Thank you. I guess I should make some disclaimers at the outset. I may touch upon Sacramento

Architecture, but not at length, but I would be happy to answer questions about Sacramento

Architecture as offering a presence and allude to it a little bit throughout. Also, I realize

listening to the introduction that I, if I write another book, I need a shorter second title.

Well, so good afternoon.

Thank you all for coming.

It's Saturday in Manhattan, and I want to begin with confession.

I am not an expert on Notre Dame de Paris.

And I must confess as well that I always experience a certain frisson

when I contemplate how Parisians mispronounced Notre Dame.

So apart from the basics of its Christian narrative, I can't speak with authority about the iconography of Notre Dame, its exterior ranks of biblical figures, the theology

of light it embodies, or its relationship to neoplatonist traditions of thought, Dionysius

the Iropagite, and medieval cults of the Virgin Mary. All things that I know, that I know,

primarily as hearsay, though Stephen's talk has reminded me of the many complex rumors associated

with Sandini, which I enjoyed being reminded of very much.

There are two things when I set out to actually write what I intended to write.

One of the issues was the, one of the topics was the purpose of sacred architecture,

and the other was the nature of beauty.

And actually I talked a little bit more later about the nature of beauty.

But the purpose of sacred architecture, I realized I didn't really get to.

So I wanted to read two things before I go into the main body of the text, which first has to do with the conviction that sacred architecture is always a response to the sacred, that in its

origins it is a response to the sacred, and it's a response to sacred presence, and it's a response

...