Come and See

Then Jesus turned and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, Come and see.

St. John 1: 38-39

*******

We followed him up the coffee-stained stairs as what they used to call Great Britain disintegrated into rubble outside. it was dark, but not late - half-four, five o'clock - something like that. There were a good few hours left in the call centre day, but the heart (if that's not too strong a word) had long quit the place.

We walked the length of the corridor, passing Rooms B1, B2 and B3 on our way. People were still working, or pretending to work. Red-faced supervisors - yesterday's big guns - huffed and puffed, pointing to graphs and charts on whiteboards that mattered less and less with each explosion, each random alarm and each plane screaming overhead. Management and staff alike glanced nervously out of the windows. Rain sheeted down in slanting Manchester stair-rods. The lights went out in the insurance place opposite. We arrived at Room B5.

We stood together, James and I, on one side of the desk, while he addressed us from the other. He spoke with clarity and authority, not the sham authority of the 'management team', but a deep, rich, golden lordliness - serious and jovial at once - welling up, it seemed, from the centre of his being.

'That's the bloke you need,' Jock the security guard had told us not five minutes before. We'd watched him as he passed us by, coming back from the broken tea machine. It was hard to credit, looking at him, that this was the one we had been seeking - the one to give pattern, purpose, shape and direction to our lives. But there it was. Jock knew his stuff. He radiated inner authority himself.

There was nothing special about the new guy, you see. Not at first sight. It's only been later, since we've had a bit of  time and space, that we've started to get a sense of what he's about.

I found it hard in the call centre to tell how old he was. Some days he'd look young; others old. He was tall and slim, with brown spiky hair and a long, stubbly face. His accent was local; more the north side of town than the south, I thought. Salford, perhaps. But it was what he said that counted. He promised us nothing ... yet everything.

'Andrew, James,' he began. 'You have come. Now you see. Here I am. Here's where I live - here at the heart of things when the world splits apart. This is my home. These are my people - broken, weak and fallible - people like you; people like me. You'll always find me here, in the chaos and collapse, when the glass towers fall and the shattered limbs of analysts and executives lie scattered on the boardroom floor.'

'Abide with me,' he went on. 'Work with me. I offer you nothing in terms of medals, praise, renown and worldly security. Quite the reverse. I can, however, guarantee you everything that burns most fiercely in your hearts and has done since you were boys - your desire for fellowship and nobility, for dignified, meaningful work, and for lives dedicated to the service of the sacred.'

He paused, then fixed us with those wide, brown eyes. 'Gentlemen, are you with me?' I glanced to my left. James was fiddling surreptitiously with his phone. I smiled. I knew what he was doing. Texting his brother, John. That's what gave me the idea. I put my hand in my pocket. It was time I contacted my own brother.

'We've not got time to be messing around with phones,' he said. But there was light in his eyes and a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. 'Especially not in a call centre.'

Outside, another powerful explosion rent the air. Then the lights went out with a little phutt, and we were left with the glow of our phones. Mine vibrated in my hand. I held it up and looked at the screen. 'On my way,' said the text. Then the alarms went off.

*******

Andrew findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, we have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, by interpretation, A Stone.

St. John 1: 41-42

St Godric

Godric was an English hermit who lived from c1065 to 1170 which must have been something of a record at the time. He was born in Norfolk and became a sea-faring merchant, possibly travelling as far as the Holy Land in his own ship so presumably he was a reasonably wealthy man. But then at some point he visited the island of Lindisfarne and there he is said to have met St Cuthbert (see my previous post) who, however, had been dead for several hundred years. As you might expect, the meeting inspired Godric to devote himself to the spiritual life and he went on several pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem before eventually settling down at a hermitage at Finchale on the river Wear. There he lived for the remaining sixty years of his long life, gaining a reputation for wisdom and holiness. Like many saintly people who live almost embedded in the natural world there are stories of his kindness to animals. He once saved a stag from hunters and, on another occasion, let snakes warm themselves at his fire. His life was recorded by a contemporary called Reginald of Durham and there is a wonderful description of him which I have taken from Wikipedia.

