1914. One hundred years ago on this day, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Habsburg imperial heir and political reformer, was assassinated by Serbian nationalists in Sarajevo.

This was news even for Americans. And, as the New York Herald says, "consternation was created throughout the Courts of Europe" by an attack on one of their own; there was sorrow and disturbance everywhere that a member of one of Europe's ancient ruling families had been murdered in what was apparently a terrorist plot.

It seemed like a dark moment in the early years of the twentieth century, a disturbing thing that had inserted itself into what many hoped would be the century of the triumph of Science, Reason, and Progress.

No one yet knew that this was the spark that would rapidly set fire to Europe and begin a war like nothing the world had ever seen. No one could have imagined how the science, reason, and progress of the twentieth century would bring forth not only spectacular benefits for humanity but also unprecedented horrors on a monstrous scale.

The Centennial of the First World War has begun.

And a hundred years from now? What will the blogger of the future (or whatever it is they'll be doing by then) look back on in the year 2114? They will know decisions that will have been made and consequences we cannot imagine. Perhaps they will look back upon miracles for which we can only hope. Hope and pray.... When we recall the past, and even more when we look to the present, let us remember to pray.

Wasting Time, Part II: How I Ended Up in Russia

And now I shall continue this rambling story, and you will find that it is not without interest.

I grabbed this book off my shelf yesterday and became absorbed by it, but, as I said, the Lord is merciful. It turned out to be a very interesting book about Saint Sergius and Russian Spirituality. Yes. Really! That book attracted my interest, and I started reading. I found it hard to stop reading. (I challenge anyone to a NERD contest, any time, any place... I will outnerd you!)

This icon has pretty much the whole story.

But seriously: I already knew a lot of what was in this book, and I knew that is was great and deeply significant history, but present circumstances put it in a new perspective.

Sergius of Radonezh is a Russian Orthodox saint of the 14th century. He is one of the great saints of Russian monasticism who also played the role of peacemaker among the factions that were emerging as the Mongol grip was loosened in the north. St. Sergius is a national hero and symbol for Russia, although this is something of an accident of history. His monastery was near Moscow, and his counsel to the prince and his prayers are linked forever to the decisive Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, which was a "Lepanto-like" victory by Christian Slavs over the Mongols.

Stay with me here, because this matters. This is the birth of the Russia we know today. This Russia traces its origin to the great lost city of Kiev, which was a wonder of the 11th and 12th centuries and known well throughout Europe. Ancient Kiev was vaporized by the Golden Horde in 1240, and I mean really vaporized! The Mongols -- an inscrutable confederacy of nomads brought together by Genghis Khan -- were like a combination of an unstoppable force of nature and a ferocious weapon of mass destruction.

Ancient Kiev, the Kiev of St. Vladimir and the people of Rus, was basically nuked. The "Golden Horde" didn't need a bomb. They killed everyone. They burned everything. Then they pitched camp, chewed on dried mutton, rested, raced their horses, and headed for the next town.

They had a simple philosophy. A divine being ruled heaven, and they ruled earth. Their motives for being ruthless weren't very clear, but at some point they realized that if they came to a city and decided not to just toast it, there was a lot of money to be made.

The Christian Slavs who could fled, many to the north. Kiev was erased from the map. Part of the problem of tracing the Slavic heritage is this unparalleled event and its consequences. The Mongols swept over the world of medieval Rus, wiped part of it out and left the rest of it to pay tribute. This was terrorism. But it also became, over time, a migration and partial assimilation, with the "Tartars" settling and some even converting to Christianity. The khans were curious about religion, and even considered Christianity. In the end, however, they chose Islam.

Russia was born over a century later, inspired in part by a monk who was a man of peace, a monk who lived as a hermit and shared his bread with a bear every day, who founded a monastery under obedience to the bishop and served as abbot by building the cells of his novices and bringing them water and food, a monk who counseled peasants and princes, and who convinced princes not to fight with one another.

