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After a week of rain and cold, we woke to crystal clear skies in a manor house in the wine country of Nans-les-Pins, east of Marseilles.  Today we hiked up to the cave of Mary Magdalen in the Massif de La Sainte-Baume, where, legend tells us, she spent her last years after preaching in the valley below.

We drove through the village of Nans-les-Pins, winding through its quaint centre ville, following the signs to La Sainte-Baume, emerging amidst vineyards already full-leafed and promising.  Beyond the vineyards and the forested plain, the broad massif of limestone stood against the cobalt blue sky.  The lush green forest ran along its base, draping from its lower ridges like a dark green skirt.  Today, after the rain and with the crisp air, the blues were bluer, the greens greener, the shades changing with the the changing light of the hours.  We followed the road winding into the foothills rising to the higher plateau at the massif’s base, where the Hotellerie sent and received pilgrims.  We edged the car into a graveled lot and parked amidst old oaks.

The ancient forest on this north side of the Sainte-Baume goes back to medieval days when kings and queens, saints and sinners, climbed to Mary Magdalen’s cave, and today sun streamed through leafy yews, oaks, and beeches, lightening the greens and landing on lichen, moss, and wild mushrooms.  The forest is a unique micro-climate, covering 130 hectares, all that remains of the primeval forest of Provence from the tertiary era.

We walked up a broad path shaded by the tall trees, the sun distant and burning in the occasionally glimpsed blue sky.   Signs reminded us to keep our silence as we entered this sacred forest.  We listened instead to creation’s songs, birds chattering, breezes rustling, our feet padding up the trail. The path was well worn but well kept by the Dominicans in the valley, and there were benches for rest and votive shrines where we could pause and offer a prayer.  Fine gravel covered the early stretch, but soon turned to rougher stones and ancient rock stairs, and finally, after about a forty minute hike, stretching our leg muscles and pausing to catch our breath, we arrived at the base of the cliff and looked up to the wall of rock and the small monastery built into its face.  Here, the proper stairs began, and along the way we paused before crosses and carved plaques with Beatitudes in French…Heureux sont les… “Blessed are the…”  We continued to climb, leaving the forest behind and rising into the massif, through a gateway with a sign announcing the presence of Dominicans since 1295, Benedictines before that, and Cassianites from the fifth century.  We passed a life-size Calvary scene where red roses touch Mary Magdalen who cries at the foot of the cross.  Turning up the last set of stairs we arrived at the top, 950 meters (3,135′) above sea level, having climbed 276 meters (800′) from the plateau.

From the terrace we gazed across the rolling green of Provence to the stone massif of Mount Victoire near Aix-en-Provence, a favorite scene of Cezanne.  We turned again back to the cliff face and the entrance to Mary Magdalen’s grotto.

The semi-circular chapel is large, 29 by 24 meters, 6 meters at its highest point, or 95′ x 79′, 20′ at its highest. Water dripped from the cavern ceiling, echoing as it splashed upon the pools on the floor, but the chancel and nave were dry.  We arrived in time for the daily 11:00 Mass as we entered the candle-lit space.

To the left of the doorway and commanding the central portion of the cavern is the sanctuary, with twenty or so pews and a nineteenth century altar of stone.  Behind the altar, I knew, resided relics of Mary Magdalen, and to the left on a stone outcropping was the Reserved Sacrament on its own altar, with candles and a red lantern.  Near this was the Lady Altar, the shrine to the Virgin Mary, with a lovely sculpted Madonna and Child and a bank of flaming votives at her feet.

