When I was in high school and my family took a trip to Europe, I remember feeling very proud to be a Catholic. The great cathedrals of France, Spain and Italy were awesome. St. Peter's in Rome, massive beyond anything I'd experienced, was a particular source of pride. It made me feel like my religion was in some way superior to those with lesser edifices.

Certainly, the Catholic Church has a rich tradition of creating spectacular places of worship, where the buildings themselves bear witness to the congregation's faith in a God of beauty, strength and permanence. The great cathedrals of Europe and the more recent cathedrals of the new world share this tradition of a physical representation of the faith of a community.

In building these masterpieces, however, we may be tempted to place our faith in our physical plant instead of in the living God.

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus' followers express their pride in the beauty of the Jewish temple. They might feel that the very existence of the temple is a sign of God's favor on the people of Israel. As people remark on the beauty of the temple, Jesus issues a warning: "All that you see here --- the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down."

The temple is not God. Built to symbolize the presence of God amid the people of God, it exists at God's pleasure like everything else in this world. The things that we may be proud of or take solace from in our own communities, whether they are our churches, schools, art, icons, etc all fall into the same category. They are not meant to be objects of our faith but are meant to be conduits of our faith --- aids that help us lift our eyes and our voices to God and worship, and that help us lift our hands in service to our neighbors.

In today's first reading the prophet Malachi announces, "Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evil doers will be stubble, and the day is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch." When judgment comes, everything not rooted in faith will be destroyed.

The first churches, of course, had no mighty buildings. Believers met in homes, in public squares, anywhere they could. The growth of the church was explosive.

The fact that one religion has grand buildings and another does not is not to be taken as a sign of God's favor on one or the other. The more telling sign of God's favor on a community is not the size of the building, but the faith of the people. This is important to remember as we attend our building committee meetings and make great plans to improve or expand our facilities.

Buildings are meant to inspire and assist our faith, not to replace it. The house of God is ultimate in our assembly, not our four walls.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.