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I had forgotten how lovely their singing is.

The temperatures have dropped suddenly here in Paris, from warm, balmy, sunny seventies, to cold, biting, windy fifties.  We wrapped ourselves in our wool scarves and gloves and set out for Saint-Gervais-Protais, a seventeenth-century Flamboyant Gothic church of white stone and stained glass.

Located on the Right Bank across the Seine from Notre-Dame, the sixth-century church was dedicated to the first-century Roman martyrs Gervais and Protais, whose relics were brought to Paris by St. Germain.

Today, St. Gervais-Protais is home to the Brothers and Sisters of Jerusalem, an order serving the local community.  Founded in 1975 by Fr. Pierre-Marie Delfieux and Cardinal Francois Marty, the order seeks to bring the contemplative spirituality of the desert into the heart of the city, particularly for the working populace.  Monks and nuns hold part-time jobs in the secular world, but sing the morning, noon, and evening offices in the church.  A daily Mass is offered.  They follow rules of love, prayer, work, hospitality, and silence as well the traditional ones – chastity, obedience, and poverty.

Today we entered the nave of white stone columns and took seats on low wooden stools.  The Sisters and Brothers had already taken their places in the chancel, kneeling in their flowing white robes.  The figures blended into the white space, unobtrusive, so that my eye was naturally drawn to the colorful Christ icon placed at the center of the white marble altar. Above the image, rose a gilded crucifix, framed by six tall golden candlesticks.  The white columns of the ambulatory curved behind the altar, and between the columns I glimpsed the glimmering reds and blues of stained glass in the apsidal chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.  The white columns rose higher to stained glass that caught and transformed the outer light, and beyond, the stained glass touched the fanned vaults.  The verticality of the space, the brilliant glimmering colors splashing the creamy white stone, filled me with happiness.

And then these white-robed monks and nuns, facing the altar,rising and kneeling and rising, began to sing the Psalms of the noon office in French.

Their voices soared between the columns and high into the vaults, and for this short midday service of prayers and lessons, peace came upon us, those fortunate enough to be there or perhaps careful enough to take the time.  I gave thanks for the witness of this desert community in the heart of Paris.

It is one of the most beautiful experiences in this Cty of Light.

Sts-Gervais-et-Protais, The Monastic Communities of Jerusalem
13, rue des Barres, Paris
Open daily; Tuesday – Saturday: Morning Prayer 7 a.m. (Saturday 8 a.m.); Midday Prayer 12:30; Evening Prayer and Mass 6 p.m.; Sunday: Office of the Resurrection 8 a.m., Mass 11 a.m.
All services preceded by 30 minutes of silent prayer and adoration.  No public liturgies are offered on Mondays, but the church is open.

We visited the historic Shakespeare and Co. bookshop on the Left Bank.  The cherry trees in front of the two story shop occupying the lower floors of a townhouse were in full bloom branching over used stacked used books and benches for reading.  The store is across the River Seine from Notre-Dame Cathedral, two venerable institutions presiding, I like to think, in a complimentary fashion.  The mind and heart and spirit are integrally linked, woven together, and it is only in the last century that the creed of self has pushed to marginalize the creed of God.

As I looked at the two buildings, clearly Notre-Dame, in its twin-towered gothic splendor won the prize for age, size, architecture.  And clearly the massive crowds stood in the forecourt of the cathedral, not the bookstore.

But I was glad to visit the folksy Shakespeare and Co. and place my copies of Offerings in the capable hands of one of the young clerks.  I found the single copy of this novel set in France (and Paris) that remained in the store, wedged between Pilgrimage (Italy) and Inheritance (England), high over a doorway, so that the Trilogy formed a lintel blessing browsers as they passed below.  Not a prominent location, but it was properly in the S section of fiction, and could be reached by a very tall person.

I took numerous photos of the many rooms with their nooks and crannies and narrow stairs and clever quotes and signs and old photos and stacks of books.  Long an English bookstore here in Paris, the store goes in many ways back to the 1920’s, even earlier with the artist communities here, although the present location, and owner, dates to post war years.  Booklovers don’t want to miss a visit to Shakespeare and Co., a true delight.

And no-one should miss Notre-Dame Cathedral, the seat of the Archbishop of Paris, across the bridge, over eight hundred years old.

St. Germain of Paris built the first church complex here on the Île de la Cité in the sixth century, which included Notre-Dame, St. John, and St. Etienne.  In 1163, Louis VII and Bishop Sully began construction of a new cathedral and Louis IX, Saint Louis, completed the church a century later, adding the Hôtel-Dieu, a hospital for the poor.  When Louis returned from Jerusalem with the Crown of Thorns, he housed the precious relic in Notre-Dame until Ste-Chapelle was completed specifically for the Crown.  The relic has since been returned to Notre-Dame for safekeeping and veneration.

