Author Archives: Christine Sunderland

After a challenging week for friends and family, I was glad to go to church, and as I stepped into the welcoming nave of Saint Peter’s Oakland, I wondered what God would show me, what gift He would give.  For never have I left a Mass without fulness, surprise, and delight.  Never have I left empty handed, or for that matter, empty hearted.  Today was no exception.

Through the sweet billowing incense, I could see the tabernacle draped in red, for Pentecost is one of the few feast days using this liturgical color (generally used for the Holy Spirit and martyrs).  Our celebrant wore a red chasuble, and with the chancel and central aisle carpeted in red, the church was ablaze.

And rightly so, for Pentecost is the festival of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples in tongues of fire.  Christ had promised he would send the comforter to them once he ascended to Heaven.  So the motley band of faithful watched and waited, powerless, somewhat afraid, probably wondering what would come next.  For they were without their Lord, and they had not yet received Him in the form of the Holy Spirit.  They were comfortless, without strength, without power.

How like today, I thought, as I gazed upon the red veil of the tabernacle.  How often we feel distanced from God, partly by a dry secular culture demanding our attention, partly by our own waywardness, our lack of prayer life.  And how good it is to return on Sunday, or during the week, and meet Him in the Eucharist, unite with Him.

I prayed the fire of Pentecost would descend upon our culture, upon our people, upon our parish, upon my family.  I prayed, Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

And, as our good preacher explained, with the descent comes the gifts: the wind, the fire, the words.

Scripture tells us that the Spirit descended like “a rushing mighty wind.” This is true holy power, breathed upon each disciple then, and breathed upon us today, the literal breath of God, the breath of life.

We are told they saw “cloven tongues like as of fire” that sat upon their heads, and I recalled Moses and the burning bush that did not consume.  Just so, these tongues of fire brought to these faithful the warmth of love, the fire of passion, fulfilling and not consuming.

The third gift of this great descent was the ability to “speak with other tongues,” so that men from far away nations understood the disciples when they spoke of the “wonderful works of God.”  The confusion of Babel is now reversed through the depth and fervor of love.

The disciples were the first Church, and these gifts were given to the Church, and through the centuries, the gifts were passed from bishops (the apostles were the first bishops) to bishops to priests to each of us, in the laying on of hands in the sacraments of consecration, ordination, baptism, confirmation.  Through the Church, we breathe the breath of God.  We burn with the love of God.  We speak of the wonderful works of God, and are understood.

For indeed, they are wonderful works – His coming among us, taking on flesh, pulling us up with Him, returning to us in the Eucharist.  And Pentecost, fifty days after Easter, is appropriately called Whitsunday in the English Church, a traditional day of Baptism in which the candidates wore white.  It was a day God breathed His strength and love upon the newly born believers, so that each would have the words and power to not “be ashamed to confess Christ crucified.”

Once again I left Saint Peter’s gifted with God.

Saint Peter’s Anglican Church, http://www.saintpetersoakland.com/, Sunday Mass: 8:00, 10:00 a.m. Sung Eucharist, Sermon and Church School.

We arrived home from London, moving from one world into another, descending to our roots, grounded.  Our tabby, Laddie, and our black-and-white longhair, Lady Jane, were glad, their purr a thick thunder, their paws pushing in and out, nesting in our laps, their eyes expectant, longing.

And we returned to the great festival of Ascension Day, the joyous celebration of Christ’s bodily ascension to Heaven, after His resurrection, after His appearing to many witnesses on earth with his new body.

Just so, I thought this morning in the red brick sanctuary of St. Peter’s, just so we too will be given new bodies.  As mine ages, I appreciate this thought, for each day brings a slowing down, each day a few more cells die, each day I draw closer to Heaven, and indeed, closer to that new body free from pain.

And just as the preacher said today, as Christ ascended he brought humanity with him to the glory of God the Father.  Through union with Christ we ascend, we are resurrected, we are reborn.  What a wonderful vision, this vision of God, indeed, the beatific vision.

And as the Scripture for today said, it is only when Christ ascends that we are given the Holy Ghost, the comforter, the strengthener.  Through the Church, through the unbroken line of Apostles in our succession of bishops, we are given the Holy Spirit to redeem us, to comfort us, to strengthen us in our weakness until our time of ascension.

