Why is it that modern buildings were all square blocks and they don't have much to them? The reason is because of the lack of belief in spiritual reality. Bishop Sheen says that the reason that buildings have gargoyles on them or why they have statues in them or why they have certain features in them is because of the belief in spiritual reality. In other words, there is something spiritual to symbolize by something material- something material that leads to something spiritual. And that is the whole concept behind the Catholic Church. That the physical material building, symbolizes the spiritual. It aims at the spiritual and it's got a purpose and the purpose is to help physical material beings, that's us, with bodies and souls, though both body and soul can go into heaven.

So there are several ways of looking at the church. The mission at the cornerstone blessing, - that first of all, - one way to look at the church is - it is heaven.

The church is heaven, the church is Jesus Christ, and the church is the church. So the church is the mystical body of Christ, the church is Jesus Christ, and the church is heaven. Those are the three essential symbols that go on simultaneously inside of any church building.

The first thing necessary for a church to be a church is Jesus Christ or the Mystical body of Christ. The first thing that is necessary is the removal of original sin and that is why we had the blessing of the cornerstone on October 17th. Original sin is removed from this ground. The dirt is infected with original sin - so this piece of the earth - the piece of the earth behind me is going to be set aside to be part of heaven.

It will be in the earth but not of it. And that is why we had the blessing of the cornerstone and the blessing of the foundation on October 17th, to remove original sin from the soil from that particular soil. And to prepare the place to be bene fundata est - what it says in Latin, to be a well founded place, to have a good foundation for Jesus Christ and specifically, Jesus Christ crucified, which is what the altar symbolizes.

You will find repetition of symbols throughout the church. But in regard to this particular church, there is some specific purpose behind the design and some specific purposes in putting things together.

(Actually my outline in my head kind of fell apart a little bit so I am piecing it back together - so I am going to necessarily probably leave things out.)

We start at the entranceway to the church. We are reminded that the entranceway is the gate of heaven, so the entranceway is the gate of heaven. Outside is the earth and then hell, so there are some essential elements of the church that you see on the outside. There are things you can see on the outside, which are on the inside but you don't see them perfectly on the inside yet. First of all, we are souls infected with original sin and we have to be able to get to the church. We can only do that by the faith, which comes by hearing. And the faith has to be heard the closest to us. So there are the sacred directions, which are north, south, east and west. The north is the symbol of the cold, the material world which drags us down. South is the symbol of divine wisdom of the true faith. East is the symbol of life and specifically the resurrection. West is the symbol of death.

We are standing in the West Side of the church. We enter from the west and the north because these are the two things we are familiar with after original sin. We are familiar with death because we are all condemned to die, we are familiar with sin, and we are familiar with being dragged down by material things. Which is why on the northwest corner of the church is the bell tower. And in the top of the bell tower, the bell rings in order to call us to the place of heaven - and in order for us to more easily hear it, it is on the northwest corner. If it were on the southeast corner, we'd never hear it. So it's on the northwest, which is the ideal location of a bell tower. Sometimes because of necessity it is put on the side (southwest) or sometimes you'll have it on both sides, but ideally the bell tower is on the northwest corner of the church - so that it's the closest to the people in sin, living out in the world. The bell then calls you to the church and we enter into heaven. And then the church itself can be seen from the outside - we see heaven, the call to heaven, which is the bell tower. Then when you arrive in the church, the church is shaped in the form of a cross, which is a reminder that the cross is the only way into heaven. So almost every church in one form or another, even if there isn't a visible cross, there'll be an invisible cross in the design of the church. So even churches that are sometimes straight, you'll find a cross on the interior. And then most churches however will have a cruciform shape, which is what this one has.

And then there is a reason for the different lengths and heights that are in the church. The means by which the church, being Jesus Christ in the shape of the form of the cross. The interior of this church is specifically designed by ideally to fit, to have the proportions of the human body, or at least as much as possible the proportions of the human body. And there are at least several basics like from Leonardo da Vinci who points out that when a man stands like this - (arms outstretched to the side) - the distance from finger tip to finger tip is identical to the distance from head to foot. And that's the shape of the building, the head will be the apse which is where the Mass is going to be celebrated. The foot is actually, where you walk into the church after you arrive in the narthex and then the arms are the cross. It stands for the human body in this case the human body of Jesus Christ. And in that sense, it stands for the mystical body of Christ the members of the church. All this stands for the physical body of Christ who is being crucified in this building. And then also for heaven, which is only entered into by means of the worship of the Lamb, which is according to Apocalypse, chapter 21, speaks of the blessed giving praise to the lamb.