For he was vigorous and strenuous in mind, whole of limb and strong in body. He was of middle stature, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a long face, grey eyes most clear and piercing, bushy brows, a broad forehead, long and open nostrils, a nose of comely curve, and a pointed chin. His beard was thick, and longer than the ordinary, his mouth well-shaped, with lips of moderate thickness; in youth his hair was black, in age as white as snow; his neck was short and thick, knotted with veins and sinews; his legs were somewhat slender, his instep high, his knees hardened and horny with frequent kneeling; his whole skin rough beyond the ordinary, until all this roughness was softened by old age.

But the main reason I wanted to draw attention to him here is because of three songs he is supposed to have received in visions. The first, Sainte Marie viergene, was given him by the Virgin Mary who appeared to him in the chapel of his hermitage accompanied by Mary Magdalene. Then a second song was given him by his recently deceased sister Burgwen, for whose soul he had been praying. She visited him with two angels who added the Kyrie Eleison refrains to her song, Crist and Sainte Marie. The third song may have been given him by Saint Nicholas as Reginald writes that the saint  (who was eventually to be transformed into Santa Claus/Father Christmas) visited him one night and they sang loudly together. Apart from being very beautiful, and they are, these songs are of special interest in that they are the earliest English songs with surviving music. In the performance here by the group Sequentia the melody of the last song has been given a slight polyphonic decoration using techniques of the time.

The words of the three songs plus their translations are as follows.

Sainte Marie viergine                                                    
moder Jesu Cristes Nazarene                                      
onfo schild help þin Godrich                                           
onfange bring heȝilich wið þe in Godes riche                    
                                                                                        
Sainte Marie Christes bur
maidenes clenhad moderes flur
dilie min sinne rix in min mod
bring me to winne wið þe selfd God                                  

Saint Mary, Virgin,

Mother of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

Receive, shield, help your Godric.

And received, bring him on high with you to God’s kingdom.

Saint Mary, bower of Christ,

Purest of maidens, flower of mothers,

Blot out my sins, reign in my mind,

Bring me to bliss with that same God.

Note the pun on his name at the end of the first verse.

Crist and Sainte Marie swa on scamel me iledde    
þat ic on þis erðe ne silde wid mine bare footen i tredde
      
Christ and Saint Mary so carried me with a crutch
That I never had to tread on this earth with my bare feet.

Sainte Nicholas Godes druð
tymbre us faiere scoone hus
At þi burth at þi bare
Sainte Nicholas bring vs wel þare

Saint Nicholas, God’s beloved,

Build for us a fair bright house

By thy birth, by thy bier, 
Saint Nicholas, bring us safely there.

Godric was never officially canonised but as he received the favour of the Virgin Mary I think that's enough for him to be considered worthy of sainthood.

The corruption and inversion of 'Small is Beautiful'

In my middle teens I was a tremendous enthusiast for the ideas of EF Schumacher and his book Small is Beautiful, the idea of Self Sufficiency as propounded by John Seymour, the ecological agenda; and I had also read the precursors of this nascent 'Green' movement with William Cobbett (1763-1835) with his Rural Rides and Cottage Economy; the work of Henry David Thoreau such as Walden and his Journals; and the utopian socialism of William Morris (A Dream of John Ball and News from Nowhere).

However, this stream is now polluted and almost all of the modern 'Greens' are (fanatically-) devoted to membership of the European Union (with a single massive and unopposed European Government, Law, Currency, Economic policy, Population and - now Military), multi-national institutions such as the United Nations and World Health Organisation; international laws - and in general massive, powerful and total bureaucracy.

This old strand of traditionalist, small scale, simple, local and rurally-oriented patriotic 'environmentalism' became utterly (and with barely a protest) dominated and subverted by the New Left with its unquestioning adherence to antiracism = unlimited mass immigration = social destruction and replacement; the marriage and family-busting agendas of feminism and the sexual revolution; and an environmentalism based upon the fake science and world-control fantasies of Carbon Dioxide-caused Anthropogenic Global Warming - aspiring to monitor and regulate every living thing on the planet.