I received a phone call as I was writing this, this Sunday after Ascension afternoon.  I was told a dear elderly relation passed on to Heaven early this morning.  Such a day to ascend, to journey from this world to the next!  She now, outside of time, will be given a new body, and that old diseased one that caused such pain and anguish recently, and perhaps such joys in another time long ago, is no longer.  Christ, in whom she believed, carried her with him to the Father.  She ascended.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude this Ascension Day, as I think upon these mysteries of life and death.  I thank God that I have been graced with faith, that the future holds no fear, and that each day of life is a meaningful part of my greater journey.

In the disarray of our world, the volcanoes and earthquakes and tsunamis, the wars of nations and schisms of the Church, the Feast of Ascension reminds us of God’s immense and steady love for us through Christ.  We must merely believe and He will not let us go.  He will hold us close to His heart.

We returned to St. Stephen’s Gloucester Rd. for Solemn Mass on Sunday.  The day, like the week here in London, was cold and gray, threatening rain, with biting winds.  The city, all week, has been in the throes of an election, and the low clouds seemed to reflect the civic distress at the outcome, a hung Parliament.

We bundled up and headed to church to say our prayers for this historic city in this historic time, but then, perhaps all places in all times are historic.

As I stepped into the narthex of St. Stephen’s, I looked up the nave to the High Altar, this time alight for the service.  It appeared ablaze with fire, the gold of the altar merging into the gold of the six-paneled reredos, as well as the gilded tabernacle and six tall golden candlesticks.  Set against a red drapery and at the head of the rows of dark wooden pews, the High Alter shown like the sun.

We found places in the fourth pew, Epistle side, and as I glanced at the Victorian pulpit rising amidst the pews like a ship in the ocean, I wondered if Father Bushau would use this pulpit, for in most historic churches these, like the high altars, are abandoned.  There have been few occasions where I have seen them used.

But for now, I placed the kneeling cushion on the floor and knelt.  I prayed my thanksgivings, again stunned to be worshiping where T. S. Eliot worshiped, and I prayed for his soul, and for his widow.  I prayed that God’s will be done in my life, that the “words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be always acceptable.”  I did not know why I was led here, why I found this church, but I did not need to know.  I knew the Anglo-Catholics in England were struggling for survival within the Anglican Church of England and I prayed that within this group as well, the Holy Spirit would breathe new life and encouragement.

We listened to Holy Scripture and heard the small choir sing, a quartet with professional, mellow sounding voices, giving life to Tallis in this nineteenth-century church.  We knelt, gazing at the golden altar, and sang Alleluia, Alleluia, for we were in Eastertide, and we celebrated the glorious resurrection of Christ from the dead.

Father Bushau did indeed ascend to the pulpit arising from the midst of the congregation, and I smiled.  It was so very good to see this, to see the use of earlier forms, forms that still spoke to our world.  He preached on Mary, for this is the month of May, Mary’s month, and today was, at least in the U.S., Mother’s Day.  Today we would crown Mary with roses, but first we considered her role in salvation, her reception of God, her bearing the Word, her obedience.  Just so, our good preacher said, we must bear the Word into the world, tell all by our lives, our deeds and our words, who we believe in to save us from death, from sin, from separation from the source of love, from God.  Take not thy Holy Spirit from me, I thought.  Do not allow me to be separated from you, the source of love, love itself.  Yes, we must be the bearers of God, of Christ, into our world.

We moved from the sermon to the Eucharistic offering, and how good it was to see this priest celebrate the Mass, consecrate the elements of bread and wine, facing East, his back to the congregation, his face to the altar.  For in the consecration, he represents us, his flock, in the great offering of ourselves.  Then, when he turns to us, with the consecrated elements,  the Body and Blood, he represents Christ, offering God back to us.  These actions all have immense meanings, and how good it was to see they were repeated here, that indeed, the ritual of two thousand years had not been lost.  For it communicates God’s love for us.

Lastly, we crowned Mary, an earthy image in the south transept, with roses.  We sang hymns to her with great joy, glad that she cares for us and intercedes for us.  I said a silent Hail Mary.

As the songs of the choir and the congregation rose to the vaults, as the booming organ led us through the liturgy of love, I gave thanks for St. Stephen’s Gloucester Road.  I gave thanks for the witness that this parish continues to offer in the neighborhood of South Kensington.

http://www.saint-stephen.org.uk/

We visited St. Stephen’s, Gloucester Road, an Anglo-Catholic parish in South Kensington, for the mid-day Mass.