We entered the church through one of the the stunning carved portals, and found seats in the nave for the Lenten Friday afternoon service, the Veneration of the Crown of Thorns.  Each Friday in Lent and all day Good Friday, the Crown of Thorns, encased in glass, is shown to the faithful.  Catholic Christians see this as a way to act out their beliefs, to allow the body to reflect the soul.

Folks say that the British know how to put on a show with affairs of state, weddings, processions, etc., using full regalia, carriages, flags, sometimes mounted police. I would say that  French Catholics do the same.  To be sure, any parade acts in the same way – civic parades such as the Fourth of July unite patriotic fervor and assent.  They are useful and necessary cultural tools, uniting the people.  Just so the Church has for two thousand years acted out the creed of Christ – his birth at Christmas, his death and resurrection at Easter, his presence in the Eucharist at Corpus Christi.  Many other processions and festivals mark the liturgical year in Catholic cultures, and these pull communities together in a powerful way.  They also give the individual a way to live out something larger, the Body of Christ, his internalized beliefs becoming externalized and made real in another dimension.

So I was looking forward to the Veneration of the Crown of Thorns.  By three o’clock the massive nave of Notre-Dame was full.  The gothic windows in the far apse glimmered in reds and blues, and I could see part of the historic chancel under the modern golden cross.  The main altar in the center of the transept held red roses and an icon of Christ. A large sculpture of Our Lady, the crowned Madonna of Notre-Dame, looked on from the right.

Bells rang, echoing through the soaring vaults.  We could see the procession moving from the sacristy in the south aisle to the foot of the nave, then up the central aisle.  Clergy and laymen in white robes, women in black veils, led the way, and the torchbearers stepped seriously before the crucifix raised high.  Then came the Crown of Thorns, and I smiled.  The glass sphere was carried on an ark like structure with poles just as the People of Israel had used with their early tabernacles, the Holy of Holies.  The circle of glass could barely be seen for it had been set in a large golden crown, ornate and ornamented.  I thought that this was a nice touch, the humble woven reeds and thorns forming Christ the Crucified’s crown were now in their proper setting, the gilded crown of Christ the King.  The procession moved slowly and triumphantly up the aisle, a serious dance reflecting the ignoble death of Christ, as the people sang with feeling.  When the procession reached the altar, the Crown of Thorns was removed from the golden crown and placed beneath the image of Christ. As in most liturgical worship, the matter of suffering was transformed into the matter of glory.

When it was time for the veneration, each row emptied orderly and quietly into the center aisle, and we followed the line to the altar.  In turn, each of us kissed the glass that held that crown of Christ’s ordeal.  As my turn came and I knelt to kiss the crown, I was glad to be part of this liturgy.  I was glad to join these other faithful in this public statement of belief in God’s redeeming action of the Cross, a statement both glorious and intimate.  I was humbled, and was grateful for the gift of liturgy, of sacramental, material ways to speak of the holy and spiritual.  Ours was not a silent faith.  We had something to say, something important to witness to.

As we left the great stone church we moved to the far side of the parvis to take photos of the lovely façade.  On this sunny afternoon in Lent, I glanced across the Seine and thought of Shakespeare who was a religious man who used words to reveal things unseen.  The little store named after him across the Seine so crammed with words offered a similar miracle, trying to show through this artistic medium man’s yearnings, hopes, and dreams, to ask the great questions of our culture: what is love, goodness, truth?

And here in this great cathedral man yearned, hoped and dreamed as well, only here there seemed to be more answers to those burning questions.

http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/; http://www.cathedraldeparis.com/

The morning was warm and sunny, a perfect day to taxi to the top of Montmartre to visit the stunning multi-domed Romanesque church of Sacré-Coeur.  Winding through the neighborhoods so layered with art history, religious history, and political ferment, I recalled that here on these slopes Ignatius Loyola assembled his first group of followers, searching for the best way to seek the will of God, and creating the Spiritual Exercises.  Here also the Revolution of 1789, in their hatred of the Church, martyred nuns and abbesses.  Then in the late nineteenth century, after years of bloodshed throughout France, revolution after revolution, Parisians built a white basilica of peace.  It was to be a sanctuary of perpetual prayer and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, exposed in a golden monstrance.  Nuns would pray continually for peace, peace between nations, peace between men.  They called the church the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the sacred heart of love.

