Creation of Paradise

To my mind, the best image to illustrate God’s creation is the reliquary. It is so beautiful, we might be forgiven for missing the point. It is only a beautiful display case for something more important. It is a means of setting apart what lies within for special veneration.
God created the heavens and the earth, the sun and moon and stars in their courses. He separated the dry lands from the seas, and brought forth life upon the earth. Genesis 2:8 – “And the Lord God planted a garden in the East, in Eden; and there he placed the man whom he had formed.”
This vast reliquary was a magnificent way to carve out a sacred place for the creature that bore most uniquely the image of the Creator.

The Garden of Eden by Thomas Cole
God has created this sacred space as a dwelling-place for both the human and the divine. They walked together in fellowship in the garden in the cool of the day. The garden was a place of man’s priestly labor—Adam was to tend the garden (Gen 2:15), to cultivate the place where heaven and earth overlapped. Eden was sacred space. It is no wonder that temples throughout the ancient world were richly decorated with images of the garden. The very word “paradise” comes from the Persian term for a walled garden.
(I'm heavily indebted to Andrew Gould for his post about gardens in this section.)
The vision of paradise as an idyllic walled garden is exceedingly ancient and universal. For thousands of years, palaces have been built around courtyard gardens, and the ancient kings lived out their reigns in an artificial landscape of ideal beauty – an icon of the natural world transfigured into paradise.
There is a very old belief that any garden represents a restoration of Eden, and from the earliest times palace gardens have specifically imitated certain characteristics of Eden. The garden was always square. A fountain at the center poured forth water into four channels that radiated outward in the cardinal directions – an image of the four rivers of paradise referenced in Genesis 2:10-14. It is the preeminent image of human longing.

Is it any wonder that at the climax of the salvation story, we again find the setting of a garden. Jesus agonizes with his vocation in the Garden of Gethsemane, choosing to embrace the chalice of suffering. And at the end of his passion, he is laid to rest in a tomb in a garden. And the garden is where he first sets foot in his resurrected body.

Ancient temples and palaces had their gardens, reminiscent of the ancient walled paradise where all was right with the world. It is no surprise then that churches would have their own ancient custom of the garden courtyard. The first house churches were in homes that had a central courtyard as one of the basic architectural features (think Abuello’s).
To enter through the churchyard lychgate is to pass into a different world. To walk through the gardens to church amongst the resting places of the faithful departed is to begin the joyous ascent up the mountain to meet our Lord who sits enthroned in the New Jerusalem.

Even in countries with more verdant climates, the separation of the church gardens from the surroundings was considered very important. Whether by a high wall, or merely a fence with a gate, a church’s grounds were always set apart from the fallen world, and all within would radiate with the beauty of life.
Trees of the Patriarchs

There is a tree of life in Eden (as there are such trees of life-giving fruit in the paradise of the New Jerusalem) and there is a tree of knowledge. Is it any wonder then that after man’s expulsion from paradise, the first place we find sacred space coming back into the scene is under the shade of a large tree? Of all places, the whisper of God would be best heard under a tree.
Pay attention to the first reading at Mass tomorrow morning. Abram is called by God in Genesis 12 to pick up roots in Haran and head out West to a land of promise. He went with his family, not knowing exactly where to go, but knowing that God would let him know when he got there. Where does Abram stop? Where does God speak to him in the promised land?







In the time of the Judges, Deborah held court under “the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel” (Judges 4:5). The Israelites thought it fitting to bury the great Prophetess close the Lord’s dwelling, under the oak tree at Bethel. In the story of the call of Gideon in Judges 6, we read: “Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak at Ophrah” and that Gideon brought his offering to the oak tree there.



I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing brest;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray,
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain,
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Temple in Jerusalem

The tablets of testimony written with the commandments of God (inscribed first with his own hand) were a portable sign of his presence. They were made of the material of the mountain and were inscribed with his will. An ark of acacia wood was made to transport them—again, materials from the mountain where the God of Abraham dwelt. When Moses put them in a box to take them to the Promised Land, it was almost as if they had put God himself in a box to take to the Promised Land. In reality, the tabernacle transported the tangible elements of that first encounter with God on the mountain.

When the structure was complete, the Bible says: “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting, because the cloud abode upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would go onward; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not go onward till the day that it was taken up. For throughout all their journeys the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel” (Exodus 40:34-38).
God’s tangible presence dwelt above the “mercy seat”—the golden lid of the Ark of the Covenant—between two winged angels bowed down in worship. This was the most sacred space on earth. The closer to this sacred space you get, the more one leaves the realm of earth and enters the realm of heaven. We can see gradations of holiness with gradations of distinction reflected in the layout, building materials, and use of the tabernacle. The closer to God, the more set apart and precious the features become.

When the Ark found a permanent home in Jerusalem, David said he would not rest until a fitting residence was made for the Lord and the Ark of his presence. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement in that the palace of the king and the palace of God (the temple) were essentially a part of the same complex. David was not to live to see it accomplished; that was left to his son, King Solomon. When the temple was finished and dedicated, we find the same description of the Lord descending and taking up residence within the Holy of holies was happened with the portable tabernacle.

