The squared chapel, having the sanctuary in one corner with a round, fire-colored skylight over the altar, a statue of Mary guarding one side, 7 narrow windows along the two sides joining
at the sanctuary, a Crucifix backed with sparkling gold and a tabernacle just below, is our main chapel here in Rome.
The simplicity speaks to the profundity that is enclosed within both in the mass and in our personal prayer. A dozen saints are good to catechize but our spirituality is Christ-centered,
we want to live like Christ and not like St X or Y so we keep our chapel to the essentials.
The whole chapel is directly focused on Christ in the tabernacle and on the altar: all the pews are
rounded and the focus is right there, the biggest source of natural light is the stained-glass over the altar that is colored like the Holy Spirit window in St Peter’s.
To demonstrate that Christ is our Rock, most of the chapel is built of solid decorative rock: the
floor, the altar, the columns and even the windows are made of rock.
Each Church expresses a theology, a spirituality, whether you want it to or not. Have you ever seen a Chapel of the Missionaries of Charity; it has no pews a simple altar and crucifix and the words “I thirst.” Ours express that Christ is the center of it all.
So much simplicity must be uncommon in Rome, and even in Italy, where churches are characterized by complex ornamentation, gold a gilding, paintings, frescoes, and sculpture.
Just like I said in the blog each church displays a certain spirituality. Many times parishes show different spiritualities present in the Church now or in its history (even basic parish churches here are often 100s of years old).
As another example of this, last Saturday I was at a deaconate ordination for the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and in their chapel, guess what, there is a huge statue of Mary in the center and a smaller crucifix. I mention this because their chapel too was fairly simple, so we are not the only ones.