What no eye has seen. Visual Theology of the Basilica of St Paul's outside the Walls

“For more than ten years I have lived and prayed in the basilica of St Paul’s outside the walls,” says the author, Fr Edmund Power OSB, abbot emeritus of St Paul’s. “I know its silences of the night and of the early morning, the curvature of every arch, the face, serene or anguished, of every saint and sinner represented in this place animated by the presence of God.” On the basis of a knowledge that has grown as the author has contemplated this, the second largest basilica of Rome, he writes of how the building as a whole and in its parts can be an icon that lights up the eyes and the heart of the person who seeks God. As well as being a papal basilica, St Paul’s has for 1,300 years been the abbey church of a Benedictine community: it is no accident therefore that the abbot’s reflections are guided by the ancient monastic practice of lectio divina. The basilica is a symbol of incarnation, of the harmonious union of matter and spirit. While serving as a monument to the dynamic and tireless faith of the apostle Paul, first theologian of the New Testament, its art and architecture celebrate, at a deeper level, the Christ who transformed the life of Paul. Anyone who longs for the dwelling-place of God is invited to read and contemplate the basilica that is at the same time word and icon.