After half a century; 'Green' Environmentalism is merely an Establishment tool, a spearhead of the billionaire 'Illuminati' of the evil global conspiracy.

The only uncorrupted heirs of Small is Beautiful are apparently the 'Distributists' - such as Joseph Pearce or the late Stratford Caldecott, or Albion Awakening's own John Fitzgerald - these being traditionalist Roman Catholics who derive their intellectual ancestry from Hillaire Belloc (e.g. The Servile State), and the dream of a truly Merrie England so vividly described and advocated by GK Chesterton.

As seems universal, only those whose beliefs are underpinned by traditionalist, patriarchal and family-oriented religion have proven both willing and able to avoid the self-deceptive lies and inversions of the modern secular-Left corporate-media-state complex.

Meanwhile most of the self-styled Green/ Environmentalists are (on the key issues) docile dupes and sinister-sell-outs; indistinguishable from the mainstream soft-totalitarians they claim to oppose but who they invariably end-up supporting.

St Cuthbert

I have a book, inherited from my great uncle, called The Book of Saints and Heroes by Mrs Lang who was the wife of Andrew Lang, the well known Victorian compiler of fairy tales. My copy was published in 1912 and it's the oldest book I have. It has twelve beautiful coloured plates and many more black and white illustrations, all by someone called H.J. Ford of whom I haven't heard but who was clearly a master of his art. I never met my great uncle as he was one of the generation killed in the 1st World War but I feel the book gives me a small link to him and I value it for that reason. But that's not the only reason I have kept it when so many other books have gone to the great library in the sky. The stories of the early saints are so inspiring and so beautiful, and they are told here in such a way that brings them vividly to life. The dedication of these saints to God is total and though that does put one's own efforts into rather sad perspective, it is also an encouragement to set your shoulder to the metaphorical plough.

One of the stories is called The Apostle of Northumbria and it's about St Cuthbert. It tells how in the 7th century the young Cuthbert, who was living in a monastery, though not yet a monk, had so damaged his knee that he could no longer walk. One morning as he was lying at the edge of a forest, trying to forget his pain, he saw a man dressed in white and riding on a white horse coming towards him. The man stopped and talked to Cuthbert, asking why he did not get up to greet him. Cuthbert explained the problem with his knee at which the stranger made some suggestions as to how it might be cured and then departed. The cure worked and Cuthbert was persuaded that he had been visited by an angel. This inspired him to become a monk and devote himself entirely to God. He then spent several years as a priest travelling around the north of the country doing missionary work and spreading the word of the Gospel which at that time was still fairly shallow rooted in those parts. He was much respected for his asceticism and much loved for his kindness to the sick and the poor. He even gained a reputation for healing to such a degree that he became known as the Wonder Worker of Britain.

The man on the white horse comes to heal Cuthbert
by H.J. Ford

At one time when Cuthbert was giving instruction to the nuns at a place called Coldingham he was seen going out at night. A monk, curious to know where he was going, followed him down to the seashore where, to his astonishment, he saw Cuthbert enter the water and walk out until it reached up to his neck. There he remained until dawn, chanting the praise of God. When he came out of the sea two seals swam towards him and breathed over his cold feet to warm them after which they rubbed him dry with their bodies. The monk confessed to Cuthbert that he had spied on him and told him what he had seen. But Cuthbert asked him to keep it secret because he did not want to be thought holier than he was. The fact the story has come down to us rather implies that the monk failed in this duty!