The steepled stone church evokes a village church, with its gables and glass, its garden.  Built in 1867 and nestled in a genteel neighborhood of neat white townhouses, the church has been home to Anglo-Catholics for many generations, but when I discovered it was T.S. Eliot’s home parish (he was Church Warden for twenty-five years) I was even more entranced.  St. Stephen’s website listed daily Masses, the sign of a devoted and devout vicar, and I was encouraged that the church still retained the great poet’s legacy of vision and word.

We entered the vaulted nave and I gazed at the high altar, the tall white columns bordering the long nave and connected by pointed arches rising to rose-painted walls and clerestory windows.  In contrast to the ethereal rose and white, dark wood pews anchored the length of the nave, leading to the chancel where a golden reredos stood above the altar and tabernacle.  The light a bit dim with the gray and chilly outdoors, I could still imagine sun slanting through those windows onto the altar.  But even today, the sense of intimacy and reverence, of the immanent and the eminent, united in this church.  I had a comfortable feeling of coming home.

We found Father Bushau in an office off the south transept.  He was most friendly and happy to receive my little novel Inheritance, and a second copy for Mrs. Eliot, a parishioner here.  We chatted about the Church and all of the turmoils, challenges, and confusions facing her today, and agreed T. S. Eliot had it right in his poem-prayer, “Teach us to care and not to care/ Teach us to sit still/ Our peace in Thy will.”  Each of us must decide day to day.  Each of us must, through prayer and sacrament, through faithfulness, seek to do His will, and be happy with that grace given.  At present, Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England are tempted to join the Roman Catholic Church, taking advantage of Pope Benedict’s offer of a separate “Ordinariate.”  But Anglicans, especially Anglo-Catholics, are a history-loving people and slow to change their place of worship, loving their churches of stone and time, so I think matters of belief may not be first priority, but second to setting and beauty.

We stayed for the Mass, appreciating the opportunity to worship together with a few weekday faithful, appreciating the honor, veneration, and adoration shown in the liturgy, with vestments, word, and prayer, and appreciating the witness St. Stephen’s provides in London.  We will not forget this church – and Father Bushau – in our prayers.

I paused to take a photo of a plaque recalling T. S. Eliot’s time at St. Stephen’s, and I wondered what he would have thought of these immense changes in his Anglican Church.  Then I recalled his prophetic words inThoughts after Lambeth (1931):

The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality.  The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization and save the World from suicide.

Yes, I thought, grateful for the church and for this man of grace, we must redeem the time.

http://www.saint-stephen.org.uk/

We arrived to 48 degree temps in London, biting and gusty winds, but it was good to return to this fascinating city, which to me, has always seemed so very civilized.

Monday we braved the weather (I now understand why the English talk weather so often, it can be quite debilitating) to walk down the block, then turned back, discouraged, wondering if we should spend the day in a museum, which is always an excellent option here.  But something led us to Farm Street Church, although at 11 in the morning I didn’t expect it to be open, or if open, lit.

A Mass was in progress, and I wondered why, and we padded our way down the side aisle (one enters oddly through the back, up by the chancel, difficult to enter unnoticed) to the foot of the nave and found seats as the preacher was finishing his homily.

I included a scene set in this church, the Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, in my British novel, Inheritance, for this soaring Victorian Gothic sanctuary is not to be missed in London.  Apsidal stained glass, marble, three-aisled nave with side chapels, stunning tabernacle and high altar.  Founded by the Jesuits in the mid nineteenth century in Mayfair, it continues to be staffed by this educational order, and continues a long tradition of excellent preaching, but it is particularly known for its Mass sung in Latin.  Sundays the church is usually packed, some there for the music, some there to worship God, and some to do both.

But this was Monday, and later I realized it was a Bank Holiday, a transferring of May Day, established in the ’seventies.  The Church of course honors Mary in May, and I believe that is why Farm Street Church, dedicated to Our Lady, had a special Mass.  So I was happy that our first day in London was marked by the Holy Liturgy, and although it was a Low Mass, and no ethereal choir singing in the loft, I drank in the words of Consecration gratefully.  I said my morning prayers.