Sacré-Coeur rose from Montmartre, the Roman “Mound of Mercury,” the medieval “Mount of Martyrs.”  Legend claims 3rd-century St. Denis was martyred here.  The feeble bishop, over one hundred years old, was beaten, grilled on an iron grate, hung on a cross, and decapitated.  He washed his head, then carried it down the hill to the village of Catalliacus to be buried, and where, two hundred years later, Genevieve erected his basilica.  In the centuries following, wave upon wave of persecution spilled the blood of many others on this hill overlooking Paris.  The Franco-Prussian War and the Commune Rising of 1871 devastated Paris, particularly Montmartre.

We left our taxi in the colorful and artsy Place du Tertre and walked half a block to the white steps leading to the columned porch.  Entering the massive space, I was struck as always by the apsidal dome which rises triumphantly over the high altar and the Blessed Sacrament in the golden-rayed monstrance.  The curved apse is covered in a brilliant blue-and-gold mosaic telling the story of Christ’s love and redemption.  The white-robed risen Christ opens his arms wide in welcome and blessing.  The Holy Spirit descends as a dove upon him; God the Father is above the dove – or coursing through the dove to His Son – forming the Holy Trinity.  The mosaic expresses the belief of catholic Christians, the mystery of the Host in the monstrance, the mystery of the Real Presence and of the Trinity, the three persons of God.

The church this day was sweetly quiet, although crowds milled through the side aisles and around the ambulatory.  After praying before the Blessed Sacrament raised over the high altar, we too stepped under along the side aisle, followng the ambulatory under the dome, gazing up through window archways to the apsidal mosaic.  From this position so close to the chancel and apse, the images are far larger, and now one sees the Holy Ghost descending as a white dove, now we see God the Father, now we see the face of Christ.  I thought how our own journeys are like that.  We catch glimpses of reality as eternity draws nearer.  We are blind but see in moments of glory.  I love the ambulatory walk behind the sanctuary of Sacre-Coeur and I paused often along the way before each Station of the Cross this holy season of Lent.  I paused, saw the image of Christ falling, Christ being crucified, and then looked up to the glorious glittering triumphant mosaic of our faith.  Through the suffering images of the Way of the Cross, Christ himself smiles upon us as God redeems us through his son.

Before leaving the church we visited the shop off the north aisle and found icons hand-made by the resident Benedictine nuns.  One was an image of Mary Magdalene seeing the risen Christ in the garden.  Since my current novel-in-progress is about Mary Magdalene, this was a particularly appreciated gift.  We also learned that the basilica was celebrating 125 years of Perpetual Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament raised high in that golden monstrance.  Retreats and pilgrimages were planned, and the nuns busy with housing and hosting folks in their residence.  This weekend the Archbishop of Spoleto-Norcia in Italy would be presiding over many events, including a Way of the Cross for young people and a Mass honoring the upcoming beatificaton of Jean-Paul II.

As I descended the white steps I looked over the city of Paris where a soft haze had settled. I turned and looked up to the towering white domes of Sacre-Coeur.  I gave thanks for this perpetual witness to the immense gifts of God.  I gave thanks for the perpetual prayers of peace.

http://www.sacre-coeur-montmartre.com/

It was so good to return to this luminous chapel on the Rue du Bac on the Left Bank near the Rue du Sevres where Catherine Laboure is venerated for her visions of the Virgin Mary in 1830.

We entered through a porte-cochere, followed a short drive and stepped into the large chapel.  It is a relatively modern, three-nave, galleried space with a domed chancel.  The walls glitter with pale blue-and-white mosaics, the apsidal arch is frescoed in pale blues, and the vaults float with light.  The Sacrament is reserved on the high altar, and to the right is a sculpture of the Virgin Mary as she appeared to Catherine Labouré in July of 1830.  Below the image lies Catherine’s incorrupt, undecayed, body.  In Offerings, my character, Rachelle DuPres, enters the chapel and reads the following leaflet:

On July 19, 1830, the feast day of Saint Vincent de Paul and six days before the streets of Paris were barricaded by the July Revolution, the Virgin Mary appeared to twenty-four-year-old Catherine Labouré.

Catherine, one of ten children born to a poor farming family in Burgundy, had joined Vincent de Paul’s Daughters of Charity. One night, three months after she arrived at the motherhouse on the Rue du Bac, an angel-child led her to the chapel. There, Mary appeared to her and predicted terrible times for France. She wore a white robe and held a globe representing the world.

She instructed Catherine to have medals made of a certain design with the words O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you. The Blessed Virgin promised graces to those who wore her medals and to those who prayed before her image in the chapel.