It is no wonder then that John begins his gospel with a description of Jesus becoming (as it were) the new temple. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt (literally, “tabernacle”) among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14).
In his book Jesus of Nazareth (Infancy Narratives) Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “The man Jesus is the dwelling-place of the Word, the eternal divine Word, in this world. Jesus’ ‘flesh,’ his human existence, is the ‘dwelling’ or ‘tent’ of the Word: the reference to the sacred tent of Israel in the wilderness is unmistakable. Jesus is, so to speak, the tent of meeting—he is the reality for which the tent and the later Temple could only serve as signs.” As tragic an end as it was, it is fitting that the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant came to an end and the Temple of Herod was razed to the ground because Jesus is the eternal sacrifice, the New Covenant, and the living Temple of the Most High.
Facing East

Here is Father Beste at the altar of this church, leading his people in a solemn procession toward Christ in paradise, which is what the Eucharistic liturgy is all about. The common direction of clergy and people is a vivid reminder of their anticipation of, and movement toward, the paradise that awaits with the return of Christ in glory. We’ll ignore the fact that they’re technically headed in the wrong direction. It had long since become customary to consider the altar end of the church “liturgical East” no matter what the compass read. Was it a mistake to put the altar at the western end of this room? My only comment about that is to observe that if it had been put at the eastern end, the altar would not have been struck by lightning!

This gesture is a little passing reminder of how important directionality in worship was to people of days past—not just in ancient times, but approaching the modern era. Even after Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment which both served to detach spiritual matters from the physical realm, we still took the care to orient at least our churches if not ourselves when addressing God in prayer. Even the word “orientation” indicates a physical movement toward the oriens—Latin for “East.”

Some scholars think that at least during the Exile, it was a common practice to face toward the temple mount for prayer, longing for the day when God’s dwelling place would be restored and his people would be brought home. Another explanation could be that by deliberately facing this way, it would be obvious that Daniel was engaging in an act of defiance toward the prohibition of worship by earthly power.

Perhaps nowhere is this more vividly realized architecturally than here—at Christo Rey Carmelite Monastery in San Francisco. The priest is leading the people in that liturgical procession toward paradise as all of the sudden Jesus bursts forth into this world from the Eastern horizon in his glorious return to earth. The anticipation of the parousia has been realized in the advent of his Real Presence.
St. John of Damascus explained: “When ascending into heaven, [Jesus] rose towards the East, and that is how the apostles adored him, and he will return just as they saw him ascend into heaven . . . Waiting for him, we adore him facing East. This is an unrecorded tradition passed down to us from the apostles” (On the Orthodox Faith 4:12). “Facing the Lord” in the liturgy often meant facing the tabernacle because it was there that the blessed Sacrament was reserved. Liturgically speaking, however, it is the eschatological orientation of the assembly toward the rendezvous with Christ in his new Advent which is paramount.
During the time of house churches, it was common to mark the Eastern wall of the home or courtyard with a cross, which would serve to indicate the direction of prayer during the time of worship for the community gathered at the Lord’s table. This was even before the period when the cross became a symbol commonly used in Christian circles.
The Church

Making Space Holy
It’s important to remember that you are the church, the mystical Body of Christ, you are sacred space. St Paul wrote in his First Letter to the Corinthians, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are” (1 Cor 4:16-17). When our Lord comes to us, may he find in our hearts a mansion prepared for himself!
For our own spiritual well-being, we have to make sacred space in our own lives. We should put forth the time and effort to turn a part of our world into Paradise—that “walled garden” where order and beauty are cultivated, and where God and man spend time together, enjoying each other’s company. It should look like paradise, like a little corner of heaven. Perhaps the use of icons, or plants, or color, or fabric, or some such means of marking territory as holy and set apart from the rest of the world can help form a sacred space in your own life and foster communion with God.
We have so many exceptions to the rules, it’s sometimes difficult to remember what the rules are. According to the ancient practice and laws of the church, only the ordained clergy may enter the chancel and sanctuary. Like the priests and Levites encamped between the tabernacle and the people, they were gathered close to wait upon the Lord.
As a part of the altar guild, it is your service to stand in for the clergy and attend to the needs of the sanctuary. What can we do to mark off that sacred space? Entering the sanctuary, if it truly is the house of God, begs us to set apart ourselves as well. The rule of silence is paramount. As much as possible, the only words spoken should be words of scripture or words of prayer. A sacredness can be imparted through proper dress. Like the acolytes, perhaps only a special outfit is used when working in the sanctuary. Perhaps the ancient practice of the veil being worn in the house of God would be appropriate. The same attire and attitude can be a way of creating sacred space in our own lives and homes. It can be a way of building that wall for our Eden—setting it apart from the world.
Like Abraham finding rest in the Promised Land, we encounter God at a tree which serves as a place of sacrifice. Let us always have an image of the crucifix to attune us to prayer—perhaps on the east side of a room, marking the direction in which to cultivate our longing for Christ’s return.
A candle or two lit at the time of prayer is a way of invoking Christ’s presence, who once lit up the burning bush on Sinai and called it holy ground, who was named as the “Light of the world”, “the Dayspring”, and the “Bright Morning Star.” May God grant you to find sanctuary in your life this Lent.