With a copy of Inheritance tucked in my bag, we left the church to find another church, All Saints, Margaret Street, another Victorian church, this one Anglican.  The midday Mass was in progress as we arrived, but not offered in the main sanctuary but in an exterior chapel off the entry courtyard.  A friendly gentleman saw us looking lost and came out to rescue us from the cold.  The celebrant had just finished his homily and was beginning the Consecration, and we fell to our knees in quite a different setting, simpler and more humble, but grateful to be worshipping with our fellow Anglicans.  The space held a comforting presence, the dark woods, a lovely apsidal painting of several apostles, the white linen-covered altar, the lower but still vaulted ceiling.  The gleaming gold of the tabernacle –the doors hammered with a story – caught my eye.  We watched as the five others received the Eucharist as we prayed for the Church, especially the Anglican Communion, which seems to be in such painful disarray.

When meeting with Father Moses, the vicar, afterwards, I was struck with his friendliness, for he was the gentleman who had rescued us from the cold, but since he wasn’t wearing his clerical collar, I didn’t even suspect.  (It was after all, a holiday.)  He received my little novel with thanks and I explained that a scene was set in his church, that this was a thank-you for his work there and the presence of the church in London.

We braved once again the icy winds and headed down Regent Street, hoping for a bite of lunch at Fortnum & Mason’s, around the corner from Hatchard’s Books, food for the body and for the mind.  Two Masses in one day had nourished my soul, and I was grateful.

www.Farmstreet.org.uk ;

www.Allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk

I brought along several copies of Inheritance to give as thank you gifts to Anglo-Catholic parishes in London, for my novel traces the history of Christianity in England with a natural emphasis on Anglican roots.  With hopes of finding the churches open and the vicars available at the midday Masses, we planned our visits to a few selected parishes in London.

We arrived early at the Victorian church, Our Most Holy Redeemer, in the neighborhood of Clerkenwell, for the 12:30 Mass.  The church began as a mission church and since its consecration in October 1888, has remained firmly in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, seeing the use of vestments, incense, bells, candles and reverence to the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the tabernacle as appropriate honor to the glory of God.  The interior was influenced by Brunelleschi’s church, Santo Spirito in Florence, and I could see the façade was Italianate as well.

We entered the large nave.  It seemed that everything focused on the altar and its gleaming tabernacle where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved.  White columns led to the high altar where more columns supported a baldachin.  The space was all whites and blues, with a white balustrade around the chancel.  I said a prayer for the church in these difficult times and left a copy of my little book with the Church Warden to give to Father Bagott, the parish priest, who was out of town.  The Warden was most friendly, as was a lovely lady who answered my questions and gave me a brochure about the church. I could only imagine how glorious their Sunday Mass must be, and hoped one day I could return.

We continued on to St. Alban the Martyr, Holborn, a short walk away.  This church too, was stunning, a soaring Victorian Gothic church built in 1863 by William Butterfield.  We stepped through a steepled porch into an open courtyard and through an arched doorway into the nave.  This sanctuary also was soaring, with a longer and narrower nave, but like Holy Redeemer, all pointed to the High Altar and the Sacrament reserved there.  The vertical space reminded me of a medieval cathedral, the pointed arches above the chancel, the long side aisles running under vaults, the massive apsidal fresco rising to the pitched tower above.  There was a simplicity in this nave of gray and white stone, the central aisle leading to the altar draped in white linen, the six tall candlesticks on either side of the tabernacle, the single red candle burning along side.  Here as well, I would wish to return for a High Mass.

A gentleman working in the back promised to place my novel on Father Levett’s desk, and I was thankful.

We continued toward the river, past St. Paul’s, toward London Bridge to visit the last church on my list, St. Magnus the Martyr.

Unlike the others, St. Magnus goes back to medieval times, possibly earlier, and its records abound with historical references.  Layers of history form this church.  Miles Coverdale, whose translation of the Bible in the mid-sixteenth century was used by Thomas Cranmer in his creation of ourBook of Common Prayer, is buried here.  He was appointed parish priest in 1563, but being of a more Protestant persuasion in regards to vestments and ritual, he was forced to leave when Parliament required stricter observance of the liturgy.

This church, while dating to medieval times, is a Christopher Wren church, having been rebuilt after the great fire of 1666, like so many in London.  Located at the foot of London Bridge, it was the second church to be destroyed in the great fire.  There are many historical notes, but one which remains in my mind is 17th-century Archbishop Laud’s instructions regarding installing altar rails.  It seems the rails were required to keep animals from the Holy Table.  Who would have guessed?