Catherine told her confessor and urged him to have the medals cast. The archbishop agreed, seeing no harm. She told no one else about the visions until her deathbed confession in 1876, forty years later. Decades after her death, the body of this “Saint of Silence” was found to be incorrupt, untouched by time.

We entered the chapel as Rachelle did in my novel.  It was just as I had recalled and described.  While there were numerous pilgrims kneeling in the pews and at the railing before the glass sarcophagus, the total silence added to the ethereal sense of the color and light.  Folks stepped quietly and carefully, to honor this “Saint of Silence.”

I have been here other times when a Mass was celebrated and the singing led by the nuns was joyous and lilting, a community of happiness.  We bring our sorrows and our worries, our sickness and our hurts.  We give thanks for prayers answered and blessings received.  We repent our wrongdoings, our not-doings, our restrained efforts at love, and in the silence, in the floating light, it is as though the Holy Spirit weaves among us.  It is as though angels, invisible doves, fly above, flapping the air with their wings.

I gazed through the glass wall of the coffin to the peaceful face, the body draped in her black-and-white habit of the Sisters of Charity.  This place, I thought, was indeed a place not only of charity in its giving to the poor, but of Saint Paul’s caritas, of love, probably the greatest gift of all: The love of God weaving among us.

We stepped outside the glimmering space to the shaded driveway and walked silently out to the busy Rue du Bac where shoppers rushed in and out of the Bon Marche Department Store, and taxis screeched around the corners.  I didn’t mind the noise and confusion.  I carried the silence and the light into the life of Paris.

http://www.chapellenotredamedelamedaillemiraculeuse.com

Thinking back upon last week in London and our very busy Laetare (Rejoice) Sunday, I have joyful memories of our chance to witness the historic 150th anniversary celebration of All Saints Anglican Church, Notting Hill.  And of course I carried with me a copy of my third novel, Inheritance, to give to the vicar, Father John Brownsell, who I thought might share some of my love of our Anglo-Catholic heritage.

This Victorian Anglo-Catholic Church calls people to worship from far away with its mighty stone steeple that stands high above the neighborhood of townhouses and shops.  Inside the balanced proportions, three naves lead to a sanctuary with an impressive stone altar lit by five large candlesticks.  Stained glass windows glimmer beyond and above in the apse.  All Saints is a light-filled church with white painted walls and gently pointed arches rising from the darker wooden pews.

We arrived early and were able to finds good seats, but the church was soon packed and great expectations danced in the air as folks greeted one another.  Sister parishes from the Caribbean joined in the celebration, with officials traveling from afar, and choirs sang, and a section devoted to the Mothers Union was ably represented in white, some with colorful sashes.  I could see that All Saints was a well loved parish, with a history of devotion.  There was even a group of former curates who had travelled to their “home” parish to be a part of the celebration, and they lined the side of the chancel.

The procession into the church was magnificent with all these folks taking part, with flags of many colors held high, and many generations represented.  The Bishop of London, the Hon. Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres, presided from his episcopal chair and soon rose to the carved pulpit in the center of the nave, this sea of hopeful parishioners.  He preached on the historic stages of this church, and how after triumphs and tribulations we now faced a time of tempests.  Today, he said, it was the Church’s job to wait it out, wait out all the political missteps, the wars and rumors of wars as it were, to still be there with the truth when the world recognized its folly and turned about for answers.  I wondered, how best should we wait this day, how best do we preach the Gospel of Christ crucified?  Quietly or with gusto?

The Anglo-Catholic stream in the Anglican Communion, generally one of quiet gusto, has largely been marginalized in the Church of England.  Those of us in the international community of Anglicans who saw Canterbury as our historic Mother Church have cried as we parted ways.  Now we watch from America as those in England could face such a parting.  Many of these devout men and women have left the Anglicans and become Roman Catholics, and Pope Benedict with his Ordinariate for Anglicans has now provided a structure for bishops and clergy to join, smoothing the way further.

Faith and the practice of that faith, the interpretation of moral law, the nature of truth are not small things in the scope of man’s life on earth.  Many have been martyred for less.  So it was with great thanksgiving that I visited All Saints for their afternoon celebration of their stalwart history, of their holding fast to the truths of orthodox historic Christianity.  For without orthodoxy and without history, as T.S. Eliot would have agreed, we have nothing.

The love of God is immense, and I trust that he will guide us all through this present and coming tempest.  We shall emerge from the tunnel, a bit like rising from the Chunnel onto dry land, our feet firmly planted in the faith of our forefathers, prophets, martyrs, saints.

In the meantime, throughout the darkness, we shall celebrate God’s love among us as we sit together in the pews and line up to receive the Eucharist.  We shall celebrate God’s love and steadfastness in time, in this lovely church of All Saints Notting Hill, London.