The Battle of Kulikovo was a matter of self defense. When it became clear that the Horde could not be stopped by tribute or even temporal humiliation, Sergius blessed Prince Dmitri and told him to go forth boldly, trust God, and prepare for death. Many did die on that day, but the Prince lived and prevailed. Muscovy and its princes became the unifying center of the Eastern Slavic world. Eventually they became Emperors with a stature beyond anything St. Sergius could have imagined in the 14th century.

Fascinating stuff. And, in fact, very much worth knowing and remembering.

In celestial glory, St. Sergius prays for peace between his brothers on earth today. May his prayers be heard.

Would Jesus Have Made the Cover of TIME Magazine?

Inside the magazine: Dateline Jerusalem, April 13, 0033

Here He comes! Everyone in Jerusalem is talking about Him.

He was just voted the most popular and the most influential man in Israel for the past year, beating out both the high priest Caiaphas and Herod. He has been hailed as the Son of David, the King of Israel! He is the enormously popular new rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth.

At today's Jerusalem rally, adoring crowds roared, "Hosanna!"

"We really think that Jesus can make a difference. He'll change things around here," said one observer.

"Jesus is great," said another, "We've been waiting for this moment since that time in the desert when he multiplied the bread. Just think what this will do for the economy!"

"And we can stop worrying about affordable health care," said another, "because he can just cure everybody. Problem solved!"

There is still no official confirmation of the report that Jesus is about to declare his candidacy for "Messiah," but his approval ratings in the polls have never been higher. There is no doubt that the Jesus Effect is being felt everywhere. He is the most popular rabbi in the world.

Even the opposition seems to recognize the fact. Leading Pharisees are reportedly saying to one another, "You see that you [i.e. we] are gaining nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him" (John 12:19).

Nevertheless, the opposition coalition of Pharisees, scribes, and priests continues their nightly strategy sessions, and there are some reports that indicate they may have established contact with a disgruntled high ranking member of the Jesus Campaign. So this story may yet contain some surprises.

As of now, Pontius Pilate's office has made no comment.

St. Thomas Aquinas: A Tribute to an Enduring Wisdom

Today is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. This is no obscure medieval monk. The appearance of St. Thomas on the landscape of the university of Paris in the middle of the thirteenth century was nothing less than the beginning of a new epoch in the history of the Church. He was the great expression in the West of the essential harmony of faith and reason.

As he taught and wrote his famous theological treatises, he drew upon Aristotle and reoriented Plato and Augustine so as to build a philosophical foundation of metaphysics and epistemology that remains fundamentally important today.

One can indeed say that in his articulation of the metaphysics of Esse and in his integrated epistemological realism that does justice to the interplay of sensation and spiritual intelligence, St. Thomas has laid down the foundations for authentic philosophical as well as theological development. Although Catholic theology is far from monolithic, the best and most coherent contemporary efforts to understand the human being, the world, and the mystery of God have as their touchstone the metaphysics and epistemology of St. Thomas. He insures that thinking, no matter how adventuresome it may be in its unfolding, does not lose its bearings.

For a time after the Second Vatican Council, it seemed as though this great Catholic Doctor was destined to be forgotten, drowned in a sea of secular humanist ideologies, moral relativism, and psychoanalysis. But St. Thomas is making a strong return. His greatest twentieth century follower recognized in Thomas's principles a fountain of creative insight that made it possible to engage contemporary issues. Jacques Maritain predicted, in the midst of the post-Conciliar turmoil of 1968, that Thomas's foundational contribution would endure:

"St. Thomas..., humbly and without putting in a claim, brought metaphysical wisdom to the most basic and universal degree of intuitive grasp possible to reason. A metaphysics of 'esse,' a metaphysics born from the intuition of the act of existing--and whose primary object is this primordial and all-embracing intelligible reality--has the capacity to welcome, recognize, honor, set to rights all that is" (from The Peasant of the Garonne, 1968).