At the far back wall of the grotto, beyond the High Altar but to the side was a sculpted Mary Magdalen, and it was here that I lit a candle in the damp, with some difficulty, using a taper to light from a votive nearly out.  Finally my small votive burned bright, and I placed the flame in the iron stand with others.  I looked up to the white marble sculpture of Mary dancing with the angels, and I thought of her sister shrine in Paris, at the Basilica La Madeleine.  The image portrayed the dance of prayer, of meeting God.  Legend says that Mary Magdalen was carried to Mount Pilon high up the mountain by angels to hear them sing.  This may or may not be true, but I am sure that the Magdalen heard them sing in some fashion wherever she was.  The sculpted image of the saint held by the dancing singing angels always brings me joy, and as I gazed on the white marble figures, I asked for her prayers that I might be given the words to write about her and Our Lord in my current novel, The Magdalen Mystery, that I do not disappoint her, that, above all, I tell the truth.

We took seats in the sanctuary in the back pew and watched and waited, praying before the Blessed Sacrament.  As I watched the young Dominican enter and celebrate the Mass in this remarkable dripping cave, lit by candles and prayers and devotion, I wondered if Mary Magdalen did indeed spend her last thirty years in this grotto in penitential prayer and fasting.  Whether or not she did, partly the subject of my current novel, there was no doubt in my mind that the presence of Christ in the Bread and Wine was real.  And this reality, the living Christ, was what the Magdalene witnessed to with the disciples Maximin, Sidonius and others.  Mary pointed to Christ just as John the Baptist had in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way…

We are touched by Mary Magdalen and are drawn to her because she is one of us, for we too have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.  We too are forgiven.  We too can repent and change.  We too can find salvation and eternal life.  We too want to tell others all about it.

The young Dominican from the valley sang the Mass and his voice echoed in the moist air of the wet cave.  An oblate read the Scriptures appointed for the day, and a choir of one sang from the first pew.  Our monk moved to the center, standing in front of the stone altar.  There he preached a fiery sermon in French, one about faith, belief, taking the narrow path and not the wide.  He clenched his fists and pointed with his index fingers, and his eyes glowed with certainty and love.  I recalled that Dominicans are known to be great preachers and I regretted my poor French.

There were no more than a dozen of us there in the glowing candlelight of the Grotto of Sainte-Baume for this morning’s Mass.  We knelt on the hard wooden slats and said our prayers, confessed our sins, glorified and gave thanks to God for his great gifts of salvation.  As I said the few responses I knew in French, then the Lord’s Prayer in English, and watched the monk in his white chasuble offer the Body of Christ to each of the communicants, I realized that, in our search for truth, we must also search for the lies in our own hearts.  These we must root out first if we are to see clearly, if we are to see the lies of others, of the world around us, a theme I in The Magdalen Mystery.  It is only from humility and a blank slate, a heart washed clean, that God can write on our hearts his wisdom, truth, and indeed, his law.

We left the cave and entered the brighter terrace, and walked down the path toward our car, silently, pondering the mystery of this saint who was the first to see Christ resurrected from the grave.  She ran and told the others.  This much we know is true.

For photos see the PhotoGallery on my website, http://www.christinesunderland.com/

It has been raining on and off all week, the temperatures cool, the sun appearing between dark clouds, teasing.  We read and write, and when the weather clears, walk up the road into the lower alpine hills and back through meadows, crossing bridges over rushing streams.  We return to our thirteenth-century Knights Templar castle, the Chateau Saint-Martin.

Only a few ruins to the side of the property remain from the medieval castle, but I recall that the property goes back indeed to Saint Martin of Tours, a converted Roman soldier, who spent time here in 350.  A statue over the fireplace in the front salon shows Martin on his horse, cutting his robe in half to give to a naked beggar, and in a sense this hospitality continued.  In 1115 the Earl of Provence gave the property to crusaders returning from Jerusalem, the Knights Templars, requiring that they offer lodging to travelers, and cultivate and protect the region.  The Templars were disbanded in the fourteenth century, and the Wars of Religion, and after that the Revolution, did great damage to the property.  But in 1900 a wealthy business man bought the ruined estate.  Eventually it was restored, opening as a hotel in 1958.