In 664 Cuthbert was sent to the island of Lindisfarne to teach the monks there the rules of the holy life for they had grown careless and each followed his own will. Although he was resisted at first his patience and example won the monks over and they eventually returned to proper practice. His work in Lindisfarne completed, Cuthbert yearned for the solitary life and with the consent of his Abbot he withdrew to Farne Island to dedicate himself to prayer and contemplation. However duty called again and in 684 he was made Bishop of Lindisfarne. He travelled far afield in that capacity, serving his flock tirelessly but eventually with advancing age he was allowed to resign his office and return to Farne Island where he eventually died, much loved and venerated by all. His body was brought back to Lindisfarne where for 11 years it was left in its coffin in the church so that the people might pay their respects. After that time the monks wished to transfer his bones to a specially built tomb near the high altar but when they opened the coffin they fell to their knees in astonishment. The saint lay as if asleep, his body uncorrupted, and all the funeral vestments in which he had been wrapped were still fresh.

Two hundred years later the monks at Lindisfarne had to flee from their island as Vikings attacked the northern coasts. They carried the body of Cuthbert and his relics with them and these they took first to Ripon and then to Durham where in 1104 Cuthbert's body was placed in the new cathedral where his relics are still kept today. According to Simeon the Chronicler, even though the saint had died more than four hundred years previously, his body still bore the semblance of life. There was also found in the coffin a copy of the Gospel of St John and this is supposed to be the oldest Western book that still keeps its original leather binding.

This is just one of twenty three stories in The Book of Saints and Heroes. There was a time when all children would have been brought up with tales about such inspiring figures as these, either in literary form or else told as stories by their grandmothers or other older relatives and teachers. It's a sad time when the young are denied access to examples of spiritual heroes whom they might be inspired to emulate or, if not that, then at least know that there are such people in the world.


P.S. My 11 year old son just looked at the picture here and commented "That looks like Gandalf", to which I thought "Maybe it was, or his equivalent."

P.P.S. Regarding the uncorrupted state of Cuthbert's body, if I was asked if I believed in that I would have to say yes. The resurrection of Christ proves that the inner spirit can master the outer body and I don't see why a soul of sufficient purity and holiness might not have a body that reflected that. There are too many accounts in spiritual history just to discount this as a pious fiction.

The Eighth Narnia Book

But for them this was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

*******

Theologians of the Orthodox Church talk often about the Eighth Day - the great day of Eternity that will dawn at the consummation of this age, once the seven Biblical days of creation are completed. The light of this Eighth Day to come shines on and around us even now, but our spiritual vision seldom seems sharp enough to sense it. Sometimes, however, it bursts through into human consciousness, the Transfiguration of Our Lord on Mount Tabor being the outstanding example, a prefiguration of the Heavenly City and the regenerated, phoenix-like world to be revealed at the end of time.

It's no overstatement to say that C.S. Lewis's Narnia books played an analogous 'Eighth Day' role for me as a boy. Between 1979 and 1982, from the ages of 9 to 12, I lived and breathed the rich, suggestive air of Narnia. It felt like home; my natural element. Before I'd even read a word of Lewis I had stood enchanted in our suburban South Manchester bookshop, captivated by the cover of The Last Battle - the bonfire, the stable, Jill's bow and arrows, Eustace's sword, and the mighty red lion emblazoned on Tirian's shield. One Friday night as well, in January or February 1981, I had a particularly numinous dream, which saw me personally involved in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, playing my part in the battle to liberate Cair Paravel. Afterwards, Aslan sat us all down in the courtyard and told the most fantastic story, which I was sure I'd be able to remember when I woke up, but which, by breakfast time, was already escaping my memory. It was a bright blue late winter Saturday, and in the afternoon my Dad took me to Old Trafford to watch United play Leeds. We got caught up in a spot of hooliganism, I recall, on the Mancunian Way after the game, but for all the excitement - both the football and the fisticuffs - it's the afterglow of Aslan's story in my young mind that makes that day so memorable.

It's clear to me now, thirty-five years on, that the Narnia stories plugged a huge spiritual hole in my life. Together with Roger Lancelyn Green's mythic retellings (especially his King Arthur book) they filled the sacred space that my ancestors had known since time immemorial but that had been left empty for me by the abolition of the Latin Mass in 1970. And what Lewis did for myself - a Romanised Gael from the North West corner of the Empire - he did for countless boys and girls around the world, with all kinds of backgrounds and all manner of circumstances, and goes on doing today. He is a storyteller and a witness, a prophet and a bard, a princely, and surely heaven-sent counter-presence to the demythologised, dechristianised temper of our times.

