larry
From St Bernard's, Belfast
I'm spending the next couple of years in the 'Eternal City' and am lucky enough to explore sites with connections to the early church on a regular basis.
Have you guys ever visited Rome and toured the churches, basilicas etc? Wonder what your thoughts and reflections are on any experiences you had or treasured memories.
Do you 'do' pilgrimage elsewhere? (Obv. the holy land for some fortunate folks!!)
If so, where else has significance for you....
An unused 'memorial' to a bygone era is indeed disheartening, if it no longer functions as a place for a community to worship God in. Nearly all the places here are still well kept and run as current parishes and venues of pilgrimage, so thankfully they're not simply a time capsule of a bygone age where Christianity was the norm.
The interesting tension is how to keep the doors of a church with history open to both the people who come to reverence God in that place and those who simply adore the architecture, art, atmosphere, whatever... it's a big challenge for these houses of prayer to retain a spirit of being a 'temple' rather than a tourist trap where anything goes.
As for relics, I think places, people and objects associated with the life of the early Church (including Jesus himself) are valuable aids to faith, in the sense that they remind us of the sheer incarnation and actuality of the apparently lofty and idealistic events of the NT and beyond. Tracing the way God has worked through his church by reflecting on tangible evidence of holy lives is a good thing. Some have better provinence than others of course and no-one is obliged to affirm or deny the identity or validity of a particular relic, but they always make me marvel at the brute facts of God's work through our human history.
St Patrick, however, should obviously be represented as a 19th century nobleman in a fine armchair (to be more historically accurate lol) ;OP
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I get really disheartened with any time I've spent in big old cathedrals (regardless of denomination)
the worst one was Palma in Mallorca where all the statues were draped in dust.
and does ANYONE still believe that the relics might actually be what they claim to be? surely not?
such an advert for a living God!
recently we went to both the cathedrals in Armagh where both are still very much alive and active places of worship.
sadly, no place in either for a worship band!!
as to the "signifigant sites".....
haven't been, but would like to do Israel some day. but the idea that most of the places that are signifigant now have a huge basilica built on them really puts me off.
Ah well, each to thier own I guess!
I have been to Saul, which is where St Patrick built his first church in Ireland. there are two "memorials" there. a tiny church, very simple, still used for services, and I know a guy who was married in it a while back. I can imagine Patrick looking a it now and thinking that there was a connection.......
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/90/Saul_church.jpg/800px-Saul_church.jpg
on the next hilltop is a statue of "Patrick" dressed up as a Bishop in 17th century attire. (only about 1300 years out!!...... think a statue of King Arthur in kevlar bodyarmour carrying a modern LMG)
http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/28/32/283222_2d90239f.jpg
what is THAT about?????