We had the opportunity to dine with an old friend the other night, a man who came to the hotel as Second Maître d’ in 1971.  He recalled visits from many of the famous in the area, including Marc Chagall (1887-1985) who lived nearby and who created the stunning stained glass windows in a local chapel.  Others have come up from the Cannes film festival as well, to add to the star-studded list of guests.   In those days the chateau was only a single building and twenty-four rooms.  Since then it has expanded, but the proprietors have kept the gracious feeling of those earlier days, with white stucco and arched portals, tiled walkways and vaulted ceilings, gardens of lavender, cypress, olive trees, and arbors of aromatic jasmine.  And all the while the panorama of sky whirls before you, the clouds sweeping to the sea, the lightning and thunder traveling over the rolling hills, the brilliant sun burning through mists crowning walled villages.

We leave this aerie perch tomorrow and head for Mary Magdalene country, the Massif de La Sainte-Baume where an ancient protected forest guards a mysterious grotto (see June 26, 2009 post).  We are preparing for a pilgrimage to the Magdalene’s cave and her nearby basilica, to learn more about her and from her.  I have long sensed she reflects the heart of Christianity in all of her stories – the penitent sinner of the seven demons cast out by Christ, the woman of adoration who washed Christ’s feet with her hair, the disciple who first saw the resurrected Christ and ran to tell the others, perhaps the first evangelist.  Henry Lacordaire (1802-1861) agreed.  This Dominican preacher, famous for his sermons in Paris’s Notre Dame, visited the grotto in 1851.  Seeing in Mary Magdalene the power of love, both divine and human, the heart of the Gospel message, he wrote and worked to revive her legend.  He built the present Hotellerie for pilgrims, and by the 1880’s it was recorded that on the saint’s feast day 10,000 pilgrims made the journey up to the dripping cavern-shrine.

Hopefully, we too shall make the hour long ascent through the ancient forest.  We shall follow in the footsteps of many kings and queens, saints and sinners, and ordinary folk like us who carry the seeds of both saints and sinners, just as Mary Magdalene did.

Deo Gratias

We are settling in to the lovely Chateau Saint-Martin, high above the Mediterranean on a cliff overlooking the medieval walled village of Vence, not far from Nice.  It has been rainy and cool as mists gather and hover over the descending hills, obscuring the sea.  The sky looms large and gray, and winds push swirling dark masses from the lower Alps to the coast far below.  We are between earth and sky, and as we recover from the time change (nine hours) where night is day and day is night, waking is sleeping, and sleeping is waking, we think we are part of the dark clouds waiting for the sun.

Neighbors are burning in the yards in the valleys below, taking advantage of the wet, and smoke curls into the mists and mixes with the pungent jasmine blooming in joyful disarray unaware of the cold and rain.  The jasmine climbs garden walls and arbors, tiny white stars and lush greenery perfuming the damp.

I recall my stories set here at this lovely chateau, inspired by its gracious sense of time gone by, of Fragonard swings and princesses with long flowered skirts, of a more gracious way of living.  Time slowed down and we sipped slowly, inhaled lavender, lathered tapenade on crusted rolls.  Light filtered through silver tinged olive leaves, the trees hundreds of years old as we sat in ancient orchards on wobbly wrought iron.

In earlier days of the Chateau, there was a rope swing in a meadow, and you would sit on the wooden slat and slide through the air.  You would return to your own childhood and you would sigh.  There was a heart-shaped pool that President Truman was said to have liked, and Adenauer claimed that the Chateau was the “ante-room of Paradise.”  Long ago, as I swung through the soft air on the rope swing I thought it was Paradise itself.

So I wrote stories about Jeanette, thirteen, from San Francisco, who falls in love with the Chateau and with the French manners, the language, the life.  The stories tell of her summer here, and her many adventures in the hills above and the islands below.  Later, I wrote a novel partially set here as well, Offerings, about a doctor’s search for healing, for herself.  Now, watching the dark skies part and glimpsing some sun burning through the mists, I am celebrating not only the publication of Offerings in the last year, but its winning of an Honorable Mention in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2010 and the Bronze Medal in the Independent Publisher Awards 2010 (IPPY).  Credit must be shared with the Chateau Saint-Martin and I shall always be thankful to those who continue its gracious traditions.

