Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Matt EmersonJuly 08, 2014
Woman kneels in prayer inside Limburg Cathedral (CNS photo/Kai Pfaffenbach, Reuters)

Does today's student appreciate sacred space?

Colleagues and I were recently discussing this topic, noting that many of today's students don't have much of a notion of the sacred, of a place or institution set apart from the rest of mundane experience, a place that invites silence and prayer and contemplation, a place reserved for thoughts of God.

What, then, can we do about this? Is there such a thing as a virtual sacred space? Is reverence disappearing?

 

 

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
Bruce Snowden
11 years ago
When the Blessed Trinity conferenced together and took from the human gene pool a man and woman generously endowing them with the Divine Life of Sanctifying Grace, who became the First Parents of the First Family of God, that Family reaching its perfection through Revelation to the Church, I believe that the “image and likeness” decision of the “Trinitarian Conference,” enameled, emblazoned and forever indelibled a sense of awe and wonder, of reverence, a sense of the sacred, in the human soul. This human attribute can be dulled through sin but never lost. It can be also dulled through the clanging and banging, the mechanized and computerized noises, the hustle and bustle of modern life, with its multiple distractions seeking to nullify the tranquility of silence The heart cries out for its recognition, best expressed by St. Augustine in his famous words, “Our hearts were made for Thee O God, and how restless we are until we rest in Thee!” Offers and Places must continually be given, made available to questing, restless humanity, never too late to know, never too late to love God!

The latest from america

In his message for the World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly, Pope Leo XIV encouraged parishes to put more effort into caring for the elderly.
Amid concern over immigration enforcement raids in the area, the bishop of San Bernardino, California, on July 8 issued a dispensation from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass for the faithful if they fear for their well-being.
Father Joshua Whitfield of Dallas, Texas spoke to OSV News after the devastating flash flooding in Texas on July 4.
Although I had set out to answer the question, “Who is Pope Leo XIV?” the question I had succeeded in answering was “Who is Robert Prevost?”
Colleen DulleJuly 10, 2025