After the Mass this Laetare Sunday, Father Brownsell gave out roses to the mothers for this was also Mothering Sunday.  As the line ended I gave him my little novel in thanks for his life and witness in London.  And I gave thanks to God for the lovely and light filled parish of All Saints.

http://www.allsaintsnottinghill.org.uk/

The Eurostar train is a “fast train” and it glided along the rails from London through the countryside to the coast and then dove down below the English Channel into the “Chunnel.”  I tried not to think about where we were, nibbling on my lunch, wishing we were on dry land without tons of water above us, soon to come crushing down for sure.  At home, our BART trains manage the same trick, slide underground, deep deep underwater between the East Bay and San Francisco, but the time is short, or so it seems.  But even at home, I’d rather take a bus or car on the bridge over the Bay than enter the cavernous highway underneath.

We glided onto French territory, safe and sound, and I watched the broad fields, killing fields at one time, slip past.  France is full of war memories for me although I was born after World War II.  Still my generation heard the accounts of our parents and grandparents.  We will not forget the horrendous slaughter in France, the boxcars of innocents sent to the camps, the cries of children and boy soldiers.  Here, in the north, some of the last battles were fought, as Americans stormed Normandy beaches.  Here lie many brave men, the white crosses growing in the fields of green.  They fought for us, that we might be free, and I shall always be grateful, shall always remember.

We soon neared Paris, leaving the distant villages marked by steeples nesting in low hills and entering industrial outskirts.  I could see in the distance spokes of windmills, and thought how we had hoped for wind power in the U.S. but with our consumption, it is a drop in the bucket, or perhaps one should say a whisper in the air, of energy technology.  Nuclear looked the most promising, and now this resource has been dealt a severe blow by the earthquake in Japan and the broken power plant.

The train halted as quietly as it started up, an astonishing feat, and we disembarked, loaded our luggage on a trolley, and headed to our hotel, one of the mega hotels with tour buses parked in front.  We worked our way through the lobby crowds and Reception and through the throngs gathered in the conference areas, to the elevators where we figured out the security system to get the elevator to move at all.  It was a long travel day for us, and after unpacking and having supper in the restaurant downstairs, we called it a day.

As I said my prayers, I wondered what I would encounter in this City of Light, so besieged by crowds and tourists and noise.  My second novel,Offerings, has many scenes set here, in the churches and restaurants, and it was a great blessing to write about these offerings of Paris.  I thought how the churches here are quiet sanctuaries in which to spend time amidst the chaos of the city, much like the silent train gliding through the fields of war.  These churches, like sanctuaries everywhere, offer another way of seeing, of being together on our journey through life.  Without them we would be lost.  I looked forward to Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre, to the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal on the Rue du Bac, to La Madeleine Basilica up the street.  We would visit Notre Dame where they have Lenten veneration of the Crown of Thorns on Friday afternoons.  Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, the great royal abbey, has high gothic stained glass and a stunning Lady Chapel.  Perhaps we will go there for Sunday Mass.

The weather seems balmy, low seventies.  If it holds we shall walk in the long Tuileries Park, past the historic Louvre, and along the Seine, past the animal and bird stalls.  We shall cross the river to the Isle de la Cite and cross once again to Left Bank and the historic English bookshop, Shakespeare & Company, carrying with us a few copies of my novel,Offerings, to offer to place on their shelves.

On Sunday, the Fourth in Lent, we worshiped at the home church of T.S. Eliot in South Kensington.

South of Royal Albert Hall and west of the Brompton Oratory, St. Stephen’s looks like a country stone church set amidst rows of white townhouses, a residential neighborhood in London bordered with busy roads and intersections.  The great poet and critic T.S. Eliot was church warden here for many years and a plaque in the south aisle honors his time, his life, and his work.

I speak of Eliot and some of his themes in my recently released novel,Hana-lani, in particular, the importance of history’s impact on the present day, the questions society must ask itself as it forms its cultural and political institutions: What is goodness, truth, beauty, love?  How do we define our authorities?  What makes a civilization civil?

So it was a great pleasure to return to St. Stephen’s and to worship with fellow Anglo-Catholics.  The church is redolent with time, another theme of Eliot’s.  Wooden floors are rough and unfinished, and we found kneeling cushions piled at the end of a pew to place before us.  I knelt, looking up to the magnificent golden sculpted reredos which rises in magnificence against a red backdrop.  It is this brilliant gilding against the royal red, in this stone and wood country church that is most striking.  The altar and tabernacle, draped in rose, today being Laetare-Rose Sunday, is thus enshrined, and the priest faces East, away from the people, representing them before God, in the traditional manner.

