Reflections on a Turtle

Today, on the feast of the Holy Family, I would like to post a little reflection on Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece the Sagrada Familia.

There is one element that fascinates me about this building. Sure it is grand and is dripping with Catholic imagery, but there is one column which captures the imagination. It is the column that has a turtle at its base.

I mean, c'mon! How fun is that! It just goes to show how the Catholic imagination can take the simplest notion, a column which needs to support a building, and turn it into a playful expression of the glory of God's creation. We must never forget, as Catholics we live in an enchanted world, and the Incarnation is the manifestation of it "goodness." We are not wretched messes, but children of God who are elevated through his Son. This is something that we all too often forget in our current mechanistic and atomistic worldview. A world that views man as an autonomous part randomly moving through the universe without purpose and meaning.

Sometimes we need to step back and look at the whole of Creation. We need to re-see ourselves as little turtles playing his and her part in the masterful play called Creation.