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I have been finishing up a number of projects on my desk, always satisfying, and looking ahead to preparing materials for our Sunday Summers in the Church School at our local parish. This year the theme is “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” We’ll plant flowers (and water them too), sing the hymn, hear stories about God’s creation, and do simple crafts. My favorite is always the singing.

So just now I sent to the printer the final draft of Raymond Raynes’ Darkness No Darkness, a series of retreat meditations that our American Church Union is republishing this summer. Father Raynes, late Superior of the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, England has planted many seeds in many souls with his remarkable words. Now, his words fill my thoughts, banning the darkness, shining bright light into newly discovered rooms in my own heart:

I am to be the home of Christ; Christ is to be the life of my soul.  I am to be an agent because Christ dwells in me, and I am in his hands, I am to be an agent of eternal charity. The moment we realize this, the tension begins – the pressure on our conscience.

It is as though the many strands of our faith are woven together in these pages to make them more concrete, more visible, more… useful. I find when I understand the economy of heaven and earth, the will and plan of God, my life becomes more sane. In this case, to be the home of Christ and Christ to be my life (not just in my life) is an image and idea that has bordered my thoughts the last few days. On other pages in this short book Father Raynes speaks of our hearts uniting with Christ’s heart, so that the Christian burns with the fire of God, the fire of love.

And so this morning as we celebrated the Feast Days of St. Peter and St. Paul, I could see how Christ took over that big fisherman’s heart and moved right in. St. Peter must have felt that tension the moment he left his fishing nets behind, and the pressure grew, not making him perfect but pulling him toward perfection, to be an agent of eternal charity, a bold conduit for the love of God on earth. And St. Paul’s transformation on the way to Damascus was equally dramatic, turning this brilliant Pharisee into the world’s greatest theologian, one who would explain in stunningly poetic passages the charity of God, the movement of the holy into the earthly, Christ into us and we into him.

It’s a simple idea, really, being the home of Christ, to be always listening for the nudge of the Holy Spirit, to truly see those around us. It is a truth, a reality, that grows when watered by worship and prayer and sacraments. Slowly, the tension, the pressure on the conscience, is eased if not resolved, and we sense more and more that Christ is indeed dwelling within us and we in him. The light shines in the darkness. We see.

We surely can’t do this alone, but only through his Body on earth, the Church. This is good news, joyful news. For through the Church I can enjoy Christ’s movement toward me, his making his home in my heart with each prayer, each Eucharist, each confession and absolution. We need only say yes and the drama begins in each of us.

It is when the created creature, man, welcomes the Creator and their hearts become one that all makes sense. All things are bright and beautiful, wise and wonderful… It is when Love enters our world again and again on every altar and into every soul that life becomes true-ly de-light-full. For then we know, as the Psalmist wrote, darkness is no darkness:

Indeed, time shall fly on the wings of the morning, but all the while God’s hand shall lead me; he shall hold me in his palm. For I am cradled, always, in the bright love of God.

We have been meandering through Venice, following the tiny lines on the map to campos (squares), along calles (alleys), over ponti (bridges). The crowds are dense around Piazza San Marco, but lessen in the neighborhoods. 

So today we headed away from the shoving crowds toward one of my favorite churches in Venice, San Zaccaria. The walls are covered in dark masterpieces and many visit this church for the famous art. But I was  more interested in the bodies rather than the paintings, for here likes Zaccaria, father of John the Baptist. He was where I recalled, in the south aisle. His sarcophagus seemed to have been cleaned and restored, now with better lighting. And there above him, in his own tomb, lay a second great saint, the fourth century Doctor of the Church, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria.

The close proximity of the two saints made me smile: the man of no words, struck dumb by the angel when he doubted Elizabeth’s pregnancy, lying near the man who whose words defended the Trinity against Arius’s heresy. Zaccaria was speechless; Athanasius spoke the truth that led to the formation of the Nicene Creed.