*******

The early-1980s, in Britain, felt like an especially intense time to be a pre-adolescent. It was an era of style and colour, but also of riots, recession, and the ever-present threat of nuclear catastrophe. A local newspaper ran a series of articles on Nostradamus, and I was convinced that the end of the world was at hand. I also believed, at that time, that there existed an eighth Narnia book, not a continuation (as in Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan) nor fan-fiction, but something on an altogether different level - a secret, hidden text that contained the essence and magic of Narnia, distilling it into a story, like to the one that Aslan had told us in the courtyard, setting off in its readers and hearers a reaction akin to Jewel's in The Last Battle: 'I have come home at last! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.'

I was certain that before the final conflagration took place this book would reveal itself and make its holy yet homely presence felt in the world. I hoped and prayed that I might be present when it did, and often I would imagine our school's classrooms and corridors dissolving and giving way to the stone passageways, cavernous halls and lantern-lit chambers of the Grail Castle itself. In a tiny chapel, I was sure, at the top of a spiral staircase, the Grail and the eighth Narnia book stood between the candles on the altar, waiting for the appointed hour - the Kairos, the supreme moment - to roll around at last.

It's interesting, looking back on it all now, to see how much has changed in our world but also how little. We live, after all, in equally uncertain times, and many's the moment when I see, or think I see, the mise en scene of my current working life - the computers, the drinks machines, the carpeted stairs - collapse and reconstitute themselves into the form and fabric of Carbonek Castle. And I'm there -sprinting through the echoing throne room, then up the spiral staircase, starlight glinting through the narrow slits of windows. At the top I find a wooden door, closed but with a soft and radiant light spilling out onto the floor at the bottom. I turn the handle - push, pull and shove - but there's no give and the door stays shut. I bang my head on the wood in frustration, then stiff my mind and pray: 'Oh God, if ever I've done anything good in my life, give me a glimpse please of that which I've always seeked.' The door swings open and next thing I know I'm kneeling down, gazing into the heart of the Grail's golden blaze as it fills the room and bathes my soul in its healing, transfiguring light. 

There are six tall candles on the altar, three to the Grail's left and three to the right. I see flowers as well, and a flicker and swish in the air like the beat of angels wings. An ancient, bearded priest in green - Joseph of Arimathea himself, perhaps - sits on the right, while three men kneel with heads bowed low right in front of the altar. I can't see their faces, but I know who they are - Galahad, Percival and Bors - the three Grail knights. Standing on the left is a female figure robed in red with a face like the sun, holding an open book in her hands, silver in colour with a mighty red lion emblazoned on the front. She reads aloud - sings rather - in a language I don't know but for some reason am able to understand as well as if it's my own. Her chant - high, strange and wild - reverberates around the chapel and I recognise and remember what it is she's singing - the long lost story, no less - the story Aslan told us in the courtyard, the selfsame tale, I realise now, that Lucy read in the Magician's Book in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the one about the cup and the sword and the tree and the green hill, the one she rates as the loveliest she's ever read and that Aslan promises to  tell her again and again for ever and ever.

Over-excited and carried away, I scramble up and dash into the room, arms outstretched. But a puff of wind laced with flame blinds and singes my eyes, and I'm ushered out of the room by a host of invisible hands and bundled down the stairs. Darkness engulfs me and when I come to I'm somewhere else altogether. A fresh, briny, morning smell, probes and pushes my mind awake. I'm met by lapping waves in front, white cliffs behind, and a canopy of pale blue, seagull-flecked sky high above. There's sand beneath me, rough and bristly to the touch. I stumble to my feet. The sun, rising behind the cliffs looks huge, five or six times its normal size. That's when the other smell hits me - familiar and reassuring - the smell of breakfast - fresh coffee and roasting fish. Something catches my eye, small and bright, towards the sea and to my right. It's a lamb, tending a cooking fire  and a burnished bronze coffee bowl. 'Come and have breakfast,' he says in his milky voice.

