There and back again…

Dear most gracious reader,

Today I went to a 3:00pm service at Westminster Abbey. I totally bypassed being turned away as a tourist. It was quite clever. The Abbey Marshall was explaining to some Spanish tourists that there were no yours on Sundays because of services. While he was arguing with the group I snuck in beside them, affected my best slurred Briton and asked, “does Evensong begin at 3:00?” The man moved aside and pointed me toward the entrance.

Score! I made it past, trying really hard not to look like an American. Once inside I didn’t really know where to go, but I followed the sound of the choir. I couldn’t see them yet, but their flawless harmonies floated above me to dance around the gothic arches. A man with coat tails ushered me to a seat and handed me a program. By this point I was sweating like a spy in enemy territory. Well, it was a Protestant service…

The service, while not the complete Catholic service I was used to, was lovely. We stood and sat between readings from the Old and New Testaments and long beautiful melodious choir pieces. The Reverend’s sermon focused on the London subway bombings which occured a year ago today. I tried not to stare, but the gothic architecture far overhead looked so impressive, the intricate stained glass shone brilliant blue and red with the sun behind it.

I immediately noticed graves and stone tablets indicating tombs of famous people, a memorial bust of William Blake to my right. It was hard to stop myself from staring around. Stone, stone, all stone, hundreds of of years and still standing. The ceiling was so high, must have been a couple hundred feet high, and the choir’s lyrical prayers rose to fill it. When the organist his the lowest notes i could feel the waves vibrating in my ribcage.

At one point the congregation said the creed, which I recognized. I noticed the use of the phrase, “…we believe in the holy catholic church…” I wondered why an obviously Protestant church would use the word “catholic” in its creed. Later I asked Professor Stains about this and he gave me the answer. He explained that “catholic” in this context was not the same as “Catholic”. So using the lower case c in this case meant “the universal church”, catholic being a word that could be interchanged with “Christian”.

Until next time,

Zack