Rest a while

A line from this Sunday’s First Reading, reads

“for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”. (Isaiah 56:7)

A recent Saturday evening Mass at Sagrada Familia parish in Barcelona had all the hallmarks of a neighbourhood worship service, from prayers for ill and deceased members to name-day wishes for two congregants in the pews.

But it also featured security checks to get in and curious tourists peering down to take photos of the worshippers from above.

The regular Mass is held in the crypt of modernist architect Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece church, The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, one of Europe’s most visited monuments.

With the pandemic stringent rules now relaxed, iconic sacred sites are struggling to accommodate the faithful who come to pray and the millions of visitors who often pay to view the art and architecture.

An increasingly popular strategy is to have visitors and the faithful go separate ways – with services held in discrete places, visits barred at worship times, or altogether different entry queues.

This spring, the Vatican opened a separate “pathway” starting outside St. Peter’s Basilica for those who want to enter to pray or attend Mass, so they wouldn’t be discouraged by sometimes hours-long lines for the average of 55,000 daily visitors.

But the challenge remains: how to balance the churches’ competing roles amid the tourism surge without sacrificing their spiritual purpose.

With an estimated 330 million people visiting religious sites yearly around the world, it’s one of the tourism market’s largest segments.

Filled with masterpieces from Romanesque sculpture to lavish Baroque decorations, Santiago’s cathedral of Santiago de Compostela attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists and pilgrims who since the Middle Ages have travelled along the Camino routes to venerate St. James’s tomb.

As people, we need the transcendent.

Leisure and rest, and time with God, are not incompatible,

Co-existence between worshippers and tourists has been controversial at Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia. Built as a landmark cathedral in the Byzantine era, turned into a mosque by the conquering Ottoman empire in the 1400s, and opened as a museum for the last century, it was converted back into a functioning mosque in 2020 by Turkey’s Islamic-oriented government.

Now visitors can tour the structure for free outside of prayer hours. In Hagia Sophia’s main section where prayers are held, the vast mosaics depicting Christian figures are hidden behind drapes and most of the marble floor is covered with carpeting.

With some 2.5 million annual visitors, Barcelona Cathedral was also close to a breaking point. The cathedral instituted caps on visitor numbers, required tour groups to use wireless audio guides to reduce noise, and added staffers to explain the new policies to visitors and those coming for daily Mass or confession, held in a side chapel with crystal doors to preserve silence.

Many of these iconic buildings are still active places of worship.

In a statement it reminds persons visiting that “this cathedral has been and is a space dedicated to prayer” before describing its stunning Catalan Gothic architecture.

3.7 million tourists explored the Sagrada Familia’s arresting architecture and mesmerizing stained glass windows last year. Each begins their visit as a tourist, they may well leave to continue their journey as a pilgrim.

“for my house shall be called
a house of prayer for all peoples”. (Isaiah 56:7)

 

The illustration is of The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, also known as Barcelona Cathedral, Spain.

[It is worth knowing that the building known as the Barcelona Cathedral and the La Sagrada Familia Basilica are separate buildings.]

This Sunday’s Gospel ( Mt. 14: 22 – 33) recounts for us the story of Jesus walking on the water toward the disciples in the boat, Peter’s movement toward Jesus, Peter sinking, and Jesus stretching out and taking hold of him.
Did Jesus actually walk on the water? I have no idea!

Were there perhaps stones he used? I have no idea, although my mind casts back to the image of The Giants Causeway, an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption.

It is located in County Antrim on the north coast of Northern Ireland.

Rather than concern myself with the historical truth of this narrative, I am going to use the story as a metaphor and invite you to journey with me!
The Jewish people of Jesus’ time, although some were fisherman, had a strong dislike of the sea. This dislike verged on fear.

The reason was that the sea was the home of Leviathan, the sea monster.

The Psalmist sings of God defeating Leviathan and other sea monsters (Psalm 74). Yahweh did not just make the world, he fought with the sea to make it. And having over-mastered the waters, to make the world, when he wanted to annihilate the world he regretted making, it was the waters he used to destroy it.

Deep in the folk lore and psyche of the Jewish people these stories are recalled around the campfire!

A storm at sea would stir the memories with immediacy, “battered by the waves, far from land, and the wind was against them” (v.24) [Leviathan has stirred!]

