The arms of Christ on the Cross are represented on the crucifix as stretched out to their full extent. They not only bear the weight of man’s sin, but they are extended to include all men. There is no limitation to the act of sacrifice—it is offered for all men, and it obtains for all the possibility of eternal life in the presence of God. Christ is for all men the cause, the only possible cause, of salvation in the sense that he alone frees man from the consequences of sin and that no type of man is excluded from the newness of life his sacrifice gains—save only the one who, by the exercise of his freedom, shuts his mind and heart to faith when it is presented, or refuses, in pride, to repent.

The statement in the Creed, ‘He descended into hell’, means that Christ’s redemptive work is not confined to those who lived during or after his life on earth. The Cross of Christ is the central point in history in that it is an eternally decisive point, whose consequences are effective throughout the whole temporal process. Those who lived before Christ, and who tried to do the Will of God in so far as light was given to them, were not untouched by grace. Since they were born in a state of condemnation and death, they were as a people incapable of entering into the presence of God. As individuals who had looked for God, and by grace in hope, they were not condemned, but just.

When church building became possible again after the second World War there must have been many English Catholics who looked forward confidently to an era of vigorous and inspiring new churches enriched with the best examples of contemporary art. Among them were certainly a number of architects who, after a long enforced separation from their calling, longed for an opportunity to express, in the creation of a new church, their gratitude for a safe return and their hope for the future.

Now, after nearly ten years during which many new churches have been built or planned, the prospect is so bleak that most of these architects, and many laymen with them, are feeling nothing but discouragement and frustration. A few of the new churches really do express a living art. The rest are pitiful proof of timid conventionality and of the still powerful effect of Pugin’s teaching that Gothic is the only proper and morally defensible style of architecture for churches, or for any buildings even remotely connected with them. Even where the strict Gothic is abandoned, the alternative seems only too often to be a veritable fruit salad of mixed conventional forms, something for all tastes.

Art, it has been said, is the mirror of society. Just as Classical Greek culture produced the refined beauties of the Parthenon, so the vigorous and exuberant background of the four centuries following the Norman Conquest produced, by gradual development from the staid Romanesque, all the upsoaring excitement of Gothic architecture.

Forty days after the Resurrection Christ was, in the words of St Luke ‘taken up’ or ‘raised up’ (Acts 1, 9-11). He ascended into heaven and was hidden from his disciples. St Mark adds that he now sits at the right hand of God (Mark 16, 14).

These scriptural references speak for themselves. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the same doctrine is taught. Christ, who in his human nature has suffered and made ‘purgation of sins, sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high’ (Hebrews 1,3). This is the entry of Christ, as the redeeming head of the redeemed people, into the presence of the Father. He is no longer subject to suffering and to the will of the world. He has put on incorruption, and having put it on, goes to the place of incorruption, the presence of the Father. In Christ, the incorruption and purity of the first state of man are restored, but at an infinitely higher level.

His ascension does not mean that he changes so far as his divinity is concerned, for the Son is equal to the Father; it is rather that the full effects of the union of the human nature to the person of the Word are released in that human nature. What was prefigured in the Transfiguration on the Mount is now realized as the body of Jesus, is totally possessed by the divine glory. As man he is so closely united to God, that once the will of the Father has been fulfilled he enters into the place of honour, for he has become much better than the angels (Hebrews 1,3).

The fall of man is the result of man’s choice—he chooses to live centred on himself. This choice cuts him off from God and plunges him into a morass of unreality, for life apart from the Creator loses all meaning. The only reality that remains is the choice, the first sin that parts man from God. All men are born in disobedience, in a situation created by sin. Man by reason of his history, his origin from Adam, cannot fulfil the purpose of his first creation; fallen from grace, with his natural strength impaired, his state is that of original sin. The world is the system man builds up in self seeking; the flesh is man’s desire, greedy for life, asserting itself against God. Each actual sin he commits is his personal endorsement of the state in which he is born.

Though he is prone to sin, though he is often sinful, man is not evil by nature; he tries to escape, he longs for beauty, for justice, for truth, above all for love. He can pervert these things, for he is free; for the same reason he can choose them, and pursue them when they elude his grasp. He has imagined beings who will bring these things to him, he has followed prophets and elaborated techniques. He has known failure and he has seen himself as failing; sometimes he comes near to a knowledge of sin.