Briefly, the Arian heresy stated that God the Father and God the Son were not of the same substance, that the Father created the Son. Athanasius defended the One God in Three Persons, the Trinity, saying that Christ had always existed, was the Word himself from the beginning. Most Christian Churches espouse this Trinitarian doctrine, and the Nicene Creed, the statement compiled by the Council of Nicea in the fourth century, added certain phrases to the simpler Apostles’ Creed to specifically counter this Arian heresy. In essence, the Arian heresy is held by those today who claim Christ was a good man, a moral teacher, but not God. A big difference.

So I like to pay my respects and give thanks for St. Athanasius who, because of his great faith, was given the words to mold our beliefs into the shape of the Nicene Creed. And St. Zaccaria reminds me of the curse of doubt, reminds me that words are withheld when faith is weak. In the end, I must wait silently for the action of God in my life; I must trust each day that his spirit will not leave me, but will guide my thoughts, actions, and words. I must pray for this to happen. I must say yes to God.

There is a time for silence, for only in silence can we listen, can we hear the voice of God. So we retreated from the shoving crowds of San Marco’s piazza, the screams and the loudspeakers, the boat horns and the hawkers shoving goods at us, barring our path. We retreated to the alleys and waters and bridges of the old neighborhoods, getting lost of course, but finding our way back eventually.

It is easy to lose one’s way here in Venice. It is easy to take a wrong turn and then another wrong turn and end up at a dead end, all the while certain of the route. So, too, in life it is easy to lose one’s way, easy to be tripped and sidetracked by the hawkers of all kinds of wares. Without the lesson of Zaccaria and the words of Athanasius we would have less of a map to follow, if any. Others contributed to our map of faith, the path through life to heaven. The many saints, those who we meet in our daily lives and those who we honor with calendar feasts draw and have drawn the lines on our map. But it is the baptized faithful who form the Body of Christ, the Church, that makes sense of what God is telling us, prompting us. It is the Church that preserves and protects the truth, handing us the map.

A few bridges away we visited St. John the Baptist’s church, probably built over an earlier chapel dedicated to this son of Zaccaria and Elizabeth. Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), the Baroque composer, was baptized here and was a member of the parish. I admired the colorful and balanced high altar painting of Christ’s baptism by John, but my thoughts kept returning to Vivaldi, particularly since his music played in the background. A north aisle chapel had artifacts dealing with Vivaldi’s baptism. A Catholic priest, he worked in an orphanage; many of his compositions were written for a female ensemble there. Although influential throughout Europe (Bach admired him), he died in poverty. The last century has witnessed a Vivaldi revival.

Vivaldi spoke with music just as Athanasius used words. And Zaccaria, after his time of silence, waiting for the birth of his son, spoke out the name John when asked what the child’s name would be. He had learned to wait and wonder and trust. Just so, we all must wait for the Holy Spirit to produce good within us, we must listen to the music of faith, following the Church’s teachings protected by the words of men like Athanasius.

In this way we shall map our route to heaven, and even, God willing, add a few signs along the way, composing for the world whatever God desires.

Yesterday we disembarked from the train and rolled our luggage to a water taxi. Soon we were motoring up the Grand Canal, gaping at palaces that tilted into the waters. Venice is like a dowager queen, with lacy white stone and red tile roofs, the blues of the sea at her feet and the blues of the sky her crown. Everywhere the domes of her churches proclaim her Christian past and hopeful present, and on Ascension Sunday the bells ring with great glee. She is on the historic borderland of East and West, and she remains a lighthouse to Christendom, calling the faithful to remember, to repent, to come home, to return to God.

Venice still celebrates her marriage to the sea on Ascension Day with a regatta of gondolas, a band, flags, all heading out to the Lido Island, where the mayor casts a wedding ring into the sea. This year they celebrated on Sunday and we watched from our attic window the flotilla of boats pass by.

But the true celebration was at the Basilica of Saint Mark, San Marco, to give thanks to God for the Ascension of Christ to Heaven. And this gilded Byzantine church, to my mind, is one of the most beautiful in the world.

As Madeleine says in my first novel, Pilgrimage, when she visits San Marco with her husband Jack on Ascension Day:

We entered Saint Mark’s through the north door. The service was beginning, and we found seats toward the front, then looked about, having fallen into a world of golden vaults.

