The Tallest Church in the World

Which "Seed" Are You?

by Father Brian J. Soliven on Sunday July 12, 2026

**Thank you for your patience with the slight ruffling noise in the recording. I had microphone issues for some mysterious reason**

There is something wonderfully revealing about the old Spanish architect who devoted his life to the grand basilica of La Sagrada Família in Barcelona (still under construction after 144 years). He understood that if stone could preach, then it ought to preach Christ. And so he imagined a church whose highest point would not honor a king, an emperor, or even the genius of its designer, but Jesus Himself. The tallest tower would belong to Christ, as if to remind every traveler, every skeptic, and every weary soul that there is One who stands above every earthly ambition.

Our age is forever building towers of another kind. We strive to become taller through success, wealth, influence, or pleasure, believing that if only we could climb high enough, the ache within us would finally be quiet. Yet the heart is not deceived for long. It was fashioned for greatness, but not the greatness of our own making. It longs for the infinite because it was created by the Infinite. Every restless desire is, in the end, a homesickness for Christ.

Perhaps this is why our Lord looked upon His disciples and said, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see" (Matthew 13:16). Countless generations had longed to behold the face of the Messiah, and there He stood before ordinary fishermen and tax collectors. Their eyes were blessed not because they possessed extraordinary vision, but because they recognized extraordinary beauty. To see Jesus is to see the fulfillment of every noble longing the human heart has ever carried.

The towers of the Sagrada Família rise not merely to impress the eye, but to lift it heavenward. They whisper that true greatness is not found by making much of ourselves, but by gazing upon the One in whom all greatness dwells. The highest things in this world are at their best when they teach us to look beyond themselves.

For every human longing, however confused or misdirected, is finally a search for God. As G.K. Chesterton famously observed, "Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God." The tragedy is not that we desire too much, but that we so often mistake the shadow for the substance. Christ alone is the greatness we seek, the beauty we pursue, and the home for which every human heart was made.