The Dark Side of the Abbey

Around the back of Westminster Abbey is a maze of passages and courtyards formed from the buildings of the former monastery of St Peter. I found my way through this environment on Monday to see my spiritual director, who was house-sitting in Little Cloister for one of the Canons having agreed to take on his duty as Canon in Residence for that day. We sat in the garden which used to be the abbey's infirmary chapel, dedicated, coincidentally enough, to St Catherine, and listened to the sounds of pro- and anti-Brexit protests wafting over the wall from Parliament Square. How the residents of Little Cloister manage to concentrate on anything with that going on all day I can't imagine. 'Ah, perhaps that's why Dr Haskins has gone away,' mused S.D., 'so he can actually get some work done.' 

Although parish life can be a bit of a slog, I do have a greater sense of purpose these days even if I can't always discern an easy way ahead in detail. The general sense of slow collapse, strain and impending chaos makes the role of the Church all the more vital, it seems to me, and S.D. agreed. 'The trouble with liberal Christianity is that we tend to assume everything is basically all right, and times like ours reveal that everything is not all right, and that you have to work to make sure they are. A sense of slight perturbation is instructive.'

Then we started to discuss why the Archbishop of Canterbury seems so grumpy a lot of time, how closely the Bishop of Chichester resembles Pope Pius XII, and on what grounds the incumbent of St Magnus the Martyr in the City styles himself 'Cardinal Rector'. All very deep.

Little Cloister has a somewhat overwrought statue of St Catherine by Epstein. I'm not sure I find that very spiritual, either: