Heaven in Stone and Glass: Experiencing the Spirituality of the Great Cathedrals

by Robert Barron

Like a mystical tome awaiting to be deciphered, a Gothic cathedral holds many secrets about the soul's yearning for God. In Heaven in Stone and Glass , Catholic priest and professor of theology at Mundelein Seminary in Chicago teaches us how to read these secrets, with beautiful reflections on aspects such as light and darkness, the labyrinth, the meaning of gargoyles and demons, and the imagery of vertical space. whether you are preparing for a pilgrimage to York Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, or looking ahead to inspirational bedside reading, this book is the perfect guide.

Genres: Catholic, Nonfiction, Religion, Spirituality, Faith, Theology, Architecture

128 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Bishop Robert Emmet Barron is an acclaimed author, speaker, and theologian. He is the former Francis Cardinal George Professor of Faith and Culture at Mundelein Seminary near Chicago and also is the founder of Word On Fire (www.WordOnFire.org).

Bishop Barron is the creator and host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking ten-part documentary series and study program about the Catholic faith. He is a passionate student of art, architecture, music and history, which he calls upon throughout his global travels in the making of the documentary.

Word On Fire programs are broadcast regularly on WGN America, Relevant Radio, CatholicTV, EWTN, the popular Word on Fire YouTube Channel, and the Word on Fire website, which offers daily blogs, articles, commentaries, and over ten years of weekly sermon podcasts. In 2010, Father Barron was the first priest to have a national show on a secular television network since the 1950s.

Fr. Barron received his Masters Degree in Philosophy from the Catholic University of America in Washington DC in 1982 and his doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Institut Catholique in 1992. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1986 and has been a professor of systematic theology at the nation's largest Catholic seminary, the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary since 1992. He was visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame in 2002 and at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in 2007. He was also twice scholar in residence at the Pontifical North American College at the Vatican.

In addition, Fr. Barron lectures extensively in the United States and abroad. Cardinal Francis George calls Fr. Barron “one of the Church’s best messengers.

Fr. Barron was baptized at Queen of All Saints Basilica in Chicago and grew up at St. John of the Cross parish in Western Springs, Illinois.
WordOnFire.org - Fr. Barron's website launched in 1999 and currently draws over 1 million visitors a year from every continent. Fr. Barron posts weekly video clips, commentaries and radio sermons and offers an audio archive of over 500 homilies. Podcasts of his sermons are widely used by tens of thousands of visitors each month.
TV - EWTN (The Eternal Word Television Network) and CatholicTV broadcasts Fr. Barron's DVDs to a worldwide audience of over 150 million people.

Radio - Since 1999, Fr. Barron's weekly Word on Fire program has been broadcast in Chicago (WGN) and throughout the country (Relevant Radio - 950 AM Chicago) to 28 million listeners in 17 states. Fr. Barron also is a regular commentator on the "Busted Halo Show" on the Sirius satellite radio network based in New York.

DVDs - Fr. Barron's DVDs are used as powerful faith formation tools in universities, schools, churches and homes around the country. The series includes Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Lively Virtues; Faith Clips; Conversion: Following the Call of Christ; and Untold Blessing: Three Paths to Holiness.

YouTube - With over 180 online video commentaries by Fr. Barron, over 1 million viewers worldwide have made him the most popular of any evangelist on YouTube. These frequent, high-quality productions include brief and lively theological reviews of contemporary culture, including movies such as No Country for Old Men, Apocalypto, and The Departed, a three-part critical review of Christopher Hitchen's book God is Not Great, The Discovery Channel's The Jesus Tomb, the HBO series "The Sopranos", "Rome" and more.

Missions - MISSION CHICAGO features evangelization lectures by Fr. Barron at the behest of Cardinal George. These special missions and presentations throughout the Archdiocese are centered in downtown Chicago and attract business, civic, and cultural leaders.
Books - His numerous books and essays serve as critical educational and inspirational tools for seminarians, priests, parishioners and young people worldwide. His published works are also central to the numerous retreats, workshop and talks that h

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was spiritually edifying for me in a profound way. Thank you so much, Melody, for bringing it to my attention!

Bishop Barron starts the book by saying that we must open ourselves up to the Medieval imagination to understand the incredible intricacy of symbol that is embodied in a Gothic cathedral. Right away, I sat up in my chair, all attention. As I’ve read more widely in the last eight years or so, I’ve realized that we moderns are separated by what feels like an infinite gap from the Medieval imagination and way of being. I wonder and am casting lures out in all directions to understand what caused that gap and what roles the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment play in it. Being thoroughly Protestant and Enlightened (ha!) myself, I have only very slowly realized that there was indeed a completely different way of being in the world and embodying Christian faith in the past. This slow opening of my blind eyes feels like being given the gift of sight, even though it’s taking time to see clearly what I have been missing. The shapes are becoming more definite, slowly and surely.