We wait for the clouds to part, and I consider my current novel-in-progress, the Magdalene Mystery.  Hopefully we shall revisit Mary Magdalene’s cave, La Sainte-Baume, and her coffin at the Basilica of Saint Maximin.  We shall wander the valleys where she is said to have preached and where hermitages rose up in the fourth and fifth centuries as Saint Cassian sent his monks into these lands of the Magdalene.

The past is the present, and both are the future.  We learn who we are, where we must go, and who we are meant to be.

We missed Mass on the Second Sunday after Trinity.  We missed the glorious Eucharistic sacrifice.  Instead, we said our prayers, inviting the Third Person of the HolyTrinity, God the Holy Spirit, to shape our journey, to lead us.  We wait and pray as the clouds part.

I have been blessed to visit this part of the world and watch it change and yet not change.  But even more blessed to be able to write about it and to share it with you.

I love the Church Year.  I love how it divides time into meaningful celebrations, how major feasts are decorated with the flourishes of weeks before and after, as though Christmas and Easter were still points around which tendrils entwine, blossoming.  The tides, those weeks framing these great festivals, prepare us, and allow us time to celebrate.

Today is the First Sunday after Trinity, or Trinity 1 as some call it, and we are entering the season of Trinitytide, running several months, the longest season in the Church Year.  It’s liturgical color is green, for growth in our life with God.

Our preacher last week mentioned how Advent/Christmas through Easter/Pentecost recalls and re-enacts Christ’s life on earth, the Incarnation, when God took on human form.  We follow Christ’s birth, His miracles and healings, His words to us.  We take part in His way of the cross, His passion, then his death and resurrection.  Finally we experience His ascension to Heaven and the coming of the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, upon the disciples at Pentecost.  With this coming, the Church is born, and we enter a new season, Trinitytide.

Our good preacher also explained that Trinitytide is a theological season, for it is a time when we make sense, consider the meaning, of these great acts of God.  We listen to those who have pondered these doctrines for thousands of years in councils and creeds.  We seek to learn what these acts of salvation do for us.  We grow.

Today we learned about a second aspect of Trinitytide, this long season stretching through November.  This is a season of love, he said.  It is a time when we encounter what it means to love as God loves, what is demanded of us as Christians.  Can we love as God did and does?  Can we sacrifice all?

I gazed upon the crucifix over the tabernacle and knew I couldn’t.  But perhaps with God’s grace, I could begin to pull myself out of myself, to love.  My eyes dropped to the white tented tabernacle where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved, and I recalled Thursday’s Corpus Christi Mass, the celebration of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist.

It was grace, to be sure, that prompted me to go.  Weekday Masses are always a challenge, calling me away from my comfortable routine.  But the Eucharist, its power and love, has molded me in so many ways in the last few years that it seemed only fitting that I make the effort to celebrate Corpus Christi, the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  And I was glad that I came.

The Host had been placed in a golden monstrance in front of the tabernacle on the altar, set out for “adoration.”  We call this “Exposition” or sometimes “Benediction.”  It is a time when we can worship the Real Presence of Christ in the Host in a wonderful way, a unique way.  I prayed my sorrows, my joys, and my thanksgivings, and was comforted and strengthened.

I recalled that Corpus Christi Mass as I gazed today upon the tabernacle, the pieces of salvation suddenly fitting together perfectly.  We were in the octave of Trinity Sunday, having just celebrated Corpus Christi, and now we considered the meaning of it all, that God is with us now, today, in the Eucharistic bread and wine.

We turned to the Gospel for the day, one of the “hard saying” passages, and I wondered what this priest visiting from Napa would make of it.  It is one of the times Christ speaks explicitly about Hell and Heaven and their impossible impasse.  We don’t want to hear about Hell, least of all from Christ.  Saint John’s Epistle, however, was all about the love of God.  As our preacher continued in a gentle but firm voice, he explained this impasse, the great gulf separating Heaven and Hell, as C.S. Lewis called “the great divorce.”  It is God’s forgiveness, our priest said, that allows us to enter Heaven.  God cannot undo our misdoings, but He can forgive.