Mary is a "Yes" to God

Statue of Mary at Mission San Juan
Bautista, California (six months ago!)

I love these days. These are "Mary's days," beginning with this great celebration of the beginning, of that radical moment when God did something new. In the silence of St. Anne's womb, the new creation began, the definitive victory of Divine grace burst into history for the first time.

From the very beginning, Mary is all about grace. She reveals the love of Jesus, the power of God to change everything. She is called to be the Mother of the Word who dwells among us, to "embrace God"  totally and entirely because it was from her concrete, human historical reality that He would take flesh. From the moment of her conception, Mary is nothing but a "yes" to God.

He knows that the "yes" of Mary goes all the way to the Cross. That "yes," by God's redeeming grace, fills Mary totally, from the beginning.

She is also called to be close to each one of us, with all of our sins. Because she is without sin, there is a place in her heart for all of us sinners.

There is no limit to the "yes" that she says to her Son, and to each one of us.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.

Election Night: Presidents and Memories

Election night in America.

I don't know what it will mean for the future. But today, for some reason, I was remembering the past.

The first American President I can remember was Lyndon Johnson. It echoes somewhere in my memory, the words "President Johnson." I was younger than Josefina in 1968. But I was very aware that an election was taking place.

"What does the president do?" I asked my mother.

She told me something to the effect that the president is responsible for the whole country, and that he "watches over" the whole country.

My five year old imagination generated a vivid image: an enormous window where President Johnson sat, "watching" the whole country. The view from the window stretched in all directions.

"He works all the time," my mother said. "He doesn't even have time to sleep at night. [I don't know if she actually said this, but this is what I remember.] The only sleep he gets is cat naps."

She might have been thinking of Kennedy, who was known for his "cat naps."

He never gets to sleep? Wow! My eyes grew wide. I assumed that he must sit in front of that huge window, all day and all night, watching the country. It sounded like a very difficult thing.

Then there was an election. And President Johnson had decided not to run. Somehow, my mother conveyed this to me.

"Gosh," I thought, "He probably wants to get some sleep!"

I was awake on election night in November 1968. I remember seeing the new president on television, with both arms stretched out, giving his signature "victory" sign with two fingers of each hand.

Richard Nixon.

There was also this word that I remember hearing in those days, on the television news, every night, over and over: "Saigon...Saigon...Saigon...."

Saigon, explosions, and gunfire.

I assumed that the new president would take his place at the big window, and begin watching.

The Love That Reaches Every Nation, Culture, and Epoch

Today is the Feast of the Korean Martyrs of the 19th century. Over a hundred are celebrated, many of them lay people who took heroic steps to spread their faith in Christ and to keep it alive under the relentless persecution of a hostile government. St. Andrew Kim Taegon, the first native Korean priest, was tortured and beheaded in 1846. He was 25 years old. Below are some excerpts from his farewell epistle to the Christian faithful who were struggling to remain steadfast.

Who is this man Jesus, that people of every nation, culture, and epoch are willing to suffer and die for Him? What is it about this man that gives the human being an awareness and a freedom that can stand against every kind of power, every attempt to suppress the person? 

St. Andrew Kim Taegon and companions, pray for us as we struggle to follow Jesus in our own trials. Pray that those who oppose us might encounter, through our witness, the truth and love of the presence of Christ.

From the farewell epistle of St. Andrew Kim Taegon, Korea, 1846:

Dearest brothers and sisters:
when he was in the world,
the Lord Jesus bore countless sorrows
and by his own passion and death founded the Church;
now he gives it increase through the sufferings of the faithful.
No matter how fiercely the powers of this world
oppress and oppose the Church,
they will never bring it down.
Ever since his ascension
and from the time of the apostles to the present,
the Lord Jesus has made his Church grow
even in the midst of tribulation.