They say Venice was founded on March 25, 491 AD, the Feast of the Annunciation, when the Goths drove the Venets offshore. By the eighth century, the settlement of marshy islands was taking shape, and Venice, protected by the sea, grew into a flourishing port, surviving attacks from both east and west. A crossroads of the Crusades, Venice collected treasure from eastern capitals: San Marco’s bronze horses came from Byzantium as well as icons, sculptures, and relics. In the thirteenth century the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, returning from China, opened trade routes of goods and ideas that placed Venice in the center of a new era of discovery. The city gloried in its wealth, stunning the world with art and music.

Venice’s original patron saint, the eastern martyr Theodorus, was replaced by the Western evangelist Saint Mark, who traveled with Paul and assisted Peter in Rome; his Gospel is thought to be based on Peter’s sermons. After Peter’s death, he became Bishop of Alexandria, where he was martyred.

When Venice “rescued” Mark’s relics from Alexandria and entombed them in the doge’s chapel, the city adopted the saint’s lion symbol, the winged lion. The lion was derived from Mark’s identification as the first of “the four living creatures” in the Book of Revelation, Saint John’s vision of the Apocalypse. As John relates in this last book of the New Testament, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him on the island of Patmos off the coast of Turkey and showed him a lion, a calf, a man, and an eagle, images thought to represent the four Evangelists.

The doge’s chapel evolved into the Basilica di San Marco, its walls covered with precious stones from the East… San Marco fused the East with the West, the Byzantine with the Romanesque. Three naves formed the three arms of the Greek-cross plan, and the chancel and high altar, partially hidden by an iconostasis, became the fourth arm. Five domes vaulted the three naves, the chancel, and the transept midpoint, all glittering with golden mosaics…

The mosaics covering the domes told the ancient stories of salvation, and here, in these glittering tiles, suffering was made beautiful. Poverty and hunger, trial, torture, and brutal death—physical defeats redeemed by God—were transfigured into grace and victory. Across one dome, Christ, in vivid robes, rode a white donkey; the saints glowed in jeweled tones.

We sat on canvas chairs over sinking paving stones, riding the Venetian waters in an ancient ark protecting centuries of the faithful, the Communion of Saints. We sang Alleluia and I prayed that I too could ascend into God’s glory, that I with my silly sufferings, my earthy darkness, my mysterious demons, I could emerge from the watery world of earth and sea and fly with the angels, that I could be forgiven my sins, trapped as I was in my prison of self…

from Pilgrimage (OakTara, 2007)

Today we entered San Marco and sat on canvas chairs and stared at the golden domes dancing over us. Once again I was struck by the church as an ark, particularly in Venice where the waters are indeed rising. But the ark of the Church sails on, touching heaven with its golden domes, carrying its precious cargo, the faithful, Christ’s body, kneeling before the tabernacle holding Christ’s body. Today, as the choir sang Alleluia from a chancel balcony and incense billowed over the high altar, I was grateful for this moment of exquisite beauty, looking beyond the suspended sanctus lamp to the crucifix with the crosses at the end of each arm, to the apsidal fresco of Christ the King. For we follow the light in the lamp for good reason. We follow it to the Cross of Christ Crucified, and through the Cross arrive at the foot of Christ the King of Glory.

The celebration of the Ascension of Our Lord announces the glorious certainty that we, as members of Christ’s body, ascend with him. Through humility and suffering, Almighty God has made this possible by becoming one of us, one with us. We make this possible by partaking of his sacraments, so that we become one with him. Ascension bridges Heaven and earth, God and man, completing the great arcing act of salvation begun when Noah rode the rising flood waters so long ago.

On the way out, we paused in a side chapel and said a short Angelus, Hail Mary…, contemplating the haunting medieval Madonna of Nicopeia and giving thanks that Mary said yes to God, allowing all this to happen.

One of my favorite places to take photos of this Renaissance city, parted by the River Arno and rejoined by the many picturesque bridges, is the Piazza Michelangelo and then higher up the hillside, the Piazza San Miniato al Monte. Both are walking distance from the Ponte Vecchio, although a bit of a hike.