And so the form of the cross. The form of the cross equal distance. It is 88 feet. We arrive at the entrance; the portico and we enter from the portico into the narthex. The narthex is the area of the catechumens; the narthex is the area between the front door, the other side of the wheelbarrow. That area is called the narthex, it is place where you go in and you wipe your feet and it is the place where you prepare to enter the church. You are actually not in the church. The narthex when you are in the narthex, you are getting ready to enter into the church. The narthex is not fully part of the church. It is the place of the catechumens. The catechumens who are in the church but they are not in the church. They are preparing to enter the church and so this is the place of preparation, the narthex, and that is why you put the cry room back there and the baptistery is back there in that are. The baptistery will be the transition place and then the other side of the cry room, which is a new invention, back then, in the old days, they just beat the babies but now we have cry rooms so in any case cry rooms never existed. Also, this symbol right over here - this extension is symbolic of the bathrooms which we have to have according to code. That is the only reason why we have the extension that long on that side, because that is the symbolism there. Also, several symbolisms of our century which is the bathrooms and the cry room which would not have been in any other church previous to this age.

We arrive in the overall dimensions of the church is 155 feet basically from the front wall to the back wall of the sacristy. It is 88 feet across from the transept to the transept - 56 feet across at the main nave. And so we' ll sneak into the church now.

That I wanted to do originally that we weren't able to do so we had to go to plan B but in all cases tried to follow symbolism as much as possible like for instance, the original intention was to have the door the main entrance 18 feet wide by 12 feet tall which is a foot and a half wider than what it is right now and about 8 inches shorter than what it is going to be and what it is right now. Because our ceiling made it impossible to have it 12 feet tall, and then the architect had the doors 8 feet and then as I was checking all the parts of the plans when they got approved all of a sudden the doors shrunk to 6 feet and I didn't notice until they put them in. But then the stone arches were already made and we couldn't move it out to 8 feet. So that's where it is. So it is 6 feet instead of eight. But in any case, the main entrance is 6 feet by 11 foot 6 inches that's how tall the door is and when you come in the main entrance and actually that narthex is not part of the church - the foot of the church is not the narthex. The foot is right there at the balcony of the choir loft - that is the foot of the church. So there's the feet of Christ, the head of Christ is the sanctuary and then the arms over there. So there's your 88 feet. The 88 feet goes to the beginning of the sanctuary, the second step. 88 feet from there the second step is 88 feet. Then across is 88 feet so the square portion of the building so you can see where the length of the building contains an extra 8 feet beyond the transept before you get to the round apse that extra 8 feet completes the 88 feet so that is the purpose of that, to create 88 by 88. Then the 80 feet from the main entrance here since the church is the symbol of heaven, eight is the number of heaven. The reason is because of Holy Week. Palm Sunday is the first day, Easter Sunday is the eight day, is the first week of 8 days, Easter Sunday is considered part of Holy Week, and the reason being is an addition. It's the completion of Good Friday and Holy Saturday whereby the redemption takes place. The gates of heaven are opened on the 8th day. In fact, there is a song, "The Stairway to Heaven," that song which Page claims that he wrote in 2 minutes, 43 seconds, something like that but that song which actually has a lot of satanic symbolism in it, that song, " The Stairway to Heaven," is precisely 8 minutes to the second. It is not 7 minutes 59 seconds long, it is not 8 minutes 1 second long, it is exactly 8 minutes and the symbolism goes exactly inverse to Catholic symbolism. There is lots of symbolism in that particular song and it is concerning heaven and the stairway to heaven - the two different stairways. So in any case, here the number of heaven is eight, the eighth day so it's 80 feet from the transept there to the communion rail. The communion rail is to be at the lower step - that marks the entrance into heaven for the faithful. So that is the 80th step which brings us into heaven. There's your entrance into heaven, 80, and the same thing of course for the transept.