'This is all a dream,' I say to myself. 'Like the one I had about the fight at Cair Paravel when I was a kid.' I look behind me again, fully expecting to see the big sun vanished and the fixtures and fittings of the office restored to their habitual reality. But no, it's still there, even bigger than before if anything. I can look straight at it too, without even needing to shield my eyes.

I crouch down, pick up a fistful of sand - spiky and spongy at the same time - and watch it trickle down and stick to my fingers. It's unmistakably real. And there's a brightness in the air and on the ground and a joy in my heart which assures me that this is no dream. Then I start to understand. The dream, in fact, is over. This is the morning. The dawn. The Eighth Day has begun.

I stand up, turn and face the sea, and walk towards the Lamb.

The past is unison, the present is dissonance, the future is harmonious multi-counterpoint (a musical analogy for the evolution of consciousness)

The earliest form of choral singing was unison - with every person singing the same melodic line - and example would be the simplest form of Gregorian chant -

Spiritually, this represents the pre-modern religious ideal of all Men leading the same life i obedience to God's Laws.

When music becomes harmonic, in block chords - but without much perceptible melody or independence of melodic lines. This could be taken to represent a society in which individuals have a choice of roles; but these roles are rigidly enforced in the interests of the overall harmonious effect:

What we have in modernity can be represented by each voice having an independent line (autonomy, agency, self-determination) but without any regard for the overall effect.

The consequence is dissonance - the clash between voices, leading to a perception of incoherence.

Dissonance was, perversely, embraced by the corruption of modernity as an ideal in its own right - even when there was no independence of voices, but block chords. So, the individual is symbolically denied independence and agency - but in-effect forced to participate in dissonance.

The future? - well perhaps it can musically be gestured-at by independence of voices - counterpoint - simultaneous with harmony; each person's agency symbolically combining with each other's in an overall harmony.

Of course this cannot be written down or composed, since that would be to deny the agency of the voices - the harmony derives from mutual, chosen Love of each with others.

(The above has 40 voices - with some contrapuntal aspects - albeit it is more homophonic, block-chordal than I imagine for the future.)

Le Mont Saint-Michel

Le Mont Saint-Michel at high tide

On the face of it the subject of this post doesn't have a right to be here because, technically speaking, Albion is not in France and vice versa. Indeed, the Normans are very proud that perfidious Albion never captured le Mont Saint-Michel during the 100 Years War, though it did capture the small island of Tombelaine not far away. But because the Mount with its abbey dedicated to St Michael is such an important Christian pilgrimage site, and because of the link between England and Normandy, I feel it does earn its place on this blog. We must also remember the connection of this part of France with Arthurian legend via Lancelot, and the fact that the original Bretons (le Mont Saint-Michel is right on the border between Brittany and Normandy) were exiles from what is now England, driven out of their home country by Anglo-Saxon invaders.

Le Mont Saint-Michel with Tombelaine to the right at low tide

There are other connections too. Mont Saint-Michel has a twin site in Cornwall in St Michael's Mount, another monastery on an offshore island that's sometimes accessible by foot, with which (quoting from Wikipedia) "it shares the same tidal features and the same conical shape", though St Michael's Mount is much smaller and less imposing than its big brother in France. And Tolkien enthusiasts should note that Minas Tirith, in the Lord of the Rings films, was modelled on le Mont Saint-Michel.

Now for a bit of history.

In the year 708 A.D. the Archangel Michael appeared in a dream to the bishop of Avranches, a town in the south west of Normandy, and told him to build a church on a rocky island that lay in the large bay at the mouth of the river Couesnon a few miles away. The story goes that St Michael had to return three times before he was believed and, even then, could only convince the bishop of the truth of the vision by sticking his finger into the bishop's head! The poor man's skull, complete with hole, still exists for all to view in the Saint-Gervais Basilica in Avranches. So the church was built, