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Years of service have gone into the creation of this marvelous work. It is replete with works of art dear to the hearts and souls of Catholics. It is exquisite in every detail. Someday the silver frame of the icon will be darkened, the marble floor will be dulled by pilgrims’ shoes, the wood of the pews will be scratched, the brass rail on the stairway will look less like gold. Perhaps
then the place will be more acceptable.
Remember when some great cathedrals needed refurbishing at a cost of millions? This shrine may well be a basilica someday. There will still be volunteers to care for it. Let the naysayers and critics have their day. You don’t have to be one of them.
Furthermore, if we think it is easy, indeed tempting, to criticize the shrine as being isolationist, detached, aloof, one would only have to attend Mass at the Pilgrim’s Center and this past week’s events to see that the opposite is true. We have seen single people and families from every class, young and old. Indeed, people who have attended Mass there often love the shrine because of the welcoming ambiance, that this is a house of God, not some institution only inviting particular individuals.
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