You know, there are times when I wonder if anyone besides my altar guild director is reading this…. đ
Category: Spirituality (Page 115 of 116)
Time away from the Irish (the language, not the people)….
On Sunday, 24 July 2011, I left my teach loistĂn (“boarding house”) and drove the 32 km from An CheathrĂș Rua to Galway to attend the Sung Eucharist at the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, a church which formerly (pre-Reformation) was the central church of the city. That distinction is now held by the Roman Catholic Cathedral, “The Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St. Nicholas”. (How the BVM was assumed into St. Nicholas, I have no idea….) But St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, now an Anglican congregation of the Church of Ireland, continues to play a central role in the life of the city. The church has marvelous acoustics and is host to a variety of concerts, dramas, conferences, and other cultural and educational events throughout the year.
Interior of St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, Galway
It also plays the role of providing a place of worship for visiting tourists who do not wish to attend a Roman Catholic Mass. The Sunday morning congregation, especially during the summer, is an aggregation of Irish Anglicans, Protestants of several sorts (many of whom do not speak English), and tourists with little or no religious background at all (some of whom, I sure, wander in on Sunday morning to see the historic church and get “trapped” in the service). Such was the congregation this Sunday.
Interior of St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, Galway (from choir)
I arrived in Galway about one hour before the service, so I went to a local cafĂ© and had a cup of coffee. Thirty minutes before the service, I made my way to the church and found a seat – not difficult as there were very few people there. A church warden introduced himself and offered me a leaflet which included nearly the entire service with an insert of the hymn lyrics. On learning that I am a priest, he asked if I would read one of the lessons for the day, to which I assented.
One of the transepts of the church has been closed off with a partial glass screen and made into the choir room. The choir was practicing and their music filled the church – it was grand! It put one into a prayerful mood and prepared one to enter into worship.
Transept, St. Nicholas Church, Galway (used as choir room)
About 15 minutes before the service was to start, a woman priest vested for the day began greeting those of us seated in the nave. She was to be the presider in the absence of the rector, who is on holiday this month.
The service started on time with a procession of crucifer, choir, and clergy. Although lay eucharistic ministers would later assist with the distribution of communion, they were not vested and did not process with the altar party. The placement of choir, clergy and altar assistant was interesting and, given that everything is moveable (and moves frequently for various events), I wondered if this is a standard arrangement or if they experiment regularly with different seating plans.
The service followed a fairly familiar pattern, more similar to the American church’s liturgy than were the Church of England services I experienced a couple of weeks ago, although as in the English church, the service began with a confession and absolution before the Gloria in Excelsis. Then there were the reading of the lessons, a sermon, a variant form of the Creed (sort of a Q-&-A format), prayers, the Peace, the offertory, the Great Thanksgiving, the distribution of Holy Communion (at stations, a central position for the Bread from the priest and four cups of Wine), the final blessing, the last hymn and the dismissal. It all followed a familiar and comforting pattern.
Free-standing Altar, St. Nicholas Church, Galway
The lessons for the day were those of the Revised Common Lectionary – from the Hebrew Scriptures the story of Solomon asking God for the gift of wisdom; from the Epistles Paul’s assurance in Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of God; from the Gospel’s Jesus rapid fire mini-parables that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, a buried treasure, a pearl of great price, a net thrown into the sea.
Altar Window, St. Nicholas Church, Galway
The homily admonished us to do as Jesus did and look for God’s reign in the ordinary things, the ordinary places, the ordinary people of our lives. In the course of the homily, the preacher compared the structure of Jesus’ delivery of the parables to that of the Psalms referring to the Hebrew practice of parallelism as “the rhyming of ideas.” That description stuck with me.
Chancel and High Altar, St. Nicholas Church, Galway
Later in the day, I relaxed with a book, The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. In it, describing the findings of quantum mechanics as an introduction to a discussion of superstring theory, the author writes:
Even in an empty region of space – inside an empty box, for example – the uncertainty principle says that the energy and momentum are uncertain: They fluctuate between extremes that get larger as the size of the box and the time scale over which it is examined get smaller and smaller. It’s as if the region of space inside the box is a compulsive “borrower” of energy and momentum, constantly extracting “loans” from the universe and subsequently “paying” them back. But what participates in these exchanges in, for instance, quiet empty region of space? Everything. Literally. Energy (and momentum as well) is the ultimate convertible currency. E=mc2 tells us that energy can be turned into matter and vice versa. Thus if an energy fluctuation is big enough it can momentarily cause, for instance, an electron and its antimatter companion the positron to erupt into existence, even if the region was initially empty! Since this energy must be quickly repaid, these particles will annihilate one another after an instant, relinquishing the energy borrowed in their creation. And the same is true for all other forms that energy and momentum can take – other particle eruptions and annihilations, wild electromagnetic-field oscillations, weak and strong force-field fluctuations – quantum-mechanical uncertainty tells us the universe is a teeming, chaotic, frenzied arena on microscopic scales.
