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We drove down from Crillon-le-Brave into the countryside through the farmlands past Carpentras and the melon festival signs, heading for a picturesque village at the source of the River Sorgue, Fontaine de Vaucluse.  Here the waters rush from the mountains, once transformed into power by waterwheels, and today channeled into the valleys below.

We parked outside the village, and followed the road over the bridge, crossing the roiling waters to the main square where tall trees shaded a monument commemorating the time Petrarch (1304-1374) resided here.  The Italian poet, known for his many letters and sonnets, is particularly known here for his unrequited love of Laura, a married gentlewoman he met in an Avignon church.  It was a romantic but platonic love from afar, and he recorded his romance in his sonnets, with echoes of the Courts of Love of an earlier time.

We lunched on an uneven terrace overlooking the rushing Sorgue and peered up the canyons to glimpse waterfalls at the true sources higher up, then strolled up the main street to the 11th century stone church.  The sanctuary was musty and dim, but the Blessed Sacrament was reserved on the altar  and an bay alcove honored Our Lady with not only a bank of flaming votives at the foot of her sculpted image, but a carved image of Saint Anne as well.  In reading about L’Eglise de Saint Veran, I learned it was founded in the 6th century by monks from Saint Victor’s in Marseilles.  I smiled for it was another Cassianite witness (see St. Victor’s post), and gave me more pieces to the wonderful puzzle of history.

We returned slowly to our car, under the heavy heat of the day, and drove into the valley of vines with their lush greenery striping the gentle green hills, watching the narrow road carefully for speeders and steep roadside ditches.

We would not be visiting Avignon this time, but I recalled that watershed fourteenth century when the Pope resided there, and the resulting turmoil caused in Western Christendom.  When the papacy did return to Rome, the city was falling to ruin, and it would take many years to restore.  Then again, it seemed to me that the presence of the papacy in France must have supported the new basilica at St. Maximin to the south of Avignon which honored the rediscovered relics of Mary Magdalen (see earlier post).  Many royal pilgrimages were made to her grave and Avignon played a substantial part in the development of the shrine, I am sure.

We returned to our hilltop village at the base of Mount Ventoux, and as I gazed at the mountain, I thought again about Petrarch, who climbed it because he wanted to (he is considered to be the first tourist) and about his romance with Laura.  It had been a colorful and fascinating day, full of image and sound, and best of all, of story.

We arrived at Crillon-le-Brave, about two hours north of Sainte-Baume, near Carpentras and Avignon as the temperatures rose here in southern France, hitting ninety degrees on Saturday.  Crillon-le-Brave is a small hilltop village at the base of Petrarch’s Mount Ventoux, and the lovely hotel here, began and owned by two gracious Canadians, has been a favorite over the years.  The hotel spreads over a rocky crag, looking out to the valley and the mountain beyond, and we descend spiraling stairs to breakfast on a terrace, as birds fly overhead in glorious abandon.  I set a chapter or two here in my second novel, Offerings, and with its publication, I am happy to return to this ethereal aery of stone.

Today, Sunday, we were able to go to church.  We drove through the Provencal forest of pine and alders on winding narrow lanes, the hills rolling softly beneath the mountain called Ventoux, windy, to visit a Benedictine monastery for Sunday Messe, the Abbey of Saint Mary Magdalen.

The lavender was in bloom, and we followed a gravel footpath alongside the swathe of purple reaching nearly to the porch of the ocher stone abbey. Cypresses rose alongside a graceful bell tower and as I pressed the minute button on my camera the bells began their song, chiming through the countryside, Come to Mass.

We entered through the arched portico, where a lovely statue of Marie Madeleine greeted us, and where Girl Scouts were preparing a bake sale on tables.  Inside, the sanctuary was dim, a few faithful having arrived for the 10:00 Office, ensuring they found a seat for the 10:30 Mass.  The small nave filled up quickly, folks climbing winding stairs to a loft above.  We found seats in the second pew, Epistle side, and watched as a black-robed Benedictine entered, turned on the lights, and lit the candles.

I recalled that in 1970 a few monks gathered in the Chapel of Mary Magdalen in the nearby village of Bedoin. Following the rule of Saint Benedict of the sixth century, they prayed the daily offices and worked the land. As they grew in numbers, they built a new monastery with their own hands in neighboring Le Barroux.  They remain a faithful witness, I thought, as I gazed at the oak choir, sixty stalls running perpendicular to the altar and apse in the traditional monastic form.  Theycontinue to sing the seven daily offices from Matins to Compline and celebrate Mass each day as well, weekdays in the grotto chapel, Sundays in this graceful sanctuary of light.