For the last fifty or sixty years,
ever since the coming of the Church to our own land of Korea,
the faithful have suffered persecution over and over again.
Persecution still rages
and as a result many who are friends
in the household of the faith,
myself among them,
have been thrown into prison
and like you are experiencing severe distress.
Because we have become the one Body,
should not our hearts be grieved
for the members who are suffering?
Because of the human ties that bind us,
should we not feel deeply the pain of our separation?

But, as the Scriptures say,
God numbers the very hairs on our head
and in his all-embracing providence he has care over us all....
Hold fast, then, to the will of God
and with all your heart fight the good fight
under the leadership of Jesus;
conquer again the diabolical power of this world
that Christ has already vanquished.

I beg you not to fail in your love for one another,
but to support one another
and to stand fast
until the Lord mercifully delivers us from our trials.

....I embrace you all in love. 

The Hundredfold of St. Augustine

St. Augustine. There's no end to what we could say about him. There is one particular thing that has always fascinated me. St. Augustine is a radiant example of what Jesus calls "the hundredfold" (Mark 10:31).

Jesus says that if we follow Him, we will receive eternal life...but also, we will receive a hundredfold in this life (along with "persecutions"). He also says "seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added as well" (see Matthew 6:33).

What does Jesus mean? He does not mean the we should follow Him in order to get stuff in this life. That would be to reduce Jesus to our own measure. Jesus wants to transform us according to God's wisdom. He wants to give us a new mind and a new heart. He promises eternal life, which is the mystery toward which everything in this life points, and which is therefore the real meaning of everything in this life.

The Servant of God Msgr. Luigi Giussani often said something that resonates deeply in me, and corresponds to my own experience. He said that if you really follow Christ, you will also discover that you love your wife a hundred times more than you ever could have imagined; that you love your children a hundred times more, your work a hundred times more, your friends a hundred times more. You will discover the real greatness of this life, and you will even be able to embrace suffering.

There is a particular way in which St. Augustine's life indicates this pattern. Here was a man who aspired to be a great rhetorician, an artist with words. He pursued this ambition with relentless passion, but without understanding its true value. And then he found Christ, and he gave up all thought of being a rhetorician. He gave up the desire to be known for his speeches and writings and works in this world. He longed for Christ, followed Christ, and kept his heart fixed on Christ.

And from out of his singular passion for Christ--without even thinking about it, or caring, or noticing it--he wrote an amazing book. Desiring only to praise Christ, he wrote a book that was not only the greatest book of its epoch, but one of the greatest ever written in human history. He gave the world inimitable and unforgettable Latin prose, soaring and poetic diction, and timeless, soul-penetrating insight into the heart of the human being.

Aurelius Augustinus the rhetorician and scholar, had he followed his ambition, might have become a teacher with some following, or even perhaps a minor provincial statesman of his period. Students of late antiquity might have known his name. But Saint Augustine, by following Christ, became also a hundred times more in the history of this world. He wrote books that speak to every time and in every language, and he gave us words that ring out through the ages--words that rival any that have ever been uttered in human speech.

There is something of the hundredfold here, although it has been more for our benefit than for his.

"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace" (Confessions X:27).

Mary: At the Center of the Whole Human Race

Mary, the Mother of God, shapes the Christian identity of the believer and the vocation of every human person. For every human person without exception has been created to know and love Jesus Christ, and in Christ to share forever in God’s very own life of Ineffable Love. Mary, indeed, is at the center of what it means to be a Christian, which means that she is also the center of the whole human race. In accordance with the mystery of God’s magnificent, gratuitous plan of love, she brought forth into the world and continues to bring into our lives the One who concretely constitutes the true meaning of our humanity.

By cooperating with her whole being, her whole affections, her whole heart and her whole will, Mary brought into the world the only One who can give meaning to the universe. For from the beginning, the universe has been destined to be transformed by God's gift of Himself. God created the universe and everywhere permeated it with a mysterious impetus corresponding to the design of His Love. And in the beginning, the human being was created to be a tupos, a sign, of the-One-who-was-to-come, the One who will bring all things into unity and fulfillment in Himself.

