Worshipping at Canterbury Cathedral

On Sunday morning we were woken up at 7:45 AM by the bells of the Cathedral sounding the wake up call - these bells went on for 10 minutes! There were actually bells throughout the morning, sometimes a single tone struck repeatedly, like the wake up call, or sometimes a variety of tones in a pattern, or even (seemingly) random. We couldn’t figure out what most of them were for, but it was nice to hear. Beth wondered if the locals got sick of the bells, but we enjoyed them.

After breakfast, which was delivered to our room, we got ready for worship. We went to the Sung Eucharist at 11 AM, the primary of the 5 services being held at the Cathedral that day. We were arriving pretty well right at 11 AM and so were held up by the ushers because the procession was about to start. All of a sudden we were surrounded by a massive organ sound, then the congregation swelled into song and the procession made its way into the cathedral. I was surprised that we were going into the front part of the cathedral since there was a huge nave behind us, but then we went through the doors at the tail end of the procession and were astounded by the huge space in front of us. The Cathedral was a bit misleading, it was very long, and the part we saw the previous evening (which we assumed was the majority) was probably not even half the space. (This service was using the High Altar, and we walked up a number of steps to enter the nave, and another bunch of steps to the altar rail for communion - High Altar indeed.) So we entered this historic space to a glorious sound of pipe organ and singing… the sound was as large as the space!

During the worship service I came to a new understanding of choral masses, participating in one in that grand space things clicked. The choral masses were written for spaces such as this, and in the Canterbury Cathedral I found a new appreciation for those works. That morning there was a visiting choir from Sussex as the Cathedral Choir was on tour somewhere. We were told by a guide that choirs from across England queue up to sing fill-in at the Cathedral, and I can believe it, it would be great to have the Christ Lutheran Chamber Choir experience singing in a space like that. This choir was not robed, and was obviously volunteers, but they did a really nice job, especially of some Haydn selections, and the Bruchner's Locus Iste (which the Luther College Choir sang this year). Beth and I were certainly getting to hear a lot of Haydn this past week.

I also came to a new understanding of how the choir can be used in worship. This was something I have understood theoretically, but having experienced it at Canterbury Cathedral has given me an actual example to relate to. However the architecture, acoustics and seating arrangement of the worship space helped in this regard.

During the service I found myself thinking “We are worshipping in a place where Christians have been worshipping since the days of the Roman Empire.” In fact, truth be told, I was thinking some of those thoughts during the sermon, which that morning was being delivered bv a female preacher, the Arch Deacon of the Cathedral. It was based on the Gospel, a reflection on fear, why it is sometimes necessary and good, but more often it is destructive and contrary to faith. But as the sermon had to be delivered in a measured pace (due to the acoustics in the Cathedral) it came across as a little dry. Being there I came to understand more fully why music, and speaking, needed to be done in a slower, measured pace, the reverb in there made anything else impossible… perhaps that’s why people associated slower hymns with reverence since that’s how the hymns were played in the cathedrals, thought of as the pinnacle of worship expression, and copied by church musicians back home.

I certainly felt inspired by the worship that morning, mostly because of the glorious organ music accompanying the hymns. I would have liked to sing loudly along with the hymns, but two things prevented that - first I’ve developed a bit of a cold and sometimes things like singing will induce a coughing spell, and second, none of the hymn tunes were familiar to me - even with the closing hymn, the words were very familiar (Love Divine, All Loves Excelling) while the tune was vastly different.

Following the service Beth and I took a long time wandering through the cathedral, and especially appreciated seeing the spot where Archbishop Thomas Beckett was murdered in the 11th century. It is partly because of this martyrdom that Canterbury became a pilgrimage site. I wondered if I would be as calm as Thomas Beckett, who insisted the monks unbar the door “I will not have the church become a fortress” allowing in the knights who murdered him on the spot. Later Henry the 8th ordered all shrines to Thomas Beckett destroyed (I guess he didn’t like the idea of people celebrating church officials who stood up to the King). We saw a stained glass window in Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford that was special because it is one of the few images of Thomas Beckett to have survived Henry the 8th’s purge. In the Canterbury Cathedral, where the original shrine to Beckett stood, there is only an empty space, with a large lit candle in the center of it (see the picture).

Some of the stained glass windows were incredible, but I liked a modern window the most - the red, purple and blue hues were deep and brilliant. The old technique was to paint on the stained glass windows, thus the natural beauty of the glass was often shrouded a bit, but this new window was simply glass in such great colours shining through in all its fullness.

Afterwards we checked out the shops in the Burgate (the little shop area right around the gate to the cathedral) and much to our delight a ceramic shop that we spotted the day before was open (even though the sign didn’t indicate a Sunday opening). We had noticed a beautiful red chalice and paten (the cup and plate used for communion). And the price was very reasonable… well now we could check it out more closely. In the shop was lots of beautiful plates, vases, cups and so forth - all fabricated on the premises. In the end we couldn’t resist, I picked up the chalice and paten set (along with a matching candle stick holder) and Beth got a very cool nativity set. We have paid to have the shop ship the items directly, and even with that added extra cost it was very reasonably priced.

Then we popped next door to a old fashioned candy store to pick up some unusual goodies for Beth’s candy jar at work. Then our time in Canterbury was up, we collected our luggage from the hotel (lugging it down the narrow flight of stairs to the street level), caught a cab to the train station, and headed back to London.