As I read this I was reminded of the first words of Holy Scripture:
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Transfiguration Window, St. Nicholas Church, Galway
People ask why I read books on particle physics, quantum mechanics, and string theory for relaxation. I really don’t have a good answer, and I have to admit that a lot of what I read, though it fascinates me, goes right over my head! But, for reasons which are probably beyond anyone’s comprehension, including my own, my idea of relaxing reading is exactly the sort of stuff that bored me to tears 40+ years ago – physics books. In the new understandings of quantum mechanics, superstring theory, the multiverse speculation, and other work seeking the “theory of everything” (or “TOE” as Greene and others call it), I see science converging with religion. As microscopic physics gets “weirder” (Greene’s term, again), it seems to me it gets more theological, as well. Every so often a passage strikes, if you will, a theological cord. This was one of them … the description of even empty space as “teeming, chaotic, frenzied” seems to me to echo, to “rhyme” (to use the preacher’s term) with the idea of the writer of Genesis that “a wind from God” (the Holy Spirit) sweeps over creation. Numerous theologians have taken off from this Genesis account to assert that the Holy Spirit “enthuses” all things; that the wind from God blows through and within all of creation … even empty space. How great it is that science’s new understanding of empty space as “teeming” and “frenzied” rhymes with faith’s vision of empty space as filled with God’s wind!
In Sunday’s sermon, the preacher reminded us to seek God in the everyday stuff of life. As scientists probe the “weirdness” of the smallest dimensions of everyday stuff, I think they’re doing just that … seeking God. They may be calling it the search for the TOE, but to from my perspective it’s just a variation of the same search human beings have been on for millennia, the search for meaning.
Baptismal Font, St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, Galway
And now … back to the Irish.
It is said that there are forty shades of green in Ireland ⊠there are probably more. There seem also to be at least that many shades of gray in the skies of Ireland the past couple of days. Since my arrival here, there have been clouds, wind, and rain. Irish words I learned three years ago come easily to mind: scamallach (cloudy), gaofar (windy), båisteach (rain).
Today, the wind is blowing hard enough that the trees and bushes in the front yard of my teach lĂłistin (boarding house) are bent far over and whipping about violently. The clouds, seeming low enough to touch, race by overhead, and throughout the day sheets of rain â some of hard, coarse droplets; some of sharp, stinging mist â have come and gone. From time to time a seagull struggles to move against the wind finding ways to travel into the blustery headwind, knowing instinctively when to rise, when to dive, when to tack.
The Windblown Skies of An CheathrĂș Rua
My housemates are away today â the Acadamh has offered a bus tour to Ros Muc and the cottage in which Patrick Pearce, a hero of the founding of the modern Republic, spent his life. I have made this journey before and so I have opted not to take todayâs bus ride. It has given me a chance to study grammar, review vocabulary flash-cards, and read a bit.
But the rain beats against the window and the wind blows so hard the house, though solidly built of concrete block and stone, vibrates; I am constantly distracted by this weather. âTĂĄ an aimsir go-holc,â exclaims the bean-a-ti (literally âwoman of the houseâ, the term â pronounced âBAN-uh-teeâ â means both âhousewifeâ and âlandladyâ). Yes, I think, the weather is wretched.
Olc is an interesting word: its basic meaning is âevilâ, but it is used in a variety of ways which would be supplied by different words in English. (Go-holc is a form which would be translated into English by the addition of the adverb âveryâ to adjective.) It can be used to describe anything from simple âbad luckâ to âwretched weatherâ to âmoral evilâ. Similarly, a word used to described good weather, ĂĄlainn, can mean âbeautifulâ, âdelightfulâ, or âperfectâ.
I have been convinced for some time that a peopleâs spirituality is informed by their language, by its structures, by its grammar, by the alternative meanings of words.
It would, I think, be unlikely to find an English speaker describing the weather as âevilâ â wretched, perhaps, and bad, certainly â but âevilâ is a term we would reserve for other uses, to describe that which is morally reprehensible, something which canât be said of the weather. Similarly, while we might describe the weather as âperfectâ for some activity, we would not generally describe the weather as simply perfect in its own right.
Thinking of these descriptive terms for the weather I am reminded of a verse of scripture, Matthew 5:48, perhaps most familiar in its King James Version form: âBe ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.â Although ĂĄlainn is not the word used in the Irish bibleâs version of this admonition of Christ, I canât help but think that the secondary meaning of the word might suggest to the Gaelic soul a link between the occasional perfection of nature and the perfection of God (or, negatively, between the âevilâ of the weather and the Evil One).
Celtic Christianity views the mission of Christ less as a âredemptionâ of a âfallenâ creation than as the âcompletionâ of an âincompleteâ creation. I believe the use of these morally and spiritually charged adjectives to describe the weather and to describe nature has contributed to the spirituality which informs this theology. There is a hymn in DĂĄnta DĂ© which sings the praises of the holiness of all nature and is reflective of this Celtic spirituality.