In regard to the number of steps, the number of man is 6. Man was created on the sixth day, on Friday. There will be six steps, taken from the crown level up onto the floor. This is the sixth step. Six is the number of man and then man must be perfect. The symbol of the perfection of man is the number seven as well as the number ten and the number forty. Seven, ten and forty. The number seven stands for the perfection of man in the supernatural life and the natural life. St Thomas says there are seven stages of our life, beginning with birth and ending with death. These seven stages are perfected by the seven sacraments, which only exist in this life. In heaven, we will not need sacraments. So the sacraments have to do with perfection in this life. So in fact there are seven increments of ten feet between the entrance to the narthex and the communion rail. The completion of that seventh foot is the communion rail, which is the eightieth. The seventy-ninth foot is essentially where the communion rail starts. When you have arrived at the communion rail, you've entered into heaven. So seven life stages, seven sacraments leading you to heaven and also the seven virtues of this life. The seven virtues are the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude and the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. So those make up all the virtues numbering seven. Seven sacraments, seven stages of life, there is the number seven.

We have also the number forty, which is the perfection of life also. That's all over the Old Testament and it's a symbol of our journey through this life. We must journey through this life in order to obtain the Promised Land. The Jews traveled forty years then they arrived at the Promised Land at the end of the fortieth year. The same thing with Christ, He fasted for forty days then He extended His fast for another forty days. After meeting with Elias He walks for another forty days. At the end of the fortieth day, He found the presence of God. The number forty, you have forty feet exactly from the center of the column to the center of the column and forty feet to the bottom of the truss. Forty, forty, forty, forty. Four times ten. There is a natural four times ten then a supernatural four times ten. The natural four times ten is the elements of the earth multiplied by the Ten Commandments. That's the natural law. Fire, water, earth, and sky are what the ancients believed traditionally made up the entire universe, the physical elements of the universe. Fire, water, earth and sky, you find these symbols in the veil of the temple of Jerusalem. The veil which had four sacred colors and those colors are essentially our modern liturgical colors. And they stand for fire, water, earth, and sky or God ruling the entire natural universe. The four times the ten equals forty. Forty feet high, forty feet wide, forty feet tall, and forty feet across, four times.

There is the supernatural four of course, the four cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude once again times the Ten Commandments. In other words, the natural life lived in union with the supernatural life. That symbolizes the forty by the forty.

And then we have the church. The church symbolizes the Mystical Body of Christ, which of course is Jesus Christ; we already talked about that in the head and the arm. But it is also the Mystical Body of Christ and the essential elements, the essential make up of the Mystical Body of Christ are the twelve apostles. They are what we call the pillar and ground of Truth, what it says of the twelve apostles. The twelve apostles are symbolized in the twelve columns. This building is supported essentially by twelve columns. The first one is there in the narthex; the sixth one of this size is the back of the major eye beam right before you enter the transept. There are six more on this side, that's twelve. You see invisible buttresses. They are visible now but you won't see them when the church is complete. Those buttresses go to twelve smaller columns. Those twelve smaller columns are the twelve ancients of the Old Testament or the twelve tribes of Israel. The twelve tribes are the outer walls, which lead to the inner walls, the Old Testament which leads to the New Testament. Twelve and twelve.

Also we have on the Epistle Side. The Epistle Side essentially stands for the Old Testament, the Gospel side for the New Testament. These twelve windows, the upper clear story, those are called the clear story windows and the kindergarten and the first graders better remember that. Those are the clear story windows. And the clear story windows over here (motioning to the epistle side of the church) each stand for the twelve ancients, or the twelve tribes of Israel, and these twelve over here (motioning to the gospel side of the church) stand for the twelve apostles. The twelfth one's missing because the bell tower got in the way. Other wise it's there, you just can't see it. Maybe it's Judas. Whatever, anyway, there are twelve here but the twelfth one gets cut off by the bell tower. So the twelfth one, you can see it belongs there just because of the bell tower, he's not there. So there are twelve here and twelve there on the upper level, the clear story. We go down to the main nave and once again the number twelve is created, repeated. Six apostles here, six apostles there. (Motioning to the lower windows.) Now the windows are not of the apostles but the windows are of saints. In fact, some of the windows are of Jesus Christ and then I think Saints Cyril, Methodius and different saints in the windows. But the number twelve completes the totality of the number of saints.