This book has been the most accessible guides to the Medieval mind that I have read and so I am both satisfied and also hungry for more. I had no idea what a marvel a cathedral is for embodying God’s great redemptive story. In a cathedral, the symbols and metaphors of the Bible and of the Christian life are enacted and physically able to be experienced. I read with pencil in hand, underlining and starring and arrowing with abandon. I’ll try to copy out some quotes later to illustrate how much I loved this, both as contributing to my continuing gaining of sight and as a boon to my own faith.

[Wendy Wong Schirmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do we "read" a building-- a cathedral, specifically? Bishop Robert Barron expounds on how the Medieval mind saw things-- it saw everything as interrelatedness; it knew how parts and wholes relate.

That interrelatedness, by the way, is a good reason to read Pope Francis's recent encyclical, "Laudato Si.'" But I digress.

Essentially a series of spiritual, theological, and intellectual meditations on the various parts of a Gothic cathedral, this book is easily a multi-part extended essay on the Catholic interior life and the Catholic way of seeing the world manifested as sermons in stone and glass.

[verbava · Rating 4 out of 5]

теологія готичних храмів має бути принаймні така гарна, як вони самі, інакше який сенс. у принципі, теологія просто має бути гарна, бо в неї не так уже й багато інших виправдань, але з мистецтвом іще й одразу помітно, коли вона не дотягує до об'єкта. і нехай від берронового тексту не перехоплює подиху, а зачудовано впасти перед ним навколішки взагалі не хочеться (ага, готичні храми справляють на мене глибочезне враження; можливо, тут є щось до діла з утрудненим притоком крові до мозку, коли довго тримати голову задертою), він усе одно красивий. чотирнадцять невеличких розділів, які починаються з окремого елемента – вітражів, химер, лабіринтів, хрестовинності, вертикальності – але не дуже затримуються на самому ньому, а розвиваються в медитацію щодо символізму.
(і беррон цитує фланнері о'коннор, за що я його додатково люблю).

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've ever toured a medieval cathedral, you've likely heard about its history and symbolism, and the architectural developments that made those Gothic arches possible. (Promotional consideration furnished by flying buttresses.) I've toured several, and I quickly fell in love with Gothic architecture, an obsession that follows me in the aisles of Hobby Lobby and its farmhouse chic Gothic arch décor.

In all of this, I reduced Gothic architecture in my mind to two things: beauty and theology. While the soaring arches and complex networks of sculptures are beautiful, and have theological meaning, I missed out completely on the spirituality indicated by these houses of worship. Heaven in Stone and Glass brings cathedrals to spiritual life. Barron is an accomplished theologian and aesthete, but in that delightful medieval way, he finds in all things Gothic an illustration of Jesus Christ.

Exploring Gothic cathedrals' cruciformity, entryways, crypts, rose windows, labyrinths, and more, Barron details how Gothic architecture leads the participant in worship. Sure, he cites the theological Karls, touches on concepts like the Incarnation and trinitarianism, but this book is about spirituality. It connects the eyes of the reader, who has hopefully stood in a nave and marveled at Gothic heights, with the soul. Heaven in Stone and Glass shines because it is written by someone who is at once a scholar and a deeply spiritual man.

Barron writes that the entrance of the cathedral is actually the back, for the front faces east. This back illustrates the evil of the world that is left behind when entering the cathedral. When visiting Westminster Abbey for Christmas Eve, I was struck by the sculptures of 20th century martyrs. Among them stood Dr. King, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and St. Oscar Romero. Barron calls the façade "the church's great 'no' to violence, self-absorption, and hatred--all the works of the Devil." (53-54). As participants enter the cathedral, they turn toward the front and face away from the back. These martyrs, in saying yes to Christ, said no to racism, Nazism, injustice. In their yes and no, we enter Westminster Abbey, turning our backs on the evil that made them martyrs, and facing the joy that was set before them.

After returning from my studies abroad, coming back to the architecture of the American evangelical church was just...sad. In our Protestant turn, we have forgotten that the church building itself can lead us to worship. Ours is a word-heavy religion, about which I don't complain, but in our wordiness we can forget our embodiment, that our bodies can be swayed by our surroundings to worship, whether of God or idols. Gothic is not the only architecture that can lead the participant to worship, but low ceilings and fluorescent lights smack more of business and school than a counter-cultural religion.

