Building Cathedrals

There were three stonemasons, working in a stoneyard, cutting rough rock into square blocks. When asked what they were doing by a passerby, the first stonemason responded, "Cutting this stone into blocks."


The second stonemason replied, "Working, to make a living."


The third lifted his eyes toward the horizon. "I am building a Cathedral for the Glory of God, " he said.

I've heard that story before. I imagine many of you have, too. But when our pastor told it this morning after a sermon on vocation, work and doing whatever we do to the Glory of God, I heard it with new ears. Ears that had recently also heard the words of some girlfriends as we reminded one another that Motherhood is not just something we kinda do because we have children and someone's got to do it.

It's our vocation. Our career. Our Calling.

It's a good thing to remember, as we bathe and feed, admonish and correct, love and kiss on and clean up after these precious little nuisances, that we are literally raising up temples, the dwelling places of God's Holy Spirit.

1 Cor 6:19 “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” 

Our noisy, messy squabbling children, while it may not seem much like it in the moment, are living temples. Lord willing, they will one day be an actual repository of the Spirit of God.

This is a significant realization for me. It sheds a slightly different angle of light on the mundane daily tasks involved in keeping them alive and relatively healthy. I am as much engaged in building a lasting monument to the Glory of God by caring for my children as if I were in fact painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. My children's children's children will continue the line that my mother's mother began decades ago, just as surely as artist, stonemason, carpenter and monk have contributed their handiwork since 1473 to contribute to the beauty and majesty that defines the Sistine Chapel today.

I pray that as we wipe noses, mop up chins and diaper bottoms, we mothers can keep our eyes on the horizon and say by faith,

"I am building a Cathedral for the Glory of God."