St. Stephen’s is known for its excellent music.  A sextet sang the Missa Brevis in D by Johannes Eccard (1553-1611), a lyrical weaving of voices, golden strands winding through the congregation, carrying our prayers to the tabernacle and to God.  I gazed at the many shrines about the church as I listened to the song-prayers – several shrines to Mary, to St. Stephen, colorful Stations of the Cross lining the side aisles. The walls are painted a warm brick red with white decorative trim arching aisles and carving spaces, and there is such a curious combination of English homeliness and ornate glory.  Candles burn before enthroned or canopied images, and flowers cluster in vases on small altars.   Above all, it is a warm and welcoming nave and sanctuary, with the pitched roof, the reds and golds, the sweet proportions.  There is a carved mahogany pulpit which rises from the nave like a ship’s prow from the sea, five pews back, and from this commanding and traditional place, our good Father Reg Bushau preached.

He spoke of the Gospel reading – the healing of the blind man – and of course such a story in Lent gives ample opportunity for metaphor and meaning.  He spoke of seeing, the ways of seeing, of the numinous in our world.  He spoke of Plato and the classical background for this kind of vision into another dimension, a truer dimension, reality.  As he spoke, as happens so many times when listening to a sermon, additional thoughts came to me, suddenly and piercingly.  I saw the sacramental nature of the blind man’s healing, as Christ touched his eyes with his saliva mixed with soil from the ground.  It was the touching, and the faith, that healed him.  Just so, I thought, as I glanced at the golden reredos and the red hangings, the tabernacle on the altar, just so the Church is Christ’s finger, and Christ himself touches our eyes through this finger of the Church, touches us physically as we partake in his Body and Blood, which is like the mud rubbed on the blind man’s eyes.  We need only allow the action to occur, allow Christ to touch us through the Eucharist, through the sacraments of His church.  When we do, when we say yes to this healing, to this touching, we will see, we will be given the beatific vision of God himself.  We will know love, be touched by this golden warmth, Christ.

T.S. Eliot wrote of some of these things, these encounters with the numinous, the transcendent, our deepest longings fulfilled.  As Eliot wrote in Four Quartets:

For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.

We received the Euchariston this Laetare, “Rejoice” Sunday, reflecting the Introit “O be joyful…”, also known as Rose Sunday in which we honor our mothers, our Mother Mary, and Mother Church.  We received the Incarnation, reborn for us again and again with each Eucharist, and I heard the music deeply.  I shall continue in prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.  I shall be happy to half understand this gift, this waterfall from the heavens.

It was good to be back at St. Stephen’s with my little novel in hand, celebrating in a small way this great man’s insight into our humanity and our dance with God.  As we chatted with the vicar afterwards, catching up on the state of the Anglo-Catholics in England, I gave him a copy and another for Mrs. E., a widow who attends only occasionally now, when she is able, considering her age, but nevertheless regularly.

I was thankful.

St. Stephen’s Gloucester Road, London:  http://saint-stephen.org.uk

We headed through St. James Park, past Buckingham Palace, and down to Westminster Cathedral, the Roman Catholic center of London, a place that has over the years touched me with its beauty and holiness, with its marble walls and arches, pillars and vaults of light and mosaic, a stunning Franciscan painted crucifix, the rood handing from the graceful chancel arch.  Looking beyond and above, dark cavernous ceiling spaces were sad reminders that the church, although begun in 1895, is sadly unfinished.  The Holy Sacrament Chapel in the northeast corner is a jewel of story, telling of the prophesied Lamb of God in the walls of mosaic, and showing the Real Presence-Lamb of God in the tabernacle on the altar.

I said a prayer for Christian unity in this truly Catholic cathedral in Anglican London, where these streams of Christianity appear to be weaving together into a future, that will hopefully somehow undo a bloody past.

The bloody past was recalled in the north aisle where the body of John Southworth lies, a dedicated priest who died at the hands of the English Reformers, those Anglican Protestants of the sixteenth century.  He was carried to Tyburn Gallows, today Marble Arch in the northeast corner of Hyde Park, where he was drawn and quartered and hung.  His crime?  Being a Catholic priest in a reformist country.  I shivered, for I knew he was one of many, and during Queen Mary’s time, many Anglicans were in turn burned at the stake by the Catholics.

