the house of God (Hannah Grimes post 9)

Hannah Grimes

The House of God

The cathedrals of Europe contain a strange juxtaposition of intimacy and distance from God. One feels small and insignificant and reserved when walking through the grandness of the space, yet at the same time there is a sense of nearness to the sacredness of heaven. Van der Leeuw would say this is similar to our experience of the holy: we have “a feeling of being drawn in, of joyous astonishment, of love” which “allows us to become aware of infinite distance and feel a never-suspected nearness” (van der Leeuw 5). Yet the somber space within a cathedral cannot contain all the elements of God’s character. God cannot be contained within a building; instead He “breaks out of the dim halls of the Gothic cathedrals into the bright light of the human world” (van der Leeuw, 201).


Van der Leeuw, Gerardus. Sacred & Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.