Here and now, Mary brings to me the only One who knows the profound mystery of who I am; the One who knows, from within its very source, the gesture of Divine Love that created me, and that calls me to eternal life, to a participation in His Glory.

Clothed With The Sun

We know that Mary has been assumed body and soul into heaven. She sent us a picture!

Indeed, it's more than a picture. We are so familiar with reproductions and even color photographs of this "picture" that we are in danger of growing accustomed to it. But the original is unique.

We all know that the "tilma" has been the object of many scientific studies. They can't explain it. They know it's not a painting. Indeed there is no known human technique for making an image like this. Studies have concluded that the colors and patterns of the image are on the tilma in the way that color and design are on the wings of a moth.

In other words, they are like something natural. There is no sign of human artifice. At the same time, no one can explain how the image actually "interacts" with the cloth. To put it simply: it's not like anything we know.

And then there are the eyes....

I like the story of a Japanese optic specialist who came to Mexico to study the eyes of the image with the latest technology. According to the story, he was making his examinations through his scope when, suddenly, he fainted to the ground. When he regained consciousness, people wanted to know what happened, and he said:

"She was looking at me!"

As a pilgrim (three times) to this amazing place, my response is, "Of course she was looking at you."

During this beautiful period between the feast of the Assumption and the feast of the Queenship of Mary (August 22), I cannot help but recall the precious time that I have spent with her.

The Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of the Lord of heaven and earth, Our Merciful Mother...she lives there. People who seek her, with attention and faith and patience, will find her, and will be changed by her personal presence.

Moreover, quite of few distracted or merely curious people will be surprised by a tap on the shoulder, and an encounter with a person who knows them, and looks at them with a profound tenderness. It makes them forget any other reasons they had had for coming. And they find themselves being loved, and healed, and gently corrected and set upon the right path. So many people speak of these experiences that it must be more than a collective delusion.

"Here, I will give all of my love...." This is the promise she made to Juan Diego.

Mary lives with her whole humanity, body and soul, in the New Creation. And in some mysterious way, her glory radiates from her resurrected life, and touches this earthly place and this inexplicable image, so that she might be "there" for us, to meet us, and to become a personal presence in our lives.

-------------------------------

P.S. - I neglected to mention the extensive temperature studies that have been done on the cloth. Regardless of the temperature outside, the cloth and its image have always maintained the same temperature. It always measures 98.6 degrees. Fahrenheit. Yup!

People, this is for real!

The Beauty of the Edifice

The feast day of the unforgettable Cure of Ars brings to mind many stories about the humble and extraordinary parish priest. I have always been especially touched by the remarkable and perhaps unlikely friendship between St. John Vianney and another great French priest - who is not a saint (not yet, at least) but who was the great pioneer who helped bring about the restoration of religious life in post-revolutionary France, Fr. Henri Lacordaire, O.P.

Sometimes called "the French Newman," Lacordaire refounded the Dominican order in France, and dedicated himself to a vigorous and erudite apologia for the Catholic faith in his famous discourses given at Notre Dame to crowds of believers and unbelievers alike. He was the towering Catholic figure in the midst of the positivistic French intelligentsia of his time, and he lit the spark that began the Catholic intellectual, literary, and cultural revival of France in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Lacordaire's talents and education, however, were accompanied by a genuine humility and a devotion to the Church, and in Vianney he saw one of the saints that he knew the Church in France so desperately needed in his time. The Cure, in turn, recognized the value of great Dominican's brilliant preaching.

When it was remarked that Lacordaire's conferences had produced few conversions, St. John Vianney spoke up on behalf of his friend. Lacordaire's work with skeptics and unbelievers was important nonetheless, said the Cure, because "we must make them admire the beauty of the edifice before inspiring them with the desire to enter."