Churches

Ancient and old churches are always attractions to tourists because of their beauty and grandeur that give tribute to God, the skill of their designers and the thousands of workers who labored for years to build the house of God.

Of course, the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is the most majestic and thousands of people flock there each day. When we visited the basilica, it took us over an hour to get inside and look at the wonders of this main church of the Catholic faith.

We attended a Mass there at one of the side altars and, as we noticed also in other churches in Rome, the priest was facing the altar rather than the people. It was the old liturgy, but Fr. Greg Gaston, Rector of the Pontificio Collegio Filippino explained that this is common here when the Mass is said at the side altar but not at the main altar.

We went to probably over a dozen churches while in Europe. We visited and attended mass at the church of St. Jerome in Madrid but in Rome we went to ten, in two of which we attended Mass, aside from St. Peter's.

The church management asked the tourists not to disturb others while Mass was going on but many did not follow this rule and kept on photographing the artworks in the main and several chapels within the church.

However, in St. Jerome, a church attendant drove away the tourists who lingered inside after Mass. I say “drove away” because he did just that, rudely telling people to get out and he closed the church. I can understand his pique because tourists did not respect the solemnity of the occasion, the flash disturbing the Sunday Mass.

There is no question about the artworks and genius of the architects and the skills of the workers. I wondered how these churches could be built without the machines used today. The sculptures and the intricate designs need only the artist but the huge stones and boulders that were brought high up all the way to the steeple and the belfry up to 100 meters is indeed a marvel of human ingenuity.

I have visited Borobudor in Jog Jakarta, Indonesia and Taj Mahal in India. They too are wonders of construction because of their colossal structures.

The Chartres in southern France, one of the pilgrim sites for the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain is remarkable as it is huge. The City of Chartres is known as the “capital of light and perfume” because of its main product – perfumes, and yet its most precious possession is its cathedral dedicated to Our Lady, Notre Dame as well.

St. Peter's Basilica is the most well-known because it is the seat of Catholicism and media coverage during Papal affairs, but the Cathedral of Chartres is hardly known here although it is famous in Europe and even in Spain because it is one of the pilgrim's stop-over. It is magnificent in its enormity.

Let me devote a little more to Chartres. It is said that there was a grotto on which the cathedral now stands and a statue of the Blessed Mother about to give birth. This grotto was a refuge of Christians during Roman persecution times.

The cathedral keeps the Sacred Tunic, the veil which Mary wore during the birth of Christ. We did not see the Sacred Tunic however, because the cathedral was undergoing major repairs, courtesy of the French government since the cathedral has been listed by the UNESCO as a world heritage. It is being prepared for the celebration of the 850 anniversary of the present church.

The Sacred Tunic was believed to have been donated to this church in 876 by King Charles the Bald, grandson of Charlemagne, whose huge statue on a horse stands in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. A story goes that Bishop Gantelme displayed Tunic before the raiding Vikings who then lifted their siege of the city.

Our Lady of Chartres is one of the biggest Gothic cathedrals in the world and with the best preserved architecture and stained glass that surpass those of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, at least in terms of numbers of glass stained windows. So famous is Chartres for stained glass that close to the cathedral is a school for stained glass.

So colossal is this church and its steeple so high that in the plain countryside of Chartres, the church can be seen ten miles away, in effect dominating the Chartres landscape of wheat fields in this main wheat producing region in France.

Chartres Cathedral is one of the oldest churches in Christendom, constructed in the 4 th century.

It is impossible to describe this cathedral. One must see it.*

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