Another interesting thing to note about the number twelve, when you multiply it times the number of man, which is six, six times twelve gives us seventy-two which is the number of the disciples or the number of the priests. Priests are the number seventy-two. Seventy-two disciples that assist the twelve apostles. So the seventy-two, the number of the priesthood, the priests set as the intermediary to the bishops who are the twelve apostles and the faithful. His job is to service man in order to help the bishop. The bishop is already a saint, theoretically speaking. And then he therefore devotes himself primarily to prayer. The priest is the assistant of the bishop and he must devote himself primarily to the help of the faithful and hence he is concerned with man. Six times twelve, seventy-two, hence the number of seventy-two disciples. The seventy-two disciples of the New Testament. You also find seventy-two judges in the Old Testament. Moses was told he was judging every single case. It was given to him whether it be a traffic violation or a marriage case or a murder. No matter what it was. 600,000 Jews came to him. He solved every case. And he went to Jethro, and he spoke with Jethro, who was not a Jew, and he said, "Moses, this is dumb. You cannot be handling every single case. Why don't you get 72 judges? Let them handle the lesser cases and when it is an important case, it comes to you. Otherwise let the 72 judges handle it." That's the origin of the 72. 72 judges, the 72 priests that handle the parishes. Then when there's a big problem it goes to the bishop and the priest gets transferred. But in any case that better not happen. In any case, the priest handles the lower, and then the bishop handles the higher. 72 - you'll find it on the outside of the apse. It is exactly 72 feet or it will be because Dave will make sure that it is. I've talked with him and the brick guy so it will be exactly 72 feet on the outside of the transept, excuse me, the sanctuary. Outside the sanctuary the brick will be 72 feet precisely. That 72 feet is a reminder of the priest. And then the 12, of course is all throughout the building everywhere. Now when we arrive at the sanctuary according to the prophecy of Daniel, there will be 70 weeks of years. 70 weeks of years and then the victim of the sacrifice shall fail. 70 weeks of years is 490 years. That is the length of time between the rebuilding of the temple and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It was not 490 years but 487 and a half years or 486 years exactly halfway through the middle of the 70th week, is the crucifixion. We have this cross - the crucifixion is to the front - that we'll send it very shortly, hopefully if Bishop Williamson agrees to let Brother Marcel do it - We will send it this crucifix very shortly the Corpus is going to go to Winona, Minnesota, in theory, if Bishop Williamson allows it and then Brother Marcel is going to make a new cross which is going to have the four evangelists on it, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are going to symbolize the four corners of the cross and then Christ in the middle and that he is going to repaint the corpus and it is going to be hanging at the 75 foot mark from the ceiling down at 75 feet, which is the middle of the 70th week. And right before the communion rail will be the crucifix. There will be a small altar crucifix which you' ll see but you will not be able to see very well. Then the primary crucifix will be there. It is also a reminder of the olden times before the 11th century; the faithful did not see the priest at Mass. There was the rood screen across the sanctuary and so what would be done in order to help the faithful attend Mass, a large crucifix would be placed on the rood screen and then they would hear the priest on the other side of the rood screen and they would hear the servers but they would not see it. In the 10th century, the 11the century they started taking down the rood screens and by the 12th century, they ceased to exist and all that remained was the crucifix. But the crucifix is also a reminder by hanging in the middle of the time when there was a rood screen across the sanctuary which blocked the faithful from seeing the mysteries of the sacrifice and they would have to see it symbolically by looking at the cross that would be in front of them.

When we arrive in the sanctuary, the sanctuary is 33 feet in diameter. And the 33 feet is the number of the life of Christ. The 33 feet on the interior will be marked in the marble. It will be the clearance between the stone columns. There'll be a 33 foot circle and there'll be a line cut in the marble set at exactly 33 feet which will be when we lay the tile so you will see the 33 feet in the diameter which is the life of Christ. The sanctuary is a semi circle but actually, the imaginary circle is completed. And the circle is the symbol of omnipotence, the infinite power of God. It is also a symbol of Divine Charity, the love of God, which has no beginning and no end just like His power and a symbol of God Himself.