First, the Irish:
Naomhtha cearda Mhic Mhuire;
Naomhtha Ăł thus A thrĂłcaire;
Naomhtha grian is neoil nimhe,
DhĂĄ fhiadh eoil na h-aimsire.Naomhtha a bhfuil thall n-a thigh,
Naomhtha gach dĂșil dĂĄ dhĂșilibh,
Naomhtha an rĂ© aâs na rĂ©altain,
Naomhtha an TĂ© Ăł dtaisbĂ©antar.Naomhtha na sĂona saobha,
Naomhtha an fhearthain Abraona;
Naomhtha an tsoinionn go ngné ghil,
Naomhtha doinionn DĂ© dĂșiligh.Naomhtha ceathra na cruinne,
Naomhtha cloche âs caomh-dhuille,
Naomhtha an teine, giodh h-Ă ain,
âS gach nĂ eile dĂĄ n-abraim.Naomhtha an ghaoth lonn ag labhairt,
Naomhtha fairrge âs fĂormamaint;
Naomhtha gach aon-mhaith dâar fhĂ©gh,
Naomhtha ân Ă©anlait âsan aedhir.Naomhtha na coillte fĂĄ chnĂĄibh,
Naomhtha an fhĂneamhain abaidh,
Naomhtha gach toradh dĂĄ dtig,
Naomhtha an talamh Ăł a dtĂĄinig.Naomhtha an trĂĄigh âs an tuile,
Naomhtha fĂĄs na fiodhbhaidhe,
GnĂomha naomhtha learg is luibh,
Naomhtha an Ceard do cruthaigh.Naomhtha fĂłs fĂłghar na dtonn,
Naomhtha siĂșbhal na srothann,
Naomhtha an riasg fraochdha âs an fĂ©ar
Naomhtha an t-iasg âsan aigĂ©an.Naomhtha A thionsgnamh âa A thoil,
Naomhtha oibreacha ân Athair,
Naomhtha A cheard âs A chreidiomh,
Naomhtha A fhearg âs A fhoighideadh.Naomhtha teaghlach A thoighe,
Naomhtha an TrionĂłid tĂłguidhe,
Naomhtha A iomrĂĄdh ag gach aon
Naomhtha rĂł-ghrĂĄdh A rĂł-naomh.
And the English translation by Ăna nĂ ĂgĂĄin:
Holy are the works of the Son of Mary
Holy, from the beginning, His mercy,
Holy the sun and the clouds of heaven,
Two guides of knowledge of the seasons;Holy all yonder in His House,
Holy each creature of His creatures,
Holy the moon and the stars,
Holy He from Whom they are revealed.Holy the wild tempests,
Holy the rain of April,
Holy the fair-weather, with bright looks,
Holy the rough-weather of God the Creator.Holy are the quadrupeds of the Universe,
Holy the stones and the gentle leaves,
Holy the fire, though it be destructive,
And all else of which I speak.Holy the strong windâs speech,
Holy, sea and firmament,
Holy, each good thing which was recounted,
Holy the birds in the air.Holy the woods bearing clusters,
Holy the ripe vine,
Holy each fruit that cometh,
Holy the earth whence it came.Holy are the shore and the wave,
Holy the growth of the woods;
Holy works are hillock and herb,
Holy the Artificer Who created them.Holy too the voice of the waves,
Holy the travelling of the streams,
Holy the wild moor and the grass,
Holy the fish in the ocean.Holy are His designs and His will,
Holy, the works of the Father,
Holy His workmanship and His faith,
Holy His anger and His patience.Holy the household of His house,
Holy the exalted Trinity;
Holy, for all, to converse of Him,
Holy, the great love of His great saints.
Several years ago a woman named Edith Mary Pargeter began writing a series of murder mysteries set in the Middle Ages under the pseudonym of Ellis Peters. The âdetectiveâ protagonist of these mysteries was a monk named Cadfael. When dramatized by the BBC the actor Derek Jacobi played Brother Cadfael. Brother Cadfaelâs monastic community was Shrewsbury Abbey, which is a real place. The abbey church of Shrewsbury Abbey still stands and is a functioning congregation of the Church of England. I visited the Abbey Church the morning of 12 July 2011.
Initially a small Saxon church, the Church of Saints Peter and Paul which was founded by Roger de Montgomery, a relative of William the Conqueror in 1083. It subsequently became a Benedictine Abbey and during the following 450 or so years it grew to become one of the most important and influential abbeys in England. In 1147, the relics of a Welsh Saint, Winefride, were brought to the Abbey and his shrine became an important place of pilgrimage. In 1283, the first English Parliament in which the Commons had a legal share took place in the Abbey Chapter House, and in 1398 Richard II summoned the Great Parliament in the Abbey. The Abbey was surrendered to the Crown in January of 1540 when Henry VIII disestablished the monasteries. Although much was destroyed, the nave continued to serve, as it does today, as the place of worship for the Parish of the Holy Cross.
In the nineteenth century plans for restoration of the Abbey were drawn up, but financial constraints compelled the building of only part of the plan; everything to the east of the pulpit and lectern are the work of the Gothic Revival architect John Loughborough Pearson, best known for designing Truro Cathedral; his work dates from 1886. The Pearson plans were put on hold and never completed because of the intervention of World War I.
Here are some pictures of the church:
This is the façade of the church seen from the small car park for the church staff:
Facade of Shrewsbury Abbey Church
This is the side of the church along which a major highway now runs (in the city of Shrewsbury this street is called Abbey Foregate, but it is national highway A5191 with lots of traffic). This would have been the side on which the cloister, dormitory, and other living spaces of the monastic community were built; you can see the ragged edges where the broken-down walls once adjoined the structure. The building is made of a red sand-stone native to the Shropshire area.