As I wrote in my chapter set here in my second novel Offerings,

Columns of cream and brown stone under vaulted arches lined the side aisles, and a high ceiling ran from the western loft to the eastern apse. A Madonna stood on a pedestal to the left of the altar, holding the Christ Child on her hip in the country manner, a figure of greens and golds. The sculpted image reminded Madeleine of the Madonna in Saint Thomas’ back home, but the lofty symmetry of the sanctuary echoed Saint Antimo’s in Tuscany. All was balance and harmony, calling the soul to peace.

The abbey retains that sense of ethereal wonder, peaceful harmony, perfect discipline, but there have been changes since I wrote those words.  Sadly, their beloved abbot has passed on, but another has taken his place, and there appeared to be many young men who had taken their vows here, a sign of increasing health for the order.  They offer programs for children over the summer and parish care for the local families.

I gazed at the crucifix over the altar.  Suspended by long black cords from the tower above, the corpus is Christ the King, fully clothed in blue and red, crowned in gold.  The image of the sacrifice as a royal one, with the arms outraised in welcome as well as suffering, has always touched me with its profound truth.  For this is a victorious Christ, one who, in this image, reminds us that he has conquered death, even the death of the Cross for the world.  We also recall in this colorful figure the public nature of his death, that his was an action of the heavens upon the earth, as the heavenly became the earthly in order to raise earth to heaven.

We watched as forty monks processed in to the sanctuary from the southern aisle and took their places in the choir.  They stepped quickly, with assurance, in pairs, their eyes full of a thoughtful certainty and grace.  They were tall and gaunt and ascetic.  Following the river of black robes, so marked against the pale tawny stone, came three others, side by side, robed in Trinity green.  The center monk, a priest, would celebrate the Mass.  Those on either side raised with care the edges of his chasuble, so that the effect was one of honoring the Eucharistic sacrifice, honoring the man who would perform the sacred rite, bringing Christ into our midst in a very unique and Scriptural way.

The High Mass progressed as the monks chanted in Latin, the lessons and sermon spoken in French, and as we entered the Canon of the Mass, I was grateful that the celebrant faced the altar in the traditional fashion, offering us to God.  Later, when the bread became the Host holding the presence of Christ, he would turn to us, offering God to us.

Six thick candles flamed on the stone altar lighting the colorful Christ and the apsidal stained glass windows.  With time and with watching, one sees more, and eventually the figures frescoed on the apsidal sphere took shape, Rublev’s Trinity (the Angels of the Lord visiting Abraham and Sarah, the Lamb of God in the center, prefiguring the sacrifice of Christ) above the twelve apostles in white.

In a way we were spectators of the great liturgical dance, and perhaps this is appropriate in this abbey church.  The men here work and pray continuously, and we joined them in a very small part of this offering.  We were grateful for their witness, their ora and labora, the Benedictine way, to God.

After, we left quietly through the portico, past the Magdalen, out to the field of lavender and the stalwart bell tower.  We found the crowded gift shop run by the monks and bought some bread, honey, tapenade, and two replicas of the stunning red-and-blue Christ the King, the Abbatiale crucifix.

And I left a copy of Offerings for the Abbot, as a small thank you for their glorious witness to truth at this Abbey of Saint Mary Magdalen.  Having come from La Sainte-Baume and venerated the Magdalen’s relics at St. Maximin, having traced the origins of the Cassianite hermitages in the plain beneath the cave and Marseilles, this visit of the more modern expression of Mary Magdalen’s devotion and evangelization was pure grace this Fourth Sunday after Trinity.

It was also, as I recalled, the octave of the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist, the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

Deo Gratia

We  drove in to the village of St. Maximin this morning to see the basilica and the relics of Mary Magdalene, past colorful market stalls selling Provencal skirts and linens, winding our way behind the church to a large parking lot.

The story of the discovery of Mary Magdalen’s relics begins in 1254 when King Louis (Saint Louis), visited the Saint-Maximin oratory as he returned from the seventh crusade, also making a pilgrimage up to the grotto of Sainte-Baume.  He asked his nephew, Charles of Anjou, Count of Provence, to investigate the strong tradition that Mary was buried under the oraory.  The original alabaster sarcophagus remained, but it was empty, for the relics had been hidden from invaders and never found.

Charles initiated excavations and in 1279, digging between existing tombs of the first-century graveyard that had been covered over the years, creating an oratory, making the graveyard the crypt and the oratory above used by the few monks in the adjoining Cassianite priory.  After many attempts, they found a marble sarcophagus near the (empty) alabaster one said to be Mary Magdalen’s.  When it was opened a lovely scent filled the air.  Charles immediately closed it and sealed it, to open later in the presence of reliable witnesses, both secular and ecclesiastical.  When the tomb was opened several weeks later, they witnessed a full-body skeleton, with only the lower jawbone missing, but hair remaining.  A bit of flesh on the forehead remained as well, and many conjecture that this is the place Christ touched her in the garden after his resurrection, asking her not to touch him (”Noli me tangere”), and the flesh has stayed attached until the mid-eighteenth century.  In 1780 it was placed in a glass reliquary and displayed in the crypt.

