The moment we hear the word ‘December’ most of us would think of Christmas. The moment we hear the word ‘Christmas’, most of us would think of two families – the Holy Family and our own – the family that celebrated the very first Christmas in heartrending circumstances and our own families that strive, year after year, to make it a joyful occasion.
So this time let us talk of a man whose monumental achievement – whose magnum opus – has to do with the Holy Family. Strangely and sadly, he had no family of his own. When he was taking his usual early morning walk around the streets of Barcelona, Spain, he was knocked down by a trolley car. Someone did take him to the hospital. But he was unconscious and there was no one to identify him, no one who missed him. The hospital staff thought he must be a beggar, and so ignored him. It was two days before someone recognized that this old man was none other than the great architect Antoni Gaudi, creator of the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona.‘Sagrada Familia’ means ‘Holy Family.’
He died on 10 June 1926. Now, 90 years later, the Sagrada Familia Basilica enjoys global popularity. The most-visited monument in Spain, it is one of Gaudi’s seven works which have been declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Gaudi is hailed as ‘God’s architect’ and hundreds of his admirers have asked the Church to declare him a saint.
Antoni Gaudi was born in 1852 in Reus in the Catalonian region of Spain. He studied architecture in Barcelona. After some of the buildings he constructed made him well-known, he was put in charge of building the cathedral in Barcelona. As the beautiful church began to take shape, his faith deepened. Some say that he underwent a transforming religious experience when he was working on the Christmas façade that depicted the birth of Jesus.
Interestingly, his talent and fame did not diminish his interest in workers’ welfare. He designed a workers’ colony, which had schools, a hospital and a football stadium. Gaudi also designed and personally financed a school for the children of the Basilica’s laborers and for the poorest families in the neighborhood. The church became known as ‘the Cathedral of the Poor’. “The poor must always feel welcomed in the Church,” he used to say.
Why did he have no family of his own? He was attracted to only one woman, Josefa Moreu, a teacher, but she did not respond to his love, and he remained single till the end. He lived with his father and a niece. After his father, his niece, his friends and patrons died, Gaudi said, “My good friends are dead; I have no family and no clients, no fortune, nothing. Now I can dedicate myself entirely to the Church.”
Gaudi died without completing the cathedral. It is expected to be completed by 2026, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death. The uncompleted cathedral was consecrated and declared a Basilica by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. On 15 Dec last year the Association for the Beatification of Antoni Gaudi organized a concert in Rome titled, ‘Gaudi and Mercy.’ The next day Pope Francis told the organizers that he hoped Gaudi would soon be declared ‘Venerable.’
The unfinished Basilica of Holy Family, the only church in the world that has been under construction for more than a century, continues to attract millions. Non-Catholics and even atheists have confessed that they sensed a divine presence within the magnificent church.
Go, visit a church during this Christmas season late in the evening, and in the soft glow of Christmas candles, think of Gaudi, who used his God-given talent to build a church that draws millions to God. Think of the Holy Family and your own. And if you, like Gaudi, happen to remain single, because of your religious commitment or circumstances of life, thank God for all those who, by their love and friendship, have made you feel at home and make every Christmas a season of joy.
– Fr. M. A. Joe Antony, S.J. is at present editor, Jivan, the magazine of South Asian Jesuits and the executive secretary of and adviser to the Provincial Superior of Jesuits in Tamil Nadu. For 20 years he edited the New Leader and gave it a new life and reputation
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