Right from within this place appears Jesus. Jesus is present in the home of the monster, and calls Peter to come to him through that sea.

Jesus is present in our stormy place, the place we dislike most, our place of fear.

And the way to Jesus is through it. There is no walking around the edges. Jesus is in the place of dislike, the place of fear. In fact, St. Peter calls to Jesus to come to him at that very place, “Lord, if it is you come to me on the water.”( v. 28)

The illustration shows Peter reaching out from the water (that place of dislike, of fear) and Jesus is there with him, in that same place.

The Scripture commentator, N.T. (Tom) Wright comments, “Curiously enough, only one great picture of this scene has ever been painted (by Conrad Witz in 1444. You might have thought it would have made an ideal subject: Jesus as a shimmering figure on the water, frightened disciples huddling in the boat, and Peter, caught between glory and terror, walking on the water towards Jesus and then…starting to sink. Perhaps devout artists avoided it because it seemed to show up the great apostle in a bad light” – N. T. Wright

On July 31, 1991, the celebrated operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti gave a concert at Hyde Park, London.

The concert was free, and an audience of more than 100,000 packed the park.

The concert was to celebrate his 30 years in opera.

Dignitaries (including the then Prince and Princess of Wales), opera patrons, joined with the hoi polloi to celebrate the person and the voice that had enthralled them for many years.

And it rained.

For the ninety minutes of the concert, it rained.

I recall seeing a television interview with one of the concert-goers. The person being interviewed was dripping wet, and when being asked whether the rain spoiled the concert the person replied, “has it been raining?”

There was no rhetoric involved. The response was genuine. “I came for the voice!” the one being interviewed explained with a broad smile.

I imagine that as this person arrived home and dried themself, their clothing, and their shoes, the reality of the rain would become evident.

As the high B4 at the end of the aria Nessun Dora, began to fade catching a bus or a train becomes a reality.

Even for a tenor of Pavarotti’s genius, the breath runs out.

Today’s Gospel (Mt. 17: 1 – 9) is commonly known as the Transfiguration.

Each of the Synoptic Gospels recounts the occasion of Jesus’ encounter with the prophets Moses and Elijah “up a high mountain” (v. 1).

Jesus has taken with him Peter, James, and John.

“His (Jesus) face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white.” (v.2).

Peter’s response is not unlike the Hyde Park concertgoer’s, namely, “I came for the voice.”

Peter exclaims, “It is good for us to be here; “

Then, Peter adds, “Let me make three dwellings” (v.4).

Peter’s desire is to stay on the mountaintop, this place of dazzling glory.

I suggest we read on further, for the mountain-top experience finishes at ground level with the cure of a boy possessed by a demon. (Mt. 17:14ff).

Each of the Gospels, immediately after the encounter on the mountain, has Jesus back at ground level and involved in what he came for, “Lord, have mercy on my son, he suffers terribly.” (v. 15).

The mountaintop is not where we live; we can visit on occasion.

The air is too rarified for regular breathing.

Ground level is where we breathe easily and where the mercy of God is being called for.

This Sunday’s Gospel is a theme familiar to most of house, ‘a treasure hunt.’

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.

So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out, separate the evil from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’” (Mt. 13: 44 – 45)

Once upon a time there was a tailor who lived in a small village on the outskirts of a large city. He made only a meagre living from his business.

One night he had a dream in which a voice said to him, ‘If you go to the city and dig behind a certain tree in the emperor’s castle, you will find a great treasure.’
The poor man placed great trust in dreams, so, the very next day, he set out for the city.

However, when he got to there, he found that the castle was guarded.
Unable to cross the bridge that led to the castle, he lived under the bridge for a while.

While there he became friends with the captain of the guard.

One day he shared his story with the captain.

He said, ‘I had a dream that if I got into the castle grounds, and went to a certain tree and dug there, I would find a treasure.’

The captain of the guard gave a hearty laugh. ‘You’re a very foolish man,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t believe that sort of thing. I have dreams myself. Once I had a dream that in a small village there lived a poor tailor, not unlike you. I dreamt that if I went to his house, and dug behind his stove, I would find a treasure that somebody had buried there many years ago. Of course, I dismissed it as foolishness.

The tailor thanked the captain of the guard, went back home, dug behind his own hearth, and found the treasure.