We entered the sanctuary through a vestibule and could see the 12:30 Mass was over.  A priest, however, met us and found Father Warner, the priest in charge.  Father Warner most graciously accepted my novel, then gave us a short tour of the church, as well as a wonderful booklet on its history and shrines.  There were so many interesting levels of history in this church, I shall definitely return, and to worship in such a setting, with the full ritual of Anglo-Catholic ceremony, would be wonderful indeed.

An amazing day, surprising yet predictable, and full of grace.

For photos, check out the Photo Gallery at

http://www.christinesunderland.com/

http://www.holyredeemer.co.uk/;

http://www.stalbans-holborn.com/;

http://www.stmagnusmartyr.org.uk/

On a bright sunny morning, the sky a dome of blue, we visited the churches of San Silvestro and La Maddelena, each stunning, each with its own history and personality.

The Church of San Silvestro today, with its 8th-century wall fragments worked into its courtyard, looks upon the busy bus turnaround piazza.  But upon entering through the garden atrium into the church, I fell into a quiet delight.

Built over Emperor Aurelian’s temple to the sun, San Silvestro in Capite derives its name from its precious relic, part of the head of John the Baptist (”in capite”).   Pope Stephen III and Pope Paul I built the first church in the eighth century to house bones brought from the catacombs (a list of the saints who were entombed frames the front door), and it was rebuilt in the twelfth and sixteenth centuries.  Poor Clares cared for the church until 1876, taking part in services from behind altar grills.  Today, the Irish Pallottini Fathers are in residence, and it is the national church for British Catholics in Rome and others who speak English.

We entered the small narthex and gazed at the marble and gold, the softly rolling barrel vaulting, the frescoes, the light that danced through the airy church.  A Confessio under the high altar houses the relics of Popes Silvester, Stephen I, and Dionysus.  I have learned more about Silvester on this trip, for he was the Pope who baptized Constantine, whose papacy covered those first years when Christianity was legal in Rome. We had seen the Lateran Baptistery where the baptism took place in the mid-fourth century.  We had seen Santa Croce where the basilica was built to house Helena’s Wood of the True Cross.  Silvester was Helena’s Pope, and here he was under the altar of his own church.  I could see he shared with John the Baptist the quality of forerunner, the first to proclaim, each in his own era, the reality of Christ’s resurrection.  I was beginning to connect the dots.

A red candle burned and I knew the Sacrament was reserved on the High Altar.  I said a prayer of thanksgiving for the church, its people and its clergy, and moved back to the chapel off the north aisle where the head of John the Baptist lies in a glass reliquary.  There too I said a prayer for a friend who would that day be tested and tried, as he led and shepherded, a friend who was ordained on the Feast of John the Baptist.  I also prayed for my little novel in progress, that I be given wisdom in the myriad of choices to be made, for I plan to set some of my story in this church.  Perhaps the first true evangelist was John the Baptist, crying repentance in the desert and pointing to Christ, and I prayed I would have his vision and his courage, or maybe just a bit of his vision and courage would be ample.

We met the bright sun streaming onto the square of buses and turned toward the Corso, the busy shopping street bordering the lovely meandering neighborhoods around the Pantheon and Piazza Navona.  We crossed over to the broad Piazza Colonna and turned into the warren of shady lanes, stepping carefully on uneven cobbles and avoiding tour groups, which seem to suddenly appear like a frenzied cloud of bees.  A few blocks in, and we found the Rococo Church of Santa Maria Maddalena, known as “La Maddalena.”

The church faces a pretty and intimate square of restaurants and is a block from the Pantheon.  We stepped up to its small porch and entered.  At first disappointed by the scaffolding covering the first part of the nave, I soon realized the best had been restored – the chancel, the transept chapel, and the golden organ over the doors.

Historical records dating to 1320 speak of a small oratory on this site, dedicated to Mary Magdalene and connected to a hospital near the Pantheon.  The complex was overseen by a confraternity, a guild of lay men and women dedicated to helping others and devoted to a particular saint or relic.  Saint Camillus founded a similar order toward the end of the 16th century and was given this church.

The saint’s story was similar to many: the repentant hedonist gives himself to God.  His name was Camillus Lellis (1550-1614) and after being crippled in a war with the Turks, he returned to Rome where he met Phillip Neri who converted him.  He was ordained and devoted his life to helping the needy and sick, forming the Order of the Ministers of the Sick.  The Camillians, as they came to be called, wore red Latin-cross emblems, visited hospitals and homes as they cared for the dying and nursed plague victims.  From La Maddalena, they distributed clothing and food to the poor and homeless.  When Camillus was canonized in 1746, the church was beautifully renovated by the Camillians.