The interior of the church is quite large and spacious and, despite the dark stone from which it is built, natural light from the clerestory windows makes it quite bright. A very handsome painted reredos in the chancel (with a much gilt) fairly glows, and below it the altar is draped with a heavily embroidered frontal:
Nave of Shrewsbury Abbey Church
Reredos of Shrewsbury Abbey Church
Altar Frontal, Shrewsbury Abbey Church
Around the side aisles of the church are tombs, such as these. The first picture is the tomb of a medieval priest; the second, of an Elizabethan couple.
Medieval Tomb, Shrewsbury Abbey Church
Elizabethan Tomb, Shrewsbury Abbey Church
There are numerous stained glass windows, old and new, such as these two. The first dates from the Middle Ages and shows the Adoration of the Magi; the second is of quite recent vintage and celebrates the Brother Cadfael series!
Adoration of the Magi Window, Shrewsbury Abbey Church
Brother Cadfael Window, Shrewsbury Abbey Church
The ladies of Shrewsbury Abbey church were quite gracious when I visited. They have a small shop set up just inside the entrance to the church and a small coffee and tea bar at the rear of the left aisle. It was quite astonishing and rather funny to see a kitchen sink and countertop with modern appliances set up right next to an Elizabethan tomb, but this sort of ârepurposingâ is something the church needs to do and needs to do more frequently!
As I was about to leave, one of the ladies asked where I was from. I said, âNear Cleveland in the state of Ohio.â âOf course, youâre from America,â she said, âyou such a lovely accent!â I nearly burst out laughing ⊠I thanked her and went on my way, hoping to see a neolithic ring fort at Old Oswestry about an hour away. Unfortunately, road construction, indecipherable signage, and a GPS error made that impossible.
This post concludes the tale of this day begun in Part 1 and continued in Part 2.
Llanthony Priory was a monastery of Augustinian Canons nine miles south of Hay-on-Wye. St. David is said to have lived in the area as a hermit, but this tradition lacks confirmation.
The story of the Priory is that around the year 1100 the ruins of a chapel and cell, supposed to have been that occupied by St. David, were discovered by a retainer of Hugh de Lacy, Baron of Herefordshire, named William. He thereupon decided to quit the world and become a hermit himself. He was later joined by Ernisius, chaplain to Queen Maud, wife of Henry I. These two anchorites became famous and their story reached Baron de Lacy, who in 1107 founded and endowed a monastery for them, dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The rule of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine was adopted. In the course of time, the severity of the climate, the poverty of the soil, and the persecution of the Welsh natives combined to make life there impossible. In 1134 the entire community, numbering about forty, abandoned the monastery and took refuge in the palace of Robert, Bishop of Hereford. After two years a new monastery was built for them near Gloucester by Milo, Earl of Hereford, which was called Llanthony Secunda. Only a few canons lived from time to time in the original monastery, and both houses were governed by one prior, who resided at Gloucester.
The buildings at Llanthony fell gradually into decay and passed into private hands when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1539. In 1807 the property was bought by Walter Savage Landor. It still belongs to his descendents, the habitable portion of it having been added to and converted into an inn during Queen Victoria’s reign. The church is in ruins, but the western towers, part of the central one, and some of the nave piers and arches are standing.
Here are a few pictures of Llanthony Priory taken today, 11 July 2011:
Llanthony Priory, Black Mountains, Wales
Llanthony Priory, Black Mountains, Wales
Llanthony Priory, Black Mountains, Wales
Llanthony Priory, Black Mountains, Wales
And this is the Inn built into the Priory ruins by the Landor family:
Victorian Inn at Llanthony Priory, Black Mountains, Wales
There is also a functioning Anglican Church in Wales parish church on the site of the Priory, St. Davids, Llanthony. The structure first seen in this picture is a cottage attached to the church, presumably intended to be the vicarage:
St Davids Parish Church, Llanthony, Wales
This is the interior of the church:
Interior of St Davids Parish Church, Llanthony, Wales
Notice the pulpit … it is built into the wall and cannot be accessed from the congregation’s side of a wall and arch that separates the congregation from the choir and chancel.
Pulpit of St Davids Parish Church, Llanthony, Wales
I entered the pulpit through this door. I almost couldn’t fit in and getting back out was a really spine-bending challenge!
Pulpit Doorway of St Davids Parish Church, Llanthony, Wales
All things considered, it was a good day in Wales. After visiting the parish church, I made my way back to the B&B in Hay-on-Wye by way of a “single track lane with passing areas” about which I’ve written earlier.
I left Llantwit Major, where I had surveyed the Church of St. Illtud (see My Day in Wales (Part 1)), and having given serious consideration to driving the 101 miles from there to St. David’s where the primatial Cathedral of the Church in Wales is located, I set out to do just that. It really is a lovely cathedral and there are well-preserved ruins of a monastery founded by St. David there. (Here is a link to the Cathedral’s website.) I got onto the M4 motorway and started driving west, but a little bit beyond Swansea, stopping for petrol and a Diet Coke, discretion got hold of me and I realized that I really didn’t want to spend two hours driving there and then to face three hours getting back to Hay-on-Wye. So I went back to my original plan, which was to drive to the village of Penderyn and visit the only whisky distillery in Wales.
