Read by Damian Caruana

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(After a visit to Notre Dame on Saturday and a basement church in Massy on Sunday.)

The cathedrals of Europe are tourist attractions.
Buy a postcard and take the tour.
The mega-churches of America are shopping malls.
Sip a latte while you browse the bookstore.

Clapboard chapels are monuments to nostalgia.
Visit an art gallery that was once a Norman church.
Sleep in a cathedral that is now a bed-and-breakfast.
Attend a lecture and a concert in an inspiring setting!

Far from stone cathedrals believers bow in backrooms.
Psalms are sung in living rooms.
Crosses are scratched on Internet catacombs.
Traffic jams are transformed into honking choirs.

I will build a temple for Jehovah with my solitary reverent life.
The bricks will be my ordinary days lived in honor of Him.
I will construct a cathedral of sand while unbelief laps at my feet.
My praise will rise like spires above suburbia.