We walked through the scaffolding and into the restored nave under frescoed domes through light shafting through clerestory windows.  The Madonna of Health, a sweet and comforting image, resides in a south aisle chapel.  Off the south transept we found the Holy Crucifix Chapel which I recalled had a miraculous crucifix.  Here, in this three-pew sanctuary, behind ornate grillwork, a large wooden crucifix is suspended over an altar.  Here, in 1582, Camillus heard the words: ”Take courage, faint hearted one, continue the work you have begun.  I will be with you because it is my work.”  How often I have longed for those words, but then, visiting these saints where they lived and worked, I believe I have heard them, again and again.  A great blessing, and I shall take courage indeed, faint hearted as I am.

Also in this lovely chapel is a charming fifteenth-century sculpture of Mary Magdalene, and a fascinating cross created on the side wall from brass carvings of the Stations of the Cross, three forming each arm, three above, and five below.  I traced my fingers over the cool metal, wondering at such a marvel, here in this chapel of holiness.

As we stepped back through the scaffolding, I looked up to the Baroque organ, the golden angels taking wing amidst gilded clouds.

La Maddalena, I decided, was definitely a church of healing, and appropriately so, dedicated to the woman brought the ointments to the tomb that Easter morning, who was the first to recognize the risen Christ.  She would run to tell the others the news, that death had been conquered.

La Maddalena: Open Mon-Fri, 8 am-noon, 5-8 pm; Sat-Sun, 9:30-noon, 5-8 pm; Masses, Feriale-8 am, 7 pm; Festivo-9:30 am, 11:30, 7 pmSan Silvestro in Capite: Open 7 am-12:30, 3:30-7:30 pm; Masses, Feriale – 12, 6:30; Festivo – 10, 12, Italian, 5:30.  Resident order: the Pallottini Fathers.

We were blessed with a charming guide, Sister Mary Emmanuel, a novitiate in the order of the Missionaries of Divine Revelation,http://www.divinarivelazione.org .   She met us at the Entrance doors, her face shining with welcome, alight with an interior joy, her voice rising and falling in a melodic Irish lilt.  She has taken a new name since we met her last year in the order’s shop at the Lateran basilica, and she wears a forest green habit with a white headscarf.  It was so good to see her.

The morning was full of image and word as she paused before paintings that told the story of our faith.  We entered worlds of color and form and meaning, as she explained how the devout Franciscan Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and walls with the history of man, from the parting of light and dark in the Creation to the end of time and eternity.  How all, in the end, through Creation of the earth and the heavens to the Last Judgement, reflected the love of God, the love of the Creator for His Creation.  The movement from the pagan world to the Christian world reflected this love, the prophets, apostles, martyrs all reflected this love of God for Man.  And all of this action through time became encapsulated in the Eucharist, the bread of Heaven, that feeds us and makes us one with God the Son in our earthly journey.

The themes of truth, beauty, and justice, seen in the Rafael rooms reinforced this divine order, and I pondered their relationship with one another, considering that true beauty and just law reflected God, the truth of God, themes I explore in my novels.  Even those who do not believe in Christianity, yearn for truth, beauty, and justice.  I would add mercy to Rafael’s themes.

But best of all was seeing Sister Emmanuel bright with the presence of God around her like a halo, full of His caritas, His love.  All of the art in the Vatican points to life, to the love of one for another, and she embodied this.  It was good to see her lead us down the halls of color and gold, under the vaults and into the ornate Renaissance rooms, her green habit dusting the marble floors. She was the only religious – members of the monastic orders – I saw there, and I wondered why, and I realized what a valuable work her order was engaged in – instructing the world in the art and heart of Christendom, the Vatican in Rome, revealing Christ to all of us through the image and color, word and vision, reaching to us from earlier ages.

A light rain fell as we walked up Via Torino to the Esquiline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome and home to some of her most beautiful churches.

Our first stop was Santa Prassede, an exquisite medieval church, dating to even earlier times.  It is said that Santa Prassede and nearby Santa Pudenziana were built over titula, houses used for first-century Christian worship, owned by Senator Pudens, mentioned in Peter’s letter to Timothy.  It is said that Peter stayed here and celebrated the Eucharist.  Prassede and Pudenziana, daughters of Senator Pudens, cleansed the bodies of the martyrs and buried them in wells on their property.

