Here Is Church

The spread in the Guardian was a dramatic 360 degree view of St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, hundreds of priests, Pope Francis leading a splendid, in every sense of the term, Holy Thursday service. 

I was captivated by the amazing photo. It awoke fond memories of Church.

But something in that Holy of Holies was out of place. Then I saw it, right in the foreground the priest with his mobile phone , held up up high , filming or taking a picture, or searching for a signal, I don’t know. But it was sad.

It made me think of Linda and how she might be if she could be there.

But she can never go to a Church, never mind Rome. Her world is a cast-off, battered, old settee and the one room.

But when she prays, when she speaks of her encounter with God in suffering, it feels like the holiest place anywhere.

There is enormous stillness , intimate presence, the space between us suffused with the golden radiance in her deep brown eyes and the power of truth, spirit, knowledge and light sparkling there.

Here is sacred, fragile ground. The slightest wrong movement or word on my part is enough to send her plummeting into screamingly awful depths of paralysis and pain.

Here is Church, here is God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit humbly with us. The very air holding its breath.

The eternal silence. Our little room