From Spectacle to Sanctuary: The Church’s Quiet Return

“In the silence of the heart, God speaks. In the labor of the hands, the soul is restored.” — adapted from Mother Teresa and Catholic tradition

This past week, I spent days on my knees, cutting through dense grass and loosening soil to build a new vegetable garden. The work was physically demanding, yet profoundly grounding. Though sore, my body felt aligned—moving instinctively and in a way that restored me. It stood in sharp contrast to the sedentary rhythm of life behind a screen, immersed in thought and language.

What moved me most, though, were my sons. They joined in the labor enthusiastically—lifting, digging, and sweating beside me under the hot sun. Their strength and clarity stirred something deep within me, mirroring a broader yearning I sense in many of their generation. Though still engaged with the digital world, both are drawn to something more tactile—something primal that heals. And they are not alone. As we worked, hands in the soil, I felt a quiet echo of something larger: the act of cultivating a garden mirrored a wider spiritual renewal awakening in the world. In their presence and participation, I saw the next generation planting seeds for what’s to come.

I grew up in South Bend, Indiana—a town steeped in Catholic tradition, though not necessarily in living faith. Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College loomed like gatekeepers to a spiritual club I couldn’t join. Many of my high school friends attended Catholic schools, went to Mass, and hosted elaborate First Communion parties. I was the outlier—unbaptized, without sacraments, and excluded from the rituals that shaped so much of their identity. Yet, ironically, I was one of the few who actually believed in God—and took my Christianity seriously.

To me, Catholicism seemed less like a spiritual path and more like a form of social capital—an identity marker rooted in belonging rather than belief. My friends rarely spoke of Jesus Christ, grace, or the interior life—and if they did, it was usually mockingly or with condescension. It certainly wasn’t cool to talk about God or to display any real faith in a power higher than the self. The Church served as cultural currency, a guarantor of place and acceptance in the wider community. I remained on the margins—spiritually and socially—an outsider looking in through stained glass.

I hadn’t thought much about Catholicism’s broader cultural role in society or the world until I met someone deeply connected to its roots. He introduced me to Vatican I and Vatican II, the tensions between them, and the reverberations those tensions created beyond the Church’s walls. Once a cornerstone of Western civilization, the Catholic Church has fractured and evolved, mirroring broader societal shifts.

Vatican I, convened in the 19th century, sought to defend tradition. It reinforced papal authority and reasserted the Church’s primacy in an age of rapid modernization. It responded to the Enlightenment, rising secularism, and the dissolution of old alliances—an attempt to preserve religious authority amid cultural upheaval.

A century later, Vatican II opened the Church to the modern world. It introduced Mass in the vernacular, softened the Church’s posture toward other faiths, and adopted a more pastoral tone. Though intended as renewal, it felt like a rupture to many traditionalists—disrupting the sacred rhythms that had long anchored their imaginations. By embracing democratic ideals and cultural openness, the Church began to lose her countercultural edge.

But something is stirring again.

After decades of decline and scandal, the Church—the Bride, a symbol of sacred devotion in Catholic tradition—is showing signs of reawakening. Not as a relic of the past or an instrument of control, but as a vessel of meaning for a new generation. There is a rising hunger—a quiet rebellion against a media-saturated culture starved for soul. Ancient symbols and sacred rhythms are beginning to resurface.

Is this moment—this stirring in the soil—connected to the new pope? Pope Leo XIV feels markedly different. He carries a contemplative stillness and seems less concerned with global elites than with reverence, ritual, and moral clarity. He has embraced the Latin Mass, opened dialogue with traditionalist groups like the Society of Saint Pius X, and reinstated older liturgical forms. These choices suggest not a return to dominance, but a restoration of sacred presence.

Unlike recent predecessors who prioritized diplomacy and institutional outreach, Leo XIV speaks from a place of interiority. His brief, meditative homilies dwell on humility, repentance, and stillness. His monastic tone may be exactly what this cultural moment calls for.

Like roots searching for stable ground, our culture craves order after decades of spiritual exile and moral chaos. You can feel it in today’s teens and twenty-somethings—raised in a world of relativism and algorithmic noise. You might expect them to drift further into secularism, but many are turning toward deeper faith—not Instagram spirituality, but something ancient, anchored, and real.