I highly, highly recommend Heaven in Stone and Glass to anyone eager to spiritually understand Gothic architecture; to students of church history; and to those interested in liturgy and imagination.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-crafted comedic classic, in which two unlucky entry-level employess visit their boss's beach house for the weekend-- only to find him dead upon arrival. Hijinks ensue as the two drag the body around as they have the time of their lives. This book is much funnier than the sub-par sequel, Hell in Stone and Glass, which gets a bit ridiculous when the dead body becomes re-animated.

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief overview explaining the symbolism of the elements incorporated in cathedral design. That makes it sound dry and it isn't. Bishop Barron pulls us into the medieval mindset and uses that as a launching pad to make us open our eyes and take a look at the symbolism (or lack thereof) in our own churches and lives. It is both informative and inspirational ... and big pieces of this may have found their way into his book Catholicism. Definitely worth reading.

[Ray LaManna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I good guide about the spiritual power of the Gothic Cathedral...if you ever have a chance visit one (like Chartres, Amiens or Lincoln) do it and walk slowly.

[Zachary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once I started reading this, I couldn't put it down. A very easy and delightful read. I've been fascinated by church art and architecture for the last few years now, and I don't think that fascination is going away, and this devotional reading of the Gothic Cathedrals gave me more to ponder. I was also delighted to see how Christ centered this book was, and the purpose of the grandiosity of the cathedrals captures the mystery that is the Trinity, and our Christian life.

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was enjoying this book until I came to a line about 2/3 of the way through. The author makes a comment on the perpetrators of the Holocaust. He says, “The fomenters of violence on a scale never before seen in history were not those who looked to God but precisely those who explicitly denied the spiritual.” He then states, “The ones who forgot about heaven were those who laid waste the earth.” I think the good bishop should pick up a history book or two. First, Nazism rose from Christian fundamentalism. It was Hitler’s own experience of faith that helped lead him into depravity. Second, believing that somehow Godly men and women should believe in heaven is insanely naive. Particularly nowadays when we live in a world that is slowly dying at our own hands. Some of the biggest deniers of climate change and many of the most staunch supporters of fossil fuel exploration, polluting industries, and plastics are religious conservatives. This new genocide, one that virtually every human on earth within the last century has had a hand in, has been encouraged and supported the most by these men and women who have not forgot about heaven.

I understand this book is older but I am still sure that in 2000, there were religious people who had no trouble clear cutting old growth forests or flying their private jets around or increasing production of coal and oil despite the availability of alternatives. After reading those lines, the rest of the book seemed useless.

This is not an art history book but an attempt to overly simplify the medieval understanding of humanity and its place in the divine order. Medieval Europe was an unusual and colorful amalgamation of Catholic, pagan and folk religions that presented itself in a way that made daily life far more sacred and contemplative than you might read here.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barron’s reading of the Gothic cathedral contains so many gems of insight, his own and those of many theologians, writers, and even songwriters (Dylan and Lennon). The meditation on sacred geometry is sublime.

Particularly astute is his description of the constant susurration of the sanctuary:

“And so the blessed dead—patriarchs, prophets, soldiers, mystics, preachers, and apostles—surround the visitor to a Gothic cathedral. They frame the doorways, hover in the stained glass, preside over the spires and towers; and in some cases, their bodies lie under the floors and their relics in the altars. Their world and ours—though separated by a great ontological gulf—nevertheless interpenetrate, prayer and loving concerns moving in both directions of the cathedral functioning as a sort of medium of exchange.” (p. 51)

And this passage about the Chartres labyrinth:

“Especially frustrating about the labyrinth to the goal-oriented person is how it forces an unnecessarily long and convoluted journey to a center that could be reached in a few steps. The analytical mind knows that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but the soul is not the least bit beguiled by that facile piece of logic. The straight journey might be the shortest, but it might not be the most radiant or the most beautiful [or the most meaningful].” (p. 98)