I didn’t take any photos at the distillery; I simply enjoyed the tour in the company of an American family from Florida and their friends from Wales. The whisky at Penderyn was lovely – if you ever have a chance to sample any, do so. They have three finishes – standard, which is aged before bottling in bourbon barrels then finished in madeira casks; sherry, which is aged in the bourbon barrels then finished in sherry casks; and “peated”, which is aged and finished in barrels previously used for Laphroig Scotch. Penderyn is not the first whisky made in Wales. Welsh monks made whisky in the middle ages, but the practice died out. The last commercial distillery before Penderyn was R. J. Lloyd Price’s Welsh Whisky Distillery Company established in 1887 at Frongoch. However, it was not a success and was sold in 1900 to William Owen of Bala for ÂŁ5,000. The company made its last batch of bottled whisky in 1903 and was finally liquidated in 1910. That last batch met with an ignoble end when the horse cart it was being carried on fell over and all the bottles except two were smashed! One of the two is at the Penderyn Distillery today and the other is supposedly owned by Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. However, our guide told us that the Prince’s steward is reportedly unable to locate the bottle! The bottle at Penderyn is on display and we were told that it is believed that, at auction, it would fetch a price of ÂŁ300,000! For one liter of whisky! (The Frongoch product must have been pretty good … a cask of it was given to Queen Victoria by the local lodge of Freemasons when she visited the area in 1900 and she is reported to have gone through it rather quickly.)
The Penderyn products are pretty good, too! They didn’t have any of the peated available for tasting, but the standard and the sherry were delightful. They also make a gin and a vodka. Not being a vodka drinker I didn’t try that, but the gin is superb. More like the Dutch oude jenever than a traditional English dry gin. (The distillery has a very good and informative website which I invite you to view for yourself.) I only tasted very small sips of these spirits because, after all, I was on the road and still had to drive to Llanthony Priory and then back to Hay-on-Wye.
Driving through Wales today, I was struck by contrasts. From Cardiff to Swansea and beyond the M4 motorway is a broad, modern expressway on which cars and lorries zip along at 70 mph. Actually, many race by at even faster speeds. I’ve gotten the impression that in the United Kingdom “speed limits” are really “speed suggestions”…. Off of the motorway, on roads labeled as “A” roads, it’s a somewhat different story. “A” roads are two lane highways (one each direction) which back in the States (or at least in Ohio where I now live) would have a speed limit of no more than 45 mph and in many places, 35 mph. Here they generally are posted at 60 mph! And then there are “B” roads … these can be anything from something equivalent to a city residential street back home to a cow path!
My friends Ruthie and Clive live in Tylers Green, Penn, Buckinghamshire. To get to their home, my GPS (or “sat nav” as they are called here in the UK) directed me up a street called “Cock Lane” at the beginning which was a sign saying, “Single Lane Track with Passing Areas” … and that’s exactly what it is. I traveled on another road today with the same sign on display. Here’s few photos of that road taken from the driver’s viewpoint in my car:
Single Lane Track with Passing Areas, Black Mountains, Wales
Single Lane Track with Passing Areas, Black Mountains, Wales
The speed limit along here, by the way, is 30 mph! I did not drive anywhere near that speed; to travel these 9.2 miles took me 45 minutes. I met several vehicles coming the other way and often one or the other of us would have to stop and back-up to find a “passing area” where the other waved a thank you and we each went our way.
Single Lane Track with Passing Areas, Black Mountains, Wales
This particular single lane track with passing areas runs from Llanthony Priory to just outside Hay-on-Wye, a distance of 9.2 miles. Shortly after I took the photos above, the road got even narrower, and darker as trees growing along side arched over it forming a verdant tunnel. But then, rather quickly and unexpectedly, the roadside bushes and trees just disappeared and though the road got no wider, the vista broadened considerably.
Single Lane Track with Passing Areas, Black Mountains, Wales
I was in a mountain valley that was lush and green and filled with grazing sheep. It reminded me of the scenery in that great old movie starring Maureen O’Hara, Walter Pidgeon, and Barry Fitzgerald, How Green Was My Valley, a movie about growing up in a Welsh mining community (a young Roddy McDowall played a principal character). I don’t know where that movie was filmed, but my B&B host tells me that the area I drove through was where the outdoor scenes of another movie were filmed – An America Werewolf in London!
High mountain valley, Black Mountains, Wales
Sheep Grazing, Black Mountains, Wales
Shortly after I stopped to take the pictures above, I rounded a curve, topped a summit, and was treated to a breathtaking view of the Wye River valley. Even though the day was overcast at the time, the view was magnificent.
Wye Valley from Black Mountains summit, Hay-Llanthony Road
Wye Valley from Black Mountains summit, Hay-Llanthony Road
I was on this road driving from Llanthony Priory in the Black Mountains to my B&B in Hay-on-Wye. In the third and final installment of this description of my day in Wales, I’ll have pictures of the Priory. See My Day in Wales (Part 3).