Young people today are rediscovering Orthodox Christianity and traditional Catholicism, especially within Latin Mass communities. Even in non-Catholic Christian settings, many are planting themselves in sacred soil—returning to small churches with traditional liturgies, hymnals, and a sense of reverence long abandoned. They’re not looking for relevance; they’re looking for roots. I see it in my own son, who comes home from his internship and chooses to unwind not with TikTok or Netflix, but with The Waltons, drawn to its quiet timelessness over the overstimulation of modern entertainment. They are rejecting churches that mimic Hollywood, where sermons resemble talk shows and pastors double as influencers. Reverence is their quiet rebellion. Incense, chant, kneeling, and silence offer what screens cannot: a sense of the transcendent.

This generation has been raised in a mediated world—shaped by brands, performances, and fleeting trends. Having worshiped at the altar of the algorithm, they’ve learned that virtual connection often leaves the soul aching. So they’re reaching for the eternal—for mystery, for meaning that transcends clicks and memes. They’re drawn to:

• Orthodox Christianity
• Small Traditional Churches
• Ancestral diets
• Analog tools
• Handwritten journals
• Local farming
• Ancient rituals

This movement cuts across traditions, uniting seekers from varied Christian backgrounds in a shared longing for what is ancient and rooted. The Church they seek isn’t the Church of the late 20th century—corporate, politicized, or performative. It is something older and more elemental. A sanctuary. A symbolic mother, restored to dignity. In their Church, Jung’s shadowy archetype known as the Devouring Mother is displaced and the Bride rises—radiant not from power or popularity, but from her sacred vow.

A friend, a keen observer of political theology, sees more than symbolism in this new papacy. He sees change. I see it too—a quiet realignment, away from technocratic modernity toward something older, rooted in the eternal. Could Pope Leo XIV be positioning the Church not alongside empire, but as a counterforce to it?

During his inaugural homily on May 18, 2025, his message struck not with spectacle, but with spiritual clarity. In front of a crowd of more than 250,000 gathered in St. Peter’s Square, the new pontiff offered no political platitudes or diplomatic choreography. Instead, he called the Church to walk towards God and love one another, invoking a vision of the Church not as a fortress of doctrine, but as a living body of mercy and reconciliation.

He did not speak of institutional might or cultural dominance. Instead, he invoked a vision of the Church as “unity in Christ”—echoing the call to be salt and light, not empire and spectacle. His homily was brief, yet within it lay what may become the defining thread of his papacy: the courage to return to what is essential. “But unity does not mean uniformity,” he said. It was not a policy pronouncement, but a spiritual orientation—a turning away from exclusion and toward communion, from rigidity to relationship.

Where past leadership sometimes positioned the Church in dialogue with power, Pope Leo seems intent on dialogue with the poor, the marginalized, and the forgotten. “It is not a man who stands before you, but a servant of the Word. Not a sovereign, but a son of the Church. Not a ruler, but a disciple of the One who washed the feet of His apostles.” In this, there is continuity with the Gospel itself. His words echoed not Rome’s imperial past, but Christ’s pastoral presence. To love one another is not a slogan—it is our path. And in that path, no one is turned away. This simplicity is not naivety—it is revolution.

For those of us who once stood outside the stained glass—uninvited into the mystery—his tone offers something long overdue: welcome. Not as cultural tourists, but as fellow pilgrims. “The Creator did not fashion the world in sameness but in splendorous variety. From the beginning, the breath of God animated a garden filled with different colors, creatures, and cultures of life. This diversity is not a mistake—it is a divine design.” In Leo XIV’s Church, the “other” is not a threat to orthodoxy, but a mirror of the God who made us all. It is not a Church of filtered perfection, but of shared imperfection redeemed by love.

There’s something refreshing in the atmosphere. Something ancient is rising again. The signs are everywhere: in homilies, in liturgies, in the soil beneath our feet. My sons, digging beside me in the dirt, reminded me of what endures. At one point, my youngest mentioned arthritis from manual labor. I paused. “That comes from repetitive stress and unnatural strain,” I told him. “Real work—moving with the earth—heals. The world is changing, Gabriel. The pendulum is swinging back.”

This wasn’t just gardening. It was a glimpse of a life reclaimed from the systems and screens that have stripped it bare. A generation is rising that longs for that return.

