One of the motives for starting this blog in the first place (and for keeping it going) has been the excuse for going inside buildings I’ve not been in before. I’ve driven past this church on my way home through Hampton on the Hill many times and always take the opportunity to glance over the wall and see the unique picture.
St Charles Borromeo is an odd, but thoroughly pleasing sight. The church is built on the side of the house, or should that be the other way round? Google for yourself if it’s dates you’re after, the appearance in most appealing however it came into being. The house is now the Presbytery meaning the current incumbent Canon has a very short journey to work and no problem with the regular 9.00am start.
Inside is ample justification for the practice of opening doors you’ve never previously pushed. A small but light T-shaped church with a fabulously ornate altar and surround, it’s an attractive and welcoming space.
And there’s a fair few people here. Over this weekend I’ve been to the Pump Rooms for chamber music and stood behind the goal at St Andrews for songs of an entirely different kind. Both those mutually-exclusive audiences completely suited their respective event. It would be almost impossible not to look at someone and know which event he or she should be at. Here is a third audience and I find myself wondering what Catholics ‘should’ look like and how you’d go about drawing a Venn diagram to display the groupings. Uniquely, I’d guess, I was at all three which either means I belong everywhere or essentially nowhere. Fine thoughts for a Sunday morning.
The mass itself is standard and only two points raise a slight eyebrow. One is the complete absence of musical accompaniment to the hymns, and the other is that in singing hymn numbers 934, 872 and 865 I’m pondering if this is the highest aggregate number ever. There’s bound to be an app, if only I had a smart enough phone.
Tomorrow being Holocaust Memorial Day the homily inevitably touches on thoughts of those unimaginably dark times. Turning our attentions to the establishing of a ghetto in Rome in far earlier times, Canon Stewart urges worshippers to remember that Christians certainly predated and arguably trumped the Nazis in their shameful treatment of the Jewish people. He noted that when the offer was made to Jews living there to remove historic art over-zealously pressing Jews to recognise Christ, the community’s leaders declined. Such forcible attempts to impose one set of beliefs over another were, they said, part of their faith’s history and their removal would lessen our chances of understanding that history and learning its vital lessons. In a world where we’re constantly trying to revise history to suit often short-sighted attempts to ‘move on’ and improve, it’s a thought well worth bearing in mind.