Driving this sort of road (or any road, for that matter) is one of the times when I especially pray for God’s protection. In DĂĄnta DĂ© there is a morning hymn (described as a ceol na ndaoine or “folk music”) which seeks God’s protection as “king of the graces” when “in each way that I shall take in the road that I wish to go.” First, the Irish Gaeilge:
A Rà na ngrås thug slån mé ó oidhche aréir,
Buidheachas naomhta do gnat do Rà na gCréacht;
Do bhrigh Do PhĂĄise, a Ărd-Mhic, dĂdean mĂ© saor
Ă ghnĂomharthaibh ShĂĄtain gach lĂĄ is go crĂc mo shaoghail.âAthair na gcĂłmhacht fĂłir mĂ© Ăł phĂ©ist an uilc
Anns gach anach a ngeĂłbhad san rĂłd ân ar mĂ©in liom dul,
Go cathair [Do GhlĂłire] a gcĂłmhnaidhe tĂ©idhim ar dtĂșs
âS a n-ainm na trĂłcaire treĂłruigh fĂ©in mĂ© indiĂș.
And the direct English translation:
O King of graces, Who brought me safe from yester-night,
Holy thanksgiving (be) always to the King of the Wounds:
By the power of Thy Passion, O High Son, protect me safe
From the deeds of Satan each day to my lifeâs end.O Father of powers, save me from the serpent of evil,
In each way that I shall take in the road that I wish to go,
To the Throne [of Thy Glory] always first I go,
And in Mercyâs Name lead me Thyself to-day.
Noswaith dda!
Noswaith dda is Welsh for “Good evening” – do not try to pronounce it – whatever you guess will be wrong, I assure you.
I drove a circle through the Brecon Beacons today – I almost drove to St. David’s – but five hours of driving (two to get there from where I was just west of Swansea and three to get back from there to my B&B in Hay-on-Wye) didn’t seem like a good idea, so I didn’t. Instead I went to St. Illtuds in Llantwit Major, then to the Penderyn Distillery, then to Llanthony Priory … and then walked the streets of Hay-on-Wye and looked at lots of old books. It was overwhelming, even for a bibliophile like me … there are too many books … and some of the shops are simply disorganized. Many have the books categorized by subject, shelved alphabetically by author, etc. But some are just disorganized heaps of books – I think even the owners don’t know where anything is.
I was disappointed in St. Illtud’s Church and the ruins at Llantwit Major. The modern Welsh-English name comes from the old Welsh name Llanilltud Fawr. Llan means “monastery” and you can see St. Illtud’s name in the rest of that first word. The second word, fawr, means “great”. So the name is something like “Illtud’s Great Monastery” which was founded in the early 5th Century by St. Illtud as a center of learning … but it’s not so great any longer.
This is a very important site in Celtic Christian history and it’s not cared for very well at all. The monastic community here, over which St. Illtud and St. Samson were priors, was once so important in the formation of monks, priests, missionaries, and bishops that it has been called “The University of Celtic Saints.” St. David of Wales was educated and ordained there, and he is not the only one: in addition to St. David, St. Samson, St. Paul Aurelian, St. Gildas, St. Tudwal, St. Baglan and King Maelgwn ap Cadwallon (King of Gwynedd and apparently High King of Wales in the middle of the 5th Century) are said to have studied at the Cor Tewdws or “divinity school”.
The Scots and the Irish seem to have a sense of reverence for their ancient Christian monastic sites, but apparently not so the Welsh (or at least not the people of Llantwit Major). Although inside the church there is a poster about a fund raising effort to preserve what’s left and build a visitor center, it’s pretty clear it’s not going anywhere – the poster is a few years old. And in the old chapel, there are dustbins and a composting thing set up….
Here are some pictures of the Church of St. Illtud’s and what remains of the medieval buildings that were once found at this site. Of course, the earlier Celtic site has long since disappeared. First, the church as seen from the town’s public car park and then a couple of photos of the building from the church yard.
St. Illtuds Church, Llantwit Major, from town car park
St. Illtuds Church, Llantwit Major, from church yard
St. Illtuds Church, Llantwit Major, from church yard and showing ruined monastic chapel at west end
There is a ruined chapel affixed to the functioning church directly out the west door; in this chapel are currently housed dustbins (trash cans, to an American) and a green plastic composting container!
St. Illtuds, ruined chapel with composting bin
On the grounds was also a ruined chantry which has now been turned into a memory garden:
St. Illtuds, ruined chantry memory garden
Inside the church there are some stones with Celtic carving and Latin inscriptions which may date from the early Celtic monastery:
St. Illtuds, Celtic Cross bearing name of Illtud
St. Illtuds, Celtic carved stones
And, of course, the Victorians got to the place and their influence is seen in the chancel of the church and the reredos:
St. Illtuds, chancel, altar and reredos
After surveying the church at Llantwit Major (which didn’t really take as much time as I thought it would), I gave serious consideration to driving the 101 miles from there to St. David’s where the primatial Cathedral of the Church in Wales is located. It really is a lovely cathedral and there are well-preserved ruins of a monastery founded by St. David there. (Here is a link to the Cathedral’s website.) In fact, I got onto the M4 motorway and started to do just that, but a little bit west of Swansea, stopping for petrol and a Diet Coke, discretion got hold of me and I realized that I really didn’t want to spend two hours driving there and then to face three hours getting back to Hay-on-Wye. So I went back to my original plan, which was to drive to the village of Penderyn and visit the only whisky distillery in Wales. (See My Day in Wales (Part 2) for more about that.)
