Insider tour of the Sagrada Familia reveals 5 divine enigmas and hidden treasures

The Sagrada Familia basilica features sandcastle-like spires, stone carved to look like lush flora, a kaleidoscopic interior and a trove of treasures, some hiding in plain sight.Even regular worshippers at Barcelona’s world-famous landmark find themselves dumbstruck with wonder.Josep Turull, the Catalan rector of the Sagrada Familia and the priest in charge of its parish activities, recently granted The Associated Press a private tour to show off his favorite gems ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s highly anticipated Mass on Wednesday night.“We say that one of the elements of the Sagrada Familia Basilica is that you never exhaust it,” Turull said.

“I have spent the last eight years as its rector, and each day I discover something new.”Each morning, Turull approaches the basilica’s elaborately decorated façades.They are packed with an abundance of religious scenes and symbols, some easy to interpret for anyone with a basic understanding of Christianity, while others are mysterious and even shocking to see in a church.The westward-looking Façade of the Passion is stark, its figures tormented, their bodies strained in angular poses.

That was how architect Antoni Gaudí wanted it — “harsh and cruel, as if made of bones,” to show the pain and torment of Christ’s final days.Decades after Gaudí’s own death, sculptor Josep Subirachs tempered the façade’s misery with some playful elements.There’s Gaudí himself, above the central door, staring across at Jesus carrying his cross to Calvary.

And what’s that suduko-like numbered grid next to Judas kissing Jesus before his betrayal?The “magic square” symbolizes the inevitability of Christ’s death; adding the numbers in any direction always produces 33, Jesus’s age at his crucifixion.Another puzzle awaits the patient eye that drifts across to the scene of Peter denying Christ: a small, square-shaped labyrinth.Turull said that it alludes to the need to keep faith in God when we feel lost.Afte...