Chartres Cathedral Portal

The four beasts surrounding Jesus in this sculpture are a lion, a calf, a man, and an eagle (there’s no coincidence that these are similar to the four creatures which represent the four Gospels, though these are taken specifically from Revelation 4). 

 Often, Jesus is depicted above the main doors of a church in a triumphant, end-of-time, sitting-in-judgment situation, as the artisans want to communicate that when you enter the church, going through the doors underneath the sculpture, you’re moving into a different kind of time and a different kind of space.

If you passed under this reminder of Christ’s triumph and the end of time every day (or at least every Sunday), how might you look at life differently?