(Later in the day I visited Llanthony Priory, another monastic ruin, in the Black Mountains south of Hay-on-Wye. Read My Day in Wales (Part 3) for that story and more photos.)
Today, 9 July 2011, I walked the hills of southeastern England visiting two fascinating sites that may date back as many as 5,000 years!
First I visited the village of Uffington, Oxfordshire, and the hill south of town on which one finds a massive depiction in white chalk of a horse. I tried to take a picture of it, but from ground level that is very difficult to do and (on this day) the site was crawling with several hundred early elementary school students on school outings. So here’s a picture from Wikicommons:
The Uffington White Horse from the Air
I walked up to the area where the head of the horse is seen in this picture. It was an overcast and hazy but warm day – a good thing because it was also very breezy. It was about a mile or so walk up the hill from the car park via the Ridge Path, which took me through the Uffington Castle, which isn’t what you think it is at all … not a castle in the medieval sense. Uffington Castle is all that remains of an early Iron Age hill fort. It is composed of two circular earth berms (with a circular ditch between them) surrounding about 32,000 square meters (nearly 8 acres). There is an entrance in the eastern portion, near the White Horse and another at the south (through which I entered). An entrance in the western side was apparently blocked up a few centuries after it was built. I was able to take a picture of the “castle” (although it doesn’t look like much). This picture is taken from the eastern entrance of the southeastern quadrant; the southern entrance can be seen at the right of the picture.
Uffington Castle, Oxfordshire, UK
As you can see, the White Horse is a highly stylised prehistoric hill figure, 110 m long (374 feet), formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is believed, and scientific tests have shown it, to date back some 3,000 years, to the Bronze Age. The purposes of its creators is completely unknown. It is not of Celtic origin, but G.K. Chesterton used it as the setting for part of his Catholic allegorical and poetic retelling of the story of the Saxon king Alfred the Great, who defeated the invading Danes in the Battle of Ethandun in 878, which is entitled The Ballad of the White Horse.
Before the gods that made the gods
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was cut out of the grass.Before the gods that made the gods
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.Age beyond age on British land,
Aeons on aeons gone,
Was peace and war in western hills,
And the White Horse looked on.For the White Horse knew England
When there was none to know;
He saw the first oar break or bend,
He saw heaven fall and the world end,
O God, how long ago.
As retold by Chesterton, Alfred and his Saxons set out from the White Horse and Alfred gathers there three great chieftains, Mark a Roman, Eldred the Franklin who is a Saxon, and Colan who is a Celt. In describing Colan, Chesterton includes these priceless lines:
For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.
After visiting the Uffington site, I went to Avebury to see the largest “henge” in Britain (possibly the largest man-made earthwork of its kind in all of Europe). A henge (the word is derived from Stonehenge and was coined in the mid-20th Century) is an earthen berm circular with an interior circular ditch. Because the ditch is on the inside, not the outside, of the berm, henges are not considered to be defensive fortifications. One scholar, however, has suggested that they are defensive in that he believes they were built to contain something and protect those outside from what was inside – and what was inside was divine energy. The Avebury henge contains many standing stones that are laid out in peculiar formations, some circles, some straight lines, some curving formations not forming full circles. Here are some photos of the standing stones.
Standing Stones near World Heritage Center Shop, Avebury, UK
Stone Circle portion within the Avebury Henge
This is a map (from Wikimedia) showing the Avebury henge and the position of the standing stones (and theoretical stones completing the circles). It does not show the Avebury village buildings which have been built within the henge. The henge has a circumference of about 3/4 of a mile.
Map of Avebury Henge (non-free material from Wikimedia)
I am intrigued by the idea that because the ditch and bank face inward, in the opposite order that they would be placed in a defensive ring fort, something âdangerousâ or âpowerfulâ was understood to be inside the enclosure. The proposal is that henges were designed mainly to enclose ceremonial sites seen as âritually chargedâ and therefore dangerous to people, that whatever took place inside the enclosures was intended to be separate from the outside. In other words, the henge may have been a means by which neolithic society set aside âsacred spaceâ in much the same way that modern human beings do with churches, mosques, temples, and so forth.
The hymn An Aluinn DĂșn (The Heavenly Habitation), which was set out in an earlier post, is about sacred space (heaven, particularly). The Celts and the Gaels have a special sense about sacred places; they marked them, but did not attempt to set them off or guard against them in the way henges seem to do. In fact, holy caves and holy wells were understood to be places of refreshment, “thin places” between our world and the spiritual realm, not something to be feared, but something to enjoy, somewhere to grow closer to God.
The other cathedral church I visited on 8 July 2011 was that in the town of St. Albans. It might not actually be a town. British law makes distinctions between hamlets, villages, towns, and cities – and perhaps other urban designations (I don’t really know). There are also parishes (of two types, ecclesiastical and legal), boroughs, and counties. Each of these legal geographies has its own council or other form of government, and their interactions (amongst themselves and between them and the national government) are the stuff of much news commentary. In any event, there is a place called St. Albans and I’ll call it a town whether it legally is one or not.