Also discovered was a tablet coated in wax, which stated in Latin, Hic requiescat corpus Mariae Magdalenae (Here lies the body of Mary Magdalen.)  The body was placed in a silver reliquary and the head in a gold bust for pilgrims to see.  Charles wanted to establish Dominicans to care for the shrine, and in 1295 he received permission from Boniface VIII.  When Boniface saw the lower jawbone missing he recalled the Magdalen relic in his own Basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome.  The lower jawbone fit perfectly, and the Pope declared the relics to be those of Mary Magdalen.  Charles began to erect an basilica over the oratory in 1295.

And Charles erected an immense basilica.  St. Maximin is the largest Gothic structure in southeast France with three naves and fan vaults, measuring 73 by 37 meters (about 220 x 115 feet) and 29 meters (88 feet) at the highest point.  It rises from the broad plain of the Var, amidst vineyards, olive orchards, and lavender fields, and can be seen for miles.

We entered and paused to take in the fan vaulting and long naves, the quiet stone, then, off the north transept, we descended to the crypt, the fifth-century oratory.  The skull was behind a glass and a grill, ensconced in gold.  The small phial with the bit of flesh was there as well, with the label, Noli me tangere.  I prayed, Santa Maria Madeleine, prions pour nous.  I turned to the other coffins in the small crypt, the sarcophagus of Sidonius (the man born blind, in the Gospel story), Bishop Maximin, and Holy Innocents.

Above, Charles’ basilica held many accumulated treasures through the centuries, paintings and bas-reliefs of the stories of Mary Magdalen.  In these images, and with the small phial in the crypt, I am reminded that she is indeed a resurrection saint, and the sad, penitential side to her story has been, I believe, over-emphasized by medieval chroniclers.  Of course she repents, for one does this to be saved, one does this to see the Lord on Easter morning, one does this to go out and preach the good news of Christ’s, and our own, resurrection.

Archeologists have recently examined Mary’s relics, and have stated the bones are of a slim woman of about fifty years of age.  Unfortunately bones cannot be carbon-dated.

I left the basilica in St. Maximin thankful that such things can be seen, that the stories are verified, that men and women today still seek the truth about these early years of the Church.

We took the road through the old village of St. Zacharie to Marseilles, past the hermitage St. Jean de Puy, in search of L’Abbaye de Saint-Victor, a fifth-century Cassianite foundation, to further explore the legend of Mary Magdalen in Provence, going farther back in time.

The eleventh-century abbey, a fortress with thick walls and towers, was built to withstand invasions, and the church rises on a hill overlooking the Old Port of Marseilles, a protective and defensive position.

We entered the sanctuary, and gazed at the high pointed vaults of stone and I could see in my mind the monks processing, chanting, as they moved toward the choir.  The Blessed Sacrament was to the left of the High Altar, and we paused to pray for our world, for France, for the Church. In the north and south transepts relics were displayed behind glass, including the head of Saint John Cassian, the founder of these monastic foundations, whose monks settled in the valley below Sainte-Baume and around the small oratory built over the grave of Mary Magdalen.  The place then was known as Villa Lata, said to have been the site of her last communion, and also the later grave of Maximin, the first bishop of Aix-en-Provence, still later to become the Cathedral of Sainte-Mary Madeleine in the market town of St. Maximin.

We paid four Euro to the Sacristan who manned the small gift stall at the foot of the nave, and descended stairs into the crypt, the fifth-century church of John Cassian.  As I stepped on the old stone under these ancient vaults, I was stunned by the excavations and the many graves that had been uncovered, as well as the altars of these early years.   Here today the clergy, now part of a parish and diocese, continue to offer the Mass, and here I added my own prayers for the freedom to believe.  For the Cassianites had known the times when it was illegal in the Roman Empire to worship in public, and they appreciated the times when it became legal.  Indeed, in 390 when pagan shrines were outlawed in the Empire, a great building of Christian churches began.  Saint John Cassian was a part of that.

In the nearly three centuries after Mary Magdalen’s death and burial at Villa Lata, Christianity was illegal, but generations marked the place with a small oratory and remembered who was there, telling and retelling the story of this saint.  When Christianity became legal, the Cassianite monks settled nearby, building hermitages, knowing the ground was holy.  A monastery rose in nearby Montrieux.  From the fifth-century days of the Cassianites to thirteenth-century Charles of Anjou, time and invasions destroyed the oratory, but somehow a few monks survived and rebuilt, never forgetting.

Today the story of the valley, of La Sainte-Baume, of the life of Mary Magdalen after she landed on the shores of France, is being told once again.

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.