It was Ascension Day and a good day to climb the hill by way of the Stations of the Cross, a broad staircase still used on occasion for Lenten liturgies, with giant wooden crosses placed at intervals. I was perhaps the only one in sight that paused at each cross and repeated a prayer, making the sign of the cross and genuflecting, for I have been trying to increase my public witness bit by bit (grace at restaurants, etc.). At the tenth station, we arrived at the Piazza Michelangelo, where a broad viewing terrace welcomes tour buses, wedding photographers, and wide-eyed visitors snapping photos.

Florence spread before us, a 180 degree panorama. The domes rose from the red tile roofs, the city bordered by the green Tuscan hills of Mary’s May. The skies were blue for the moment, a celestial dome much more expansive than Brunelleschi’s, an opening between billowing clouds blown by the wind.

We continued up the stairs, completing the stations, to San Miniato, a medieval-Romanesque basilica honoring an early Christian martyr. We have in the past heard Dominicans chanting the noon office in the crypt where the relics of the saint lie under the high altar, but today we heard only the sounds of school children and their guides, moving from one aisle to another, their faces rapt, looking up in wonder.

It is a colorful church, with frescoes and mosaics and a haunting sense of the past, of the holy, of stepping into sacred space. We rested in a pew in the nave and I thought of Madeleine and Jack in my novel Pilgrimage who visit San Miniato, where she experiences another step in her healing. The church calls one to simplify, to be quiet, to listen to the still small voice of God. It’s vastness and its beauty filter into the heart just as perfect harmonies capture the ear. And perhaps it is the balance, the proportions of such a place that delight the eye. Perhaps it is the sense of history. Perhaps it is the mysterious mystery of God reflected in both the movement of the arched and vaulted stone and the pastel figures peering from the walls, these saints telling the story of God and his great love walking among us. My own concerns seem small in such a place, as though outranked by the luminous, but also there is a sense that they have been absorbed by God through my prayers. All I need do is give them up, give up my everyday worries and little fears. All I need do is say yes to God. God gives us the means to be happy, he shows us how. We merely need to say yes, to listen, to obey, to repent.

So I generally do that, again and again, repenting again and again, saying yes again and again, as I sit in a pew and gaze about me in such a holy place. Finally, emptied and full-filled, I leave through the bright doors onto the even brighter gravel terrace as though in a trance, changed. Florence lies before me, the same but different, more a background to life than life itself, not nearly as interesting and colorful as the mystery of the heartbeat of God, of his coming among us, dying, rising, and ascending to Heaven.

We followed the stairs down the hill to the river and found a cafe for lunch. We said little, contented with the peace of San Miniato, not wanting to lose any of it, holding it close. Words returned slowly, and we took more photos of the river and the quaint old bridge. We shared a some Chianti and pasta. We sighed and were thankful. It was a good Ascension Day, full of resurrection and new life.

Gift Shop, Fraternities of Jerusalem, La Badia, Florence

We found the Monastic Community of Jerusalem on the Via del Proconsolo, in residence at La Badia (the Abbey) Fiorentina. Via del Proconsolo runs between the Duomo (the apsidal end) and the River Arno. We had heard these Brothers and Sisters sing the noon office in Rome at Trinita dei Monti and looked forward to visiting them in Florence. We stopped in early to visit the gift shop, Monastica (only open 10-12:15, 3-6:15 p.m. Tues-Sat, Mon, 3-6).

There was singing coming from the shop. As I looked over the cards, icons, and books, blue-robed Sister Sara explained that the CD was a new recording of the chanting there at the abbey, “Vergine Madre, Figlia del tuo Figlio.” Happily the CD’s were for sale. I also found a book on the Benedictine abbey in English, with a detailed and colorful history, going back to its founding in the tenth century by the wealthy Marquise Willa of Tuscany.