So the place of God is the sanctuary and then we arrive at the most sacred part of the church, which is the altar. It is in fact, not the tabernacle, but the altar. The altar is the most sacred element in the church, and in theory; no church has more than one altar in it, in theory. In the early times they only had one altar in a church but because of priests celebrating Masses they had to multiply altars. So we'll have three altars, but in theory there's only one altar, and that altar stands for Jesus Christ and that's the high altar. For this reason, the side altars will be there but it will be very difficult for you to see them, they will be more or less hidden by the massive columns. And the priests will celebrate masses on the side altars and the servers will have an interesting time trying to get the cruets to them but they'll be able to do it. The design will be where they will be able to stand against the wall and hand them the cruets. It'll work.

So the priests saying private Masses on the side, you'll be able to see it but it's not primary, it's not that noticeable, because, in theory there's only one altar in a church, that is the high altar. The altar stands for Christ. The altar cloths, which adorn the altar, stand for the members of Christ, which is us, the Mystical Body of Christ, the members of the Mystical Body.

And then, of course there will be three altars there, the two side altars and the main altar. And then the height of the sanctuary, there is going to be a stone arch from the Mexican stone (which I have to seal the order.) The Mexican stone will be a stone arch, a Cantara stone, which is similar to the stone which we have out here, and that stone arch will be precisely thirty-three feet tall which will mark the center of the sanctuary. So it will be a perfect circle or a perfect cube. The perfect cube is a reminder of the Old Testament and the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies which is where the presence of God was in the Old Testament was precisely 20 cubits long by 20 cubits wide by 20 cubits high, a perfect cube, which is another symbol of perfection. And so that will be an invisible cube, inside the sanctuary, 33 feet, by 33 feet, by 33 feet, by 33 feet, all the way around. It's a square circle, yes; it's a cube.

The seventh step, which is the seventh sacrament. The sixth step is here, which is the perfection of man. The seventh step is the communion rail, which is the principal of all the sacraments, the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, to which all other sacraments tend. And the eighth step will be heaven. And the eighth step will complete the sanctuary and also the sanctuary is a little lower than what it would be in many other churches, but I wanted to keep the numbers 6, 7, and 8 and not go any higher. And so with six inches it will be enough so that theoretically you will be able to see Mass. If you can't, deal with it. But people should be able to see. In any case, there will be two steps there and then the three steps, which go up to the altar. The three steps that are immediately, the three marble steps, which surround the high altar which is 22 feet tall. The top of the high altar will probably be even with that cross beam, second level. A little lower than the crossbeams is essentially how high the high altar will be.

Another thing is the five windows. The last thing, I'll close with this. Five windows here and then there are five arches at the portico. The five is a reminder of the five wounds of Christ, and the necessity of the suffering, in other words the rays of the blood of Christ, which bring about heaven. Of course the original purpose, we originally wanted to have seven windows, which is more customary, if possible to have seven windows in the sanctuary. However because of the nature of the design with the 8-foot, it is impossible to put a seventh window, you can see how the two structural columns are too close together. We cannot have a seventh window. So we had to have five or three. Three would have symbolized the Trinity but because of the size of the sanctuary and the difficulty with the walls three would not have worked too well so we went with five and the five also symbolizes the five wounds. Ideally, we wanted to have seven windows. It's like ideally the bell tower which is 70 feet and I'm trying to find a way to turn it into 80 but it is 70 feet from here to the top of the tower, it's going to be more or less 80 feet from the ground to the top of the tower, or to the top of the cross. Originally, I wanted the tower to be 120 feet, which again, would be the number 12 repeated, but the county wouldn't allow that so it's 80 feet.

It helps with the Romanesque; one of the principals for this church being called a Romanesque style of church is a Roman arch. A roman arch is being a perfect circle because it symbolizes the power and omnipotence of God showering Himself down upon man. Whereas the Gothic arch, which is the pointed arch, symbolizes man lifting himself, up in praise to God. So it's the same thing but two different directions. Myself I prefer the Romanesque, the power of God coming down to man. One of the concepts you are supposed to get when you come in contact with any Romanesque structure is heaviness, solidity, bulk, power. And so you try to get this concept, that kind of idea, in this structure here. The ceiling will be wood and the trusses will be boxed in wood and then we' ll close it at that.