In a world dominated by spectacle—where power feeds on performance and spin—what if the revolution is silence? What if the Church, so long entangled with empire, chooses withdrawal not as defeat but as contemplation? Historically, in times of collapse—whether the fall of Rome or the erosion of Western moral authority—the Church’s strength has reemerged through descent. Through the monastic. The mystical. Through those who till the soil and tend the soul.

We may be witnessing such a descent now. Not a fall, but a rediscovery. A sacred return. And with it, the Church’s quiet re-entry into the heart of civilization’s story.

Gen Z—fluent in tech, steeped in irony—is not as disconnected as many assume. Disillusioned with institutions, they’re turning toward what feels embodied, ancient, and enduring. This quiet return, bound up with the Church’s unfolding story, signals more than nostalgia—it suggests a deeper spiritual and civilizational shift.

For decades, Western institutions, including the Church, have aligned with the State in an uneasy alliance of faith and power. At times, this partnership advanced justice; at others, it distorted the Gospel in service of control. Now, as trust in both government and media erodes, tradition no longer feels like constraint—it feels like a compass.

Soft power still shapes a culture’s soul. The question is whether it will shore up hierarchies—or help heal what’s broken. At this threshold, the Church may yet become a cultural counterweight to empire—a quiet beacon in an age of disorder.

The Baby Boomers came of age amid unprecedented abundance—cradled by strong families, stable institutions, and a cultural memory still shaped by faith. They inherited what was perhaps the most coherent civilizational framework the West had ever known: churches full, neighborhoods intact, a moral order broadly shared. But rather than steward this inheritance, many dismantled it. The institutions that shaped them—schools, churches, even marriage itself—were cast off as relics of repression. In their place rose the gospel of self: expressive individualism, consumer freedom, and the pursuit of authenticity at any cost.

They had reasons, of course. Their parents—the so-called Greatest Generation—had survived war and depression, but not without scars. Duty sometimes came at the expense of tenderness. Authority was sometimes too much. The Boomer rebellion began, in part, as a search for warmth, honesty, and liberation. But in fleeing cold moralism, they often discarded moral formation altogether. Spiritual intimacy gave way to vague, untethered exploration. Tradition became a punchline. Discipline became trauma. And the Church, once a sacred anchor, came to feel—to many—as a guilt factory or a hollow performance.

In the decades that followed, reverence gave way to relevance. Sanctuaries morphed into auditoriums. Worship into entertainment. Sermons into TED Talks. Rather than handing down mystery, many handed down a curated version of faith—one that fit easily into modern life, but lacked the weight to ground it. Prayer was privatized. Community was optional. And the sacred was often reduced to sentiment.

This isn’t a blanket condemnation. Many Boomers remained faithful, raised their children with integrity, and walked quietly with God. But as a generational wave, they presided over a slow unraveling of the spiritual architecture they once inherited. Institutions were emptied of their moral imagination, their liturgies flattened, their symbols deconstructed. What was once a culture formed by shared rhythms of meaning became a marketplace of lifestyle choices.

And now, their grandchildren—Gen Z—walk among the ruins. Raised in a world of algorithmic distraction and spiritual drift, they are aching for something weightier than opinion, deeper than identity, truer than self-expression. Not a reinvented Church, but a reenchanted one. Not a stage, but a sanctuary. The irony is sharp, and perhaps providential: the generation furthest from tradition may be the one to recover it—not as nostalgia, but as necessity.

This may be the Church’s moment—not to chase relevance, but to embody reverence. By returning to the Gospel’s heart—love, mercy, and mystery—it can become what it was meant to be: a sanctuary for the weary, an ecosystem where the soul’s soil is tilled and the lonely are met.

If the Church loosens its entanglement with state power and instead stands rooted in human dignity and divine love, it could help tend the soul of civilization—like a garden reclaimed from neglect. I glimpsed this in my own backyard: generations shoulder to shoulder, re-learning how to live in rhythm with the eternal. The sacred is there, just beneath the surface, waiting to be unearthed.

We live in a liminal age—modernity’s myths are cracking, and something deeper is stirring. The West’s spiritual imagination isn’t dead; it’s dormant, like seeds lying in wait for faithful hands.

Watching my sons dig, I see not just a garden, but the quiet beginnings of a civilization ready to bloom.

—

If this piece resonated—if you felt the ache, the hope, the holy weight—share it with #SacredReturn on X. You can support my writing on BuyMeACoffee or Patreon.

What seeds of the sacred are you planting?

Thank you for being here. The garden is growing.