Walking around a ruin when the roof of the Church is long gone, with the sky the ceiling, the boundaries collapse between the sacred and the natural. That is when the light really gets in. Not distracted by bad music, poor homilies or parish politics, feeling the sacred in the stone becomes the focus.
I know all those things probably existed there, but they’re gone now. Now only the stone is left and the memories it absorbed, the prayers and tears, the joy and the sadness. Sometimes the damage is actually the healing where you can crack open, be raw and be so very present.
Peace seems to come easier there, memory fills in some gaps in the mortar, the yearning seems to be embodied by what’s left there. I can sit there, sometimes in the gentle rain, and hold vigil for what was. This isn’t a place to stay, it is definitely just a place to visit, pause and feel the history of the Church thru it’s remnants. Maybe I’m a remnant too, the one walking in the shadows, lighting a candle, fidgeting with my rosary trying to hold hands with what was and what is.