God's Architect: Building his Church on Earth from Heaven

Just last week, Pope Francis recognized Antoni Gaudí’s “heroic virtues,” which is a step on the path to sainthood. Gaudi’s greatest achievement, the Sagrada Família, took 40 of his last years on earth and has taken more than 140 years to build. It is set to be completed in 2026. This completion date marks the centennial of Gaudí's death. It will be a monument not only to God and the Holy family, but to his faithful architect as well.

Antoni Guadi, the architect of Europe's newest (not yet complete) cathedral was born in 1852. The youngest of five, he outlived his siblings by decades. He was baptized the day after he was born in the church of Sant Pere Apòstol (Saint Peter the Apostle) on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in Reus, Spain.

Young Antoni suffered from health problems complicated by his religious desire to fast. As an adolescent he became a disillusioned adherent of utopianism and socialism.  After compulsory military service Guadi studied architecture at the Barcelona Higher School of Architecture, graduating with mediocre grades in 1878. When handing him his degree, the director of Barcelona Architecture School, said: "We have given this academic title either to a fool or a genius. Time will show."

Well, we now know that it was the latter. Not only was the sickly and odd Guadi a genius but he was a mystic, visionary and a Saint. He was called to be not just any architect, but 'God’s architect'. As God’s architect, in an anti-clerical and anti-Catholic period in Spain, Guadi left his socialism behind and became hardened in his devotion to both his Catalan culture and his Catholic faith. His decision to build a new basilica in the 20th century was a testimony to his faith in the future of european Catholicism. 

After he lost all of his family members to death, he focused more and more on the magnum opus of his life, the Sagrada Familia (the Holy Family Basilica) in Barcelona Spain. He famously said, “My good friends are dead; I have no family and no clients, no fortune nor anything. Now I can dedicate myself entirely to the Church”.

He gave his life, pouring himself out day after day on the planning and construction of the Sagrada Familia. He took up residence at the construction site, obsessed with creating the most beautiful building for the sake of the Church and for the celebration of the Eucharist. The hope for a revitalization and endurance of the Catholic Faith in Europe was the reason for his immolation, his total self-gift and spiritually fragrant sacrifice offered to God. 

He was unconcerned with himself, so humble and poor that he was not recognized as the great architect of Barcelona's most amazing building. No one knew that he was the man who was struck by a passing tram. They thought he was merely a poor beggar when they scooped his limp body up and took him to the hospital in a taxi. They didn't know he was a great saint on his way to a church for confession and prayers. In fact, he died due to the fact that he received the minimal care that any homeless person would receive.

Once they realized who he was, it was too late. A large crowd gathered to bid farewell in the chapel of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the crypt of his beloved Sagrada Família. His gravestone bears this inscription:

Antoni Gaudí Cornet. From Reus. At the age of 74, a man of exemplary life, and an extraordinary craftsman, the author of this marvelous work, the church, died piously in Barcelona on the tenth day of June 1926; henceforward the ashes of so great a man await the resurrection of the dead. May he rest in peace.

-San Antoni Guadi ruega por nosotras-