In my own childhood and upbringing, Christian art and architecture served this noble purpose of helping to bring me to my knees in recognition and adoration of Christ truly present in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Sacrament of the Altar. The same architecture helped me realise this was always in communion with the Church, always together with the Communion of Saints. Irrespective of its historic style, genuine Christian architecture must seek to do the same by – we might say – being itself a visible act of witness and worship.
Much more here.
Would any Gothic cathedral have had a tabernacle on the high altar? I thought that was a novel development of the post-Reformation scene.