We stepped outside into the cold grayness of the day and headed down busy Victoria Street, a straight thoroughfare leading to the Anglican Westminster Abbey, as though these two historic witnesses to English Christianity were set on the crossbeam of a cross.  Soon to be the setting of the royal wedding, this medieval abbey honors the graves and monuments of England’s great monarchs and statesmen, her writers, artists, musicians.  We followed the ambulatory around the high altar and under the white gothic vaulting, past the gilded shrines to Poets’ Corner and a small chapel off the side called Faith Chapel.  Here, in this rustic space, the Blessed Sacrament is reserved for adoration and prayer.  A French girl who refused to offer sacrifices to the pagan gods of the Roman Empire, Sainte Foi was tortured and martyred in 303 under Emperor Diocletian.  Her image rises above the altar in this cave-chapel of musty stone, the sanctuary lamp to her side.  We entered and knelt in the silence, alone this day, as the crowds milled on the other side of the thick wall of Poets’ Corner, and I could hear sounds of children playing in a schoolyard in the far distance.

I looked at Saint Faith, in her robes, her haunting image returning my gaze.  How appropriate, I thought, that a saint with this name is here in this humble chapel in this teeming city of unbelief, of slaughter, of terrible religious divisions, as though through it all we must be reminded not to offer sacrifice to the modern pagan gods surrounding us.  I prayed for unity, that the Roman Catholics would continue to welcome the Anglicans into their fold, and that the Anglicans would find a way to join the greater stream once again.  A trickle of Anglicans have joined with the Roman Catholics, have “swum the Tiber” as they say, but there remain difficulties for many, issues of theology, issues of history, issues of sacramental validity.  For some of us, we see our place where we are at present, ministering to those in our circle, our community, our parish.

I was full of the two Westminsters when we visited the Tyburn Convent, across the street from the site of Tyburn Gallows.  The Congregation of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre, known as the Tyburn Nuns keep watch before the Blessed Sacrament twenty-four hours a day.  They also honor the Tyburn martyrs who died between 1535 and 1681.

We stepped into a simple, modern chapel, the nave divided from the chancel by a white grill.  A nun robed in white, knelt before the Blessed Sacrament raised over the altar in a golden monstrance.  One other person in the nave knelt in prayer.  Here too I prayed for unity in this time of fragmentation.  Where better, I thought, than this shrine of recollection of the disunity.  I gazed at the simple altar and the monstrance and the crucifix high above.  I knew that in time all would be redeemed by God’s love in us, and I was grateful for these women who had chosen a life of prayer, praying for us all.

We stepped out onto teaming Bayswater Road, walked silently along the edge of Hyde Park, through the corner clearing called Marble Arch, where today folks may speak their mind on any number of issues, be it religion or politic.  An appropriate transformation, I considered, and we headed back to our hotel, full of the history of this city of faith which today was so challenged by the doubts of the modern world.

www.westminster-abbey.org
www.westminstercathedral.org.uk
www.tyburnconvent.org.uk

It has been a fascinating few days in London.

We visited George Frideric Handel’s home, located on Brook Street in Mayfair.  The two-story townhouse was one of many built here in the eighteenth century.  In 2001 it became open to the public, and the Trust has done an outstanding job with each room, explaining not only Handel’s life, but his times, the English renaissance of art, poetry, and music.

I knew that these were days of horses and buggies and muddy streets.  I also knew these were days of exceptional refinement in manners, courtly etiquette (probably influenced by the court itself), attention to dress, hair, civility.  Again, they were rough days by our standards – no indoor plumbing so that one bathed in a tub filled with buckets of water heated on the hearth.  Many folks had lice, so they kept their hair short, some wearing wigs.  Food preparation was long and arduous, and it seemed that one either had servants or was a servant, at least in London.

Handel’s life was no exception.  Born in Germany to a court hairdresser, he met and worked for George of Hannover before coming to the English throne.  The king appointed Handel to be his Court Composer and with this appointment Handel was assured of a place in English society.  He rented this modest house in Mayfair, a growing neighborhood, a suburb of London.  Handel worked from his small rooms, giving lessons, selling sheet music, and most importantly composing the great operas, oratorios, and the glorious Messiah.

Handel, to my happy appreciation, was a deeply religious man. He was a devout Lutheran, and it was said that as the music filled his mind and heart, and the notes poured onto the scores, he would wept from sheer joy, amazement, love.  He was telling, of course, the great story of redemption, of God’s love for us, through the prophets, to the nativity in Bethlehem, to the Way of the Cross, the crucifixion and the resurrection.

I have long loved the Messiah, and it has become a tradition in our home to play the first half at Christmas and the second at Easter.  I grew up in a church that sang the full score once a year with great enthusiasm and fervent belief.  Handel gave, and continues to give, the world such hope, such glimpses of heaven.  Beethoven, living in the next generation, said (and I paraphrase) that Handel was such a genius, that he, Beethoven, would fall at his feet in admiration.  Beethoven said this!