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Barron is now an auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles. He was a professor of Theology for many years. I was impressed with his clarity of expression and modern approach to aspects of art related to Cathedrals. He talks about the Jewish Origins of Cathedrals as well as Christianity and makes particular critical note of the supersessionist theology and the Marcionite heresy which wrongly tries to smear any rightness to the biblical theology in the Jewish Bible. The fact that images of Moses and other Biblical characters were put in the Cathedrals was both testimony to the debt that Christianity and Catholicism owed to Judaism, but is also shameful considering the ugly and antisemitic actions and ideas that were fostered by the clergy themselves and emanated from these beautiful buildings. He also is willing to discuss the odd Gargoyles that also found a place inside or on these structures. All in all this book was eye-opening and therefore recommended to the general reading public and not only to Catholics or Christians.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short but excellent book outlining various aspects of Cathedrals. It covers a range of things, from the symbology of images, labyrinths, the lighting and windows, the architecture and cruciform shape, the height of cathedrals and much, much more. At ~125 pages, I was able to get through this very quickly.
My only complaint is one reference to Chesterton, where it is claimed that he said that on the Cross, "God became an Atheist." I would like further context on that quote, as it seems outright heretical. Knowing Fr. Robert Barron's (now Bishop Barron) intent in his other projects leads me to believe that this would have been an unintentional and that perhaps I have misunderstood what he was meaning to convey in this section.
I highly recommend this book for anyone that would like to learn about how to interpret Cathedrals, or who intends to visit a Cathedral/s and would like some context on how to understand them beforehand.

[Bobby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This being the first book I've read by Fr Barron, I enjoyed it. He uses easy to understand examples to help the reader understand the symbolism that is, and is in the Cathedrals. From the architecture to the layout, the windows to the statues and everything in between, he breaks down and explains. I was fascinated and found myself trying to picture and meditate on what he was describing, it made me long to see and behold these Cathedrals for mysteries.

Definitely worth the read, especially if you have any interest or curiosity in the Cathedrals.

[Ann-Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really, really enjoyed this book. It combines theology and architecture. He examines the way that the great cathedrals were built, to teach us about God, and to draw even deeper into worship of Him. This goes beyond the obvious of stained glass. I took an art history class in college, but that barely scratched the surface of what this book gets into. I highly recommend this for anyone who is ever going to visit a great cathedral.

[Surisaray · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is brief, yet fascinating, so much wisdom, history, art , and mystery is incrusted in these cathedrals. I especially enjoyed the last chapter were the author makes the mass come alive inside the Cathedral.

“ If the Cathedral is a body, then the liturgy - both celestial and earthly - is its soul. “

Just beautiful!

[Hank Beyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Opened my eyes to the beauty of European cathedrals. Anticipating visiting the Chartres Cathedral. Read this book in conjunction with George Weigels Letters To A Young Catholic which has an excellent chapter on Chartres.

[Linn Chapel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, wonderful reflections. I especially like the chapter on Chartres. The notion that architecture can embody and convey meaning was a strong thread. This seems to be a very timely insight in our graphic and image-oriented age. Meaningfulness can be present without words.

[Ricky Balas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barron does a nice job explaining the symbolic connection between the structure and form of the gothic cathedral and God's order of the world. I just finished a course on gothic cathedral architecture and this was a nice follow-up from a spiritual perspective.

[Mary Ellen Barringer · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Bishop Barron walks the reader through the imagery several cathedrals, while explaining the symbolism and how it relates to the Trinity. Much of the work in this book is contained in his other books and tapes. His enthusiasm for these "gates of heaven" make the reading joyful.

[Kalin Lippsmeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book about Cathedrals, their symbolism and intriguing fun facts. An engaging, easy read.

[Steve Hunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the very spiritual end. Excellent research and writing.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Bishop Barron writes a little over my head. He’s a brilliant speaker, so I think I’ll stick to his podcasts.

[Gregg Koskela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was truly outstanding, a lucky Amazon find. After being moved while exploring cathedrals in Europe, I got home and wanted to learn more. This isn't what I was expecting...it was better. Written by a Roman Catholic Professor who has spent a lot of time in cathedrals, the book is basically his spiritual reflections on different aspects of cathedrals. I came away learning a lot about the medieval mindset that went into the building of these beautiful places of worship, and loving the reflections the author brings to them.

[Mary Hemenway · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chose this as preparation for a trip to Europe where I saw many cathedrals. It enriched the experience of travel.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first learned about the Gothic cathedrals in my AP Art History class years ago, but this book does an amazing job of going into further detail about how each part of the cathedral represents a vital aspect of Christianity. Bishop Barron, still a priest at the time he wrote this book, writes in such a descriptive and thought-provoking way that I actually felt like I was physically inside Chartres or Notre Dame myself. Definitely a must-read.

[Revesk · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Notre Dame de Paris burned, I read this book that I received as a Christmas gift. It beautifully explains the theology and architecture of Gothic cathedrals.