And of course, Hell is being apart from God, a state I knew all too well.  I too had experienced such separation, each time I didn’t love enough.  It is a cold place to be.

I turned to the tabernacle, recalling again the golden monstrance containing the white Host in the Corpus Christi Mass.  Today I would be nourished by God, I would partake of that Host.  Indeed, I would partake of Heaven right here on earth.

On this First Sunday after Trinity I sensed I had entered a green meadow.  I would cross it slowly, through the months of June, July, August, September, October, and November.  I would consider who this great God truly is.  Through the Church, and her season of growth, I would be fed by grace.  I would know joy.

The morning was crisp, the earth fed by the rain and now basking in the late spring sun.  This year Trinity Sunday falls on Memorial Day weekend, and as I entered Saint Peter’s peaceful nave I recalled the many white crosses dotting our landscape, forming communities of memory on grassy slopes throughout our great nation.

We lost our sons, our brothers, our fathers, our grandfathers, and then our daughters, our sisters, our mothers, one day our grandmothers.  Some were forced to war out of economic necessity or military draft, while others idealistically or simply bravely embraced the call to defend our freedoms.  Regardless, they all gave me the gift of life here in this good country, and I was deeply thankful.  I would remember them.

I gazed upon the American flag, draped softly to the right of the pulpit, on the Gospel side, a quiet strong presence, and I thought how it was this flag – what it stood for – that allowed me to kneel today before the Blessed Sacrament.  Those brave men and women fought, and fight today, for my freedom to worship, to assemble, to speak.  I prayed that these freedoms would not be taken away, and that we would always honor those who protect us with their lives.

I looked up to the steepled brick apse and its medieval crucifix, then to the white tented tabernacle.  I repeated my usual opening prayer, Thank you for the people of this parish, the clergy, and the freedom to worship. We can never give enough thanks for this freedom, I thought.  We must never take it for granted.

As the processional hymn struck its first chords, I recalled Trinity Sunday, the glorious celebration of the three-in-one, the mysterious three persons in one God.  We sang the thunderous hymn of Saint Patrick, I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity… as the crucifer raised the crucifix high between the torchbearers. The hymn has almost a military tone, a pledging, and we sang together as one, the disparate congregation of young and old, re-affirming our faith together, re-pledging who we were as the People of God.

For we are a people of the Trinity, worshiping, and communing with, our Creator, a God of love who became one of us in the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, and who sends His Holy Spirit, the Third Person, to comfort and strengthen us today.  Such perfect love, such perfect union, such redemption of our own fallen natures, our fallen and warring world.  It is this God who gave mankind his freedoms, who taught him the worth of the individual, who insisted on the sanctity of life no matter the age.  It is this God, revealed through Christ and brought to us today in the Eucharist and the power of the Holy Spirit among us, who gives us rules of law and hearts of mercy.

Will we remain free?  Will our culture respect life and liberty?  Many signs point to weakness at home, strength abroad.  Many signs point to a cultural cancer of self-love that devours sacrifice and ridicules respect.

We sang Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song will rise to thee…, one of my favorite hymns.  The melody dances and raises my heart; the words hold me close.  The tune hovered in the back of my hearing as we entered the Divine Liturgy, and soon I received the Bread and the Wine, Christ Himself.  Soon I knew, with a certainty born only of union with God, that He was indeed Almighty, God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.

Indeed, for in the end this loving God would be victorious, and we, as His people, would be victorious too, reigning with Him in the unity of the three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  I made the Sign of the Cross, naming these persons of my God, marking them on my body, and now, each time I make this sign of my faith, I shall be thankful… and a little victorious.

We stepped out into the bright light of mid-day, the sun warm.  I glanced back at the steepled brick church.  I thought about our sons and daughters at home and abroad.  I would remember them with great thanks this Memorial weekend.

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