I left the house on Brook Street having learned that Handel was indeed inspired by God, and gave great thanks for his life and his work, and for this moment of seeing.

We continued through Mayfair down to Piccadilly, through Green Park to Westminster Cathedral, a favorite church here in London, and a scene in my novel, Inheritance.

We arrived to steely skies and moderately cold temperatures (rather San Franciscan) and have settled into our hotel near Hyde Park.

This morning as we stepped into London from our hotel, I breathed in deeply and settled into a brisk walk toward the Mayfair public library, a copy of Inheritance tucked inside my bag.

Mayfair is a charming district of upscale shops and townhouses, hotels and picturesque pubs and eateries so that you almost don’t mind the gray skies.  In the center of Mayfair stands the Victorian Gothic church known as Farm Street Church, bordered on one side by a green park, now landscaped with beds of daffodils and tulips.  It may be rainy and cold, but spring is coming to London.

At one end of the wrought iron gates (what else?) stands the Mayfair Public Library, housed in one of the pretty brick townhouses, the white trimmed windows smiling upon us and the pretty porch and stairs beckoning us inside.  The doors were open and I found a friendly face at the Enquiries Desk.  The librarian was happy to accept a copy of my novel about London and England.  I left happy too.  Somehow, making these little connections is like the icing on the cake of this publication.  Inheritance came from a deep desire to share this inspiring city and historic country, to point to a few of the great gifts England has given Western civilization and the world, particularly in terms of faith.  Some of these gifts are today being squandered, and it is an inheritance I hate to see wasted.  So giving this novel, with its Glastonbury cover, to the young librarian was immensely gratifying, itself a kind of inheritance passed onto the next reader generation.

We returned to the sculpted gates and strolled through the park, past the carved chevet of the church, and out to the busy streets of Mayfair (hope to do another blog post on the church).  In many ways, the neighborhood hasn’t changed in the twenty or more years of our visits – the brick houses lining the roads, the steepled roofs with their chimney pots, the balconies and white flower boxes now with spring plantings.  The black boxy taxis still round the corners, and we still study the painted warnings on the pavement at our feet before crossing, Look to the left, Look to the right, for those of us who are startled by traffic rushing from surprising directions.  We are still the wary walkers in this city of speedy cars and rushed pedestrians with places to go and people to see, their phones close to their ears.  Probably like any other major city, the bustle carries us along as though we are swept by a strong current.  I study the faces as they flood past.  Skin of every color, faces of every race.  Old and young, but most middle-aged like me, part of the huge ‘forties and ‘fifties Baby Boom, before birth control and unwanted children.  Indeed, the young today are the wanted, the lucky, the chosen few, one could unfashionably say, the survivors.  I hear very little English spoken, but sudden bits of Russian, Arabic, French.  The English voices I hear are heavily accented with other lands.  London has become the Commonwealth itself, as the children of Empire returned to the Motherland, to be educated, to stay and raise their families in peace, and perhaps even still, in relative prosperity.

We continued through Piccadilly and down to St. James Square, Whitehall, where the police presence was noticeable and I recalled that meetings concerning Libya were being held there, including our own American Secretary of State Clinton, meetings that had filled the front pages of the papers this morning.  But also in this square was our next destination, not quite so newsworthy, but nevertheless just as important, the London Public Library.

There too, an eager and friendly young man welcomed my novel for the collection, explaining the procedures of acquisition, the hurdles of acceptance, and I nodded, for we do the same with our collections at home.  It is an era of increased pornography and gratuitous violence and sometimes a sensible oversight is necessary, particularly in reference to the written word.  Indeed, not all books are created equal.  I left the library, again with gratitude, for my little novel was birthed here in London, as the characters, much like ourselves, pounded these streets, visited these churches, historic sites, eateries and hotels.  Ah, London.

We headed back up to Piccadilly, and while my husband window-shopped Jermyn Street, I browsed Hatchard’s Books, est. 1797 according to the Queen’s Purveyor’s sign over the door.  As I climbed the central mahogany staircase I was happy to hear the familiar creak of the flooring, smell the sweet mellowness of the books (What is that smell? Expectation? Longing? Hints of leather bindings? Dust? All of this?).  I meandered my way through the rooms, for there are many separate spaces, nooks and crannies, past the novels, to the history titles, then religion, and finally the children’s to check out the wonderful picture books, still on the top floor.  My youngest granddaughter turns six next week.

Ah, London!  We headed outside into the greyness and bustle and traffic and back to the hotel as a light rain began to fall and umbrellas popped open suddenly everywhere.