St. Albans was founded by the Romans who called it Verulamium. The town now has a really lovely public park call Verulamium Park and parts of the old Roman town’s wall are on display there. There are also lovely rolling green hills, huge willows and other shade trees, and a delightful pond which is the home of swans, geese, and ducks who are regularly fed by the citizenry. Here are a couple of pictures of the park (including the wall):
Pond at Verulamium Park, St. Albans
Roman Wall, Verulamium Park, St. Albans
St. Albans Cathedral seen through the Roman Wall, Verulamium Park
The cathedral is dedicated to, and the town gets its current name from, St. Alban, first martyr of Britain. The story is that Alban was a pagan Roman soldier. According to James Kiefer’s hagiography, “he gave shelter to a Christian priest who was fleeing from arrest, and in the next few days the two talked at length, and Alban became a Christian. When officers came in search of the priest, Alban met them, dressed in the priest’s cloak, and they mistook him for the priest and arrested him. He refused to renounce his new faith, and was beheaded. He thus became the first Christian martyr in Britain. The second was the executioner who was to kill him, but who heard his testimony and was so impressed that he became a Christian on the spot, and refused to kill Alban. The third was the priest, who when he learned that Alban had been arrested in his place, hurried to the court in the hope of saving Alban by turning himself in. The place of their deaths is near the site of St. Alban’s Cathedral today.”
Front porch, Cathedral Church of St. Alban, St. Albans, UK
The shrine of St. Alban is inside the cathedral. It forms a separate chapel behind the “screen” or reredos behind the high altar (and before the Lady Chapel which takes up what an American church member would think of as the “chancel” area of the building). While I was photographing the shrine, one of the cathedral guides came up and engaged me in conversation. In the course of our discourse she said, “We have a bone you know?” – “I thought the saint’s whole body was here!” – “Oh, no! The bones were taken away when Henry the Eighth abolished the monasteries! Most of his bones were taken to the continent and an awful lot of them were taken to the cathedral in Cologne. A few years ago the Bishop of Cologne visited and he brought us a bone – Alban’s right shoulder bone! Of course, we’re Anglicans so we’re not much on relics … but we said, ‘Thank you very much’ and accepted his bone.” – “Oh… well, where is this bone?” – “It’s in a lovely box under the shroud on the shrine!” So here’s a picture of the shrine … under that red cover somewhere is a “lovely box” contained a shoulder bone, allegedly Alban’s…..
Shrine of St. Alban, St. Albans Cathedral
The reason I visited this particular place, other than it’s Roman history connection (there’s no Celtic connection that I know of), is that I was ordained on the feast of St. Alban (well… the eve, actually, but we used the Propers for St. Alban’s feast), so I consider him the patron of my priesthood.
On 8 July 2011 I visited two cathedrals, the first of which was St. Edmundsbury Cathedral (which is in the town of Bury St. Edmunds – don’t ask me why the names are differently formatted; even the cathedral guide I spoke with couldn’t tell me). The town and cathedral are named for St. Edmund, King and Martyr, who was king of the East Angles; he was killed by Danish invaders in 869 CE. They had offered him peace on condition that he would rule as their vassal and forbid the practice of the Christian faith. For his refusal, he was tied to a tree and shot with arrows. Around 900 CE, Edmundâs body was brought to Bedericesworth (now called Bury St. Edmunds) and housed in a shrine in what developed into a great Benedictine abbey. That shrine became a great place of pilgrimage and Edmund was the patron saint of England, until St George replaced him.
The Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich was created in 1914, the Church of St James (on the grounds of the Benedictine abbey’s ruins) was designated as the Cathedral. In 2009 the Cathedral changed its dedication to become the Cathedral Church of St James and St Edmund.
Here are a few photos from the cathedral. First, exterior as seen from the gate from the Abbey Gardens. It was a very rainy day when I visited, so I did not go around and take a photo of the front of the cathedral from the High Street.
St. Edmundsbury Cathedral seen from the Abbey Garden gate
The main nave of the church:
St. Edmundsbury Cathedral Interior
The High Altar and then the altar in a side chapel:
St. Edmundsbury Cathedral High Altar
St. Edmundsbury Cathedral side chapel
Finally a couple of pieces of statuary. First, a wood carving of St. Edmund inside the cathedral. There is a larger bronze statue on the grounds, but because of the rain, I wasn’t able to get a picture of it. The second statue is a piece commemorating explorer Bartholomew Gosnold who gave Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, its name. He sailed to the island in 1602. On seeing wild grape vines growing there, he named it for his second child, who died in infancy, and who was named Martha. Martha Gosnold had been christened in St James Church and her body is buried it its churchyard.
Wooden carving of St. Edmund, King and Martyr
Statue commemorating explorer Bartholomew Gosnold
After visiting St. Edmundbury Cathedral, I left the city and drove to the university town of Cambridge to have lunch with friends. Unfortunately, the English roads, English traffic, and English congestion got the better of me and I never made it to the lunch date. I tried … but I can now say, “I have been to Cambridge, where I failed.” Instead of meeting my friends for lunch, I threw up my hands in frustration and drove on to St. Albans where I visited the second cathedral of the day and about which I will write another post later.
