ON A MISSION

Salisbury Cathedral, England

This month we're in Santa Barbara, I've mentioned, house sitting for friends.  We've resumed a travel-hobby here--visiting churches.  In some European cities that might mean cathedrals, where I light candles for those I worry about and see who is buried there.  If we can, we attend Evensong or morning prayer and hear the Grand Organs and the Cathedral choirs.  No matter how crowded with visitors, cathedrals are worshipful experiences.  

Our granddaughter said on a recent trip that Salisbury Cathedral was her best experience. It's a Gothic engineering marvel with a spire over 400 feet tall, the highest in England.  In a place of worship for over 800 years, one cannot help but feel the continuity of believers.  I do not doubt my faith, but if one did, witnessing the faith of others over the centuries would help assuage that doubt. In these medieval places, made of crystalline limestone from European quarries, I always think of the words, "Christ Alone the Cornerstone."   We are not only never without God, we also are never without fellow believers.  This is good.

10th California Mission, Santa Barbara, 1786

Here in Santa Barbara, visiting ancient churches means following the Mission Trail, in the footsteps of many. It's a fascinating story and not without the flaws that missionary zeal everywhere may engender:  the history of spreading faith along 800 miles of California coast by Father Junipero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan missionary who brought Christianity to the native Chumash people of North America.  From 1769 to 1835, he started missions up and down the coast of Spanish-occupied Alta California.  

Old Mission, Santa Ines, 1804

The first to be founded was Mission San Diego in 1769, the next in Monterey in 1770, two near Los Angelos in 1771 and so on.  Set about 30 miles apart, or a day's ride on horseback, all twenty-one missions are still active Catholic parishes with regular Sunday services.  It really would be a pilgrimage to visit and perhaps worship in all twenty-one, but we won't be doing that during our house-sitting vacation.  Still, we have seen two of the missions already, during our first weeks here, the mission church of Santa Barbara and the Old Mission of Santa Ines.  Like churches everywhere, they speak to the heart.  We stand where others have stood in prayer, in heartbreak and in thanksgiving.  We stand where others have sought and received healing and forgiveness.  We receive communion where it has been given for hundreds of years. 

 

Visiting churches is as much about worship as it is about history and sight-seeing. It's a way to stop and remember that God is not just in the whales and dolphins off the California shore or the live oak and redwood trees, or in our hearts and souls, but in manmade spaces designed to do God homage where we can sing and pray in community, taking care of each other along the way.  

The Mission Trail reveals nothing like the majesty we see in European cathedrals. No Rose windows or stained glass.  The mission churches have the appeal of simplicity and the Franciscan vows of poverty.  They are of a piece with the land and the times. The only adornment is vibrant color in the few statues and wall art.  Standing in these simple naves one feels piety.  

How fortunate we are to be part of this tradition.  We too can pray here.  Our faith can settle for a moment in these simple spaces and feel the strength and breadth of what we believe.  With God's help, we can do this in any sanctuary we enter.  With God's help, we can do it anywhere.