I thanked the ingenuous sister, who glowed with happiness, for the presence of these Fraternities in the many cities of Europe (now twelve locations), with their unique charism, to “live in the heart of the city in the heart of God”:

“The monks and nuns of Jerusalem strive to put the prayer in the heart of the city and carry the city in the heart of their prayer. They want to create an oasis in this urban ‘desert’ of alienation and anxiety, loneliness, yearning or indifference by ‘giving life’ to a place of silence and prayer which would be also a pace of welcome and sharing.” (fr. their brochure)

These young people are city dwellers who rent their housing and work part-time, part of the Diocesan church, have  no walled cloister, but only the cloister of silence and prayer. They sing the morning, midday, and evening hours of prayer in four parts. They bear the name “Jerusalem” because this city is patron to all cities; it is was the city where Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose to new life; it is where the Church was founded and where the first Christian communities were born; it is a symbol of our hope in heaven.

I thought of my friends in Rome. Sister Emanuel and the Missionaries of Divine Revelation in Rome bring the the Church into the secular world through education, by teaching the truths of the faith; Father Paolo and the Camillians bring the Church’s healing to the sick, the dying, the suffering throughout the world. The Fraternities of Jerusalem live and work among those who live and work in the cities, bringing to them the life of prayer and peace and beauty, an oasis in the desert. I am so thankful for all of them and have been so blessed to witness their work.

When I introduced myself to Sister Sara in the shop I explained about my little book, and she seemed eager to receive a copy, that the language was not a problem. So we have a new friend in Florence now. When you visit say hello for me (and do the same in Rome with Father Paolo and Sister Emanuela).

Sta. Croce, Florence

Before returning for the 12:30 prayer office, we braved a windy alley leading to Santa Croce basilica and the broad square spread before this white Franciscan church. Leather factories and shops lined the piazza. A band played Italian songs before a group of young school children sitting crosslegged, entranced. Pigeons fluttered and tourists snapped photos of the massive facade. The day was coolish with billowing clouds streaking the skies, covering the sun, but the drama played in the skies was welcome.

The line for a ticket (6 Euro, about $10) was not long, and we soon were moving through the vast basilica, past glimmering  apses of stained glass, into the southern transept chapel where Renaissance masters depicted the last days of Christ. There are many famous paintings here, but I always recall my characters visiting in Pilgrimage, my first novel, about a journey of healing through cities and villages in Italy. Even so, they have used the ticket proceeds well, allowing access to many restored masterpieces, with English information panels, something I don’t recall from before and definitely worth the admission.

It was time for our noon prayers and we headed back to the Badia to hear the Sisters and Brother and spend a quiet half hour praying for Florence, our families and friends, and the world. We tooks seats in the wooden pews and gazed about the old church with its vaults and frescoed apsidal ceiling. The space is larger than Trinita dei Monti in Rome and smaller than St. Gervais in Paris, with (it appeared) transepts, chancel, and nave of equal length, in a Greek cross plan. Before us, on the altar, a golden monstrance held the Host for adoration, and a number of faithful knelt before the Real Presence of Christ, spending a few precious and sacred minutes with God. Three Sisters knelt too, keeping watch.

Soon, more Sisters and Brothers entered and knelt. Their white robes fell to the floor, and it was as though they blended into the pale marble so that they would not distract us the focus of prayer. Icons, newly painted, stood to each side on massive pillars, and a painted crucifix hung high. A life size icon of Christ stood before the Holy Sacrament Chapel off the north transept. The Renaissance church had been gilded by these icons, and the eye was drawn to them for contemplation.

The grace and beauty of those thirty minutes restored my soul. We prayed with the figures in white, focusing on the vivid cross, and as the chanting of the psalms winged through the air, a quiet settled upon me. Gone was the rush of tourists and crowded sidewalks, the noise of traffic and sirens, the elbowing and push of tour groups eager to own Florence’s treasures. Here in this space, in this moment in time, in the middle of the desert, we listened to the singing as we prayed too.

We left silently, our hearts open to the world in a new way, open to God. We followed the road to the river where the gray and white skies hung low over the high waters, past the Ponte Vecchio, to lunch along the way back to our hotel.

A good first day in Florence.