We entered Santa Prassede through the south aisle and walked to the foot of the nave, past mysterious side chapels to the open doors of the original entrance.  A monk in black robes stood in the entryway, watching over his church, his figure outlined by the sudden bright sun lighting up the garden court beyond.  We turned and gazed at the glorious chancel and apse.

Mosaics covered the apsidal arch and dome, rising above a marble baldachin and altar.  The church is not large, and the effect of the golden chancel, the light pouring in from the garden, and the frescoed side walls creates an ethereal space.

We stepped slowly up the central aisle toward the glittering apse and descended to the Confessio to honor Prassede’s tomb.  We touched that first century from this twenty-first century, our fingers, like doubting Thomas, reaching tentatively, through the years.  Those believers, like ourselves, lived in a pagan world.  But their world of hope was beginning, while ours seemed to be dying.  As I thought this, I shook myself, realizing that in that dying, God would redeem us, He would rebuild, transform, rebirth.  He would do it through His Church, reaching back to Prassede and all those who gave their lives since those days of persecution.  The blood of the martyrs would speak to us, would nourish us, and I left the grave of Prassede with that hope alive and well.

Returning to the nave, we heard singing.  A group had filled the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and were chanting prayers in French.  We drew closer and listened as the soaring notes echoed through the church, coloring the air.

More hope, more joy, more life.  We said a prayer of thanksgiving and stepped into the mist, heading for Santa Maria Maggiore across the street.

Santa Prassede: Resident Order, The Benedictines of Vallombrosa; Open: 7-12; 4-6:30; Mass Sundays 11:30, 6:00; http://www.santaprassede.it

We entered the Basilica of Mary Major, the primary Marian church in the world, but to me a touching reminder of the importance of matter, the holiness of things, and the love of family.

The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore spread before us, the tall white columns lining either side of the long nave leading to the canopied altar.  We walked slowly down the marbled aisle, glancing up to the gold coffered ceiling, moving toward the high altar with its ornate baldachin, but it was the Confessio below that I was most interested in.  For, I knew, curved stairs led to a an ark reliquary containing a piece of the wood of Christ’s crèche.  There, a few folks kneeled, others stared and took photos, others stared at those kneeling.

The piece of wood could be seen.  It was a material object giving man hope that the stories were true, that there had been born in Bethlehem the Son of God just as they said, that there it all began, man’s journey into life from death.  Was the wood real?  I believed it probably was.

I smiled at the sweetness of it, the simplicity, the “out of the mouths of babes” wisdom of it, the simple wood glorified, matter made sacred, the created world made holy.  We turned and ascended to view the Lukan Madonna nearby.

For the other part of this lovely Christmas church is the Salus Populus Romani, the “Savior of the Roman People.”  No, the Roman faithful don’t see this Madonna as redeeming them from sin and death, a role owned by Christ.  In the Middle Ages this Madonna was lifted in procession and carried through the streets of Rome during a plague and the plague suddenly ended.  Since then she has been invoked by many, many times, notably during World War II when petitioners asked that Rome be spared bombing, and for the most part, the city was spared.

We found the Madonna in the northern transept chapel high over the altar, protected by glass.  She is said to have been painted by Saint Luke, but scholars can only date her to the first century; legend must supply the artist.  There is a high probability that she is, indeed, a Lukan Madonna.

We stood in the back as a Mass was being offered, and I gazed at the image high above, an earthy image of reds and browns painted on wood, framed in gilt.  A thoughtful Eastern face, the boy-child sitting on her knee.  Hail Mary, I prayed, and asked her to guide me on this trip through time, through these spaces of prayer and sacrament, of image and wood, of dusty pavements and buzzing scooters.  Hail Mary, blessed art thou among women.

The Basilica of Maria Magiore was built on the Esquiline Hill where a cemetery for the poor once existed.  In 350 the wealthy John the Patrician dreamed of the Virgin Mary.  She asked him to build a basilica on the hill where snow would soon fall.  Pope Liberius had the same dream, and the following day, in the heat of August 5, snow fell on the Esquiline Hill, and Liberius marked out a basilica dedicated to Mary.  Every August 15 the Ceremony of the Snows is held: flower petals fall from the coffered ceiling onto the congregation.

Open 7 am-6:45; Masses: Sunday 7 am, 8, 9, 10 (Latin), 11, 12 noon, 6 pm; Monday-Saturday 7 am, 8, 9, 10, 11, 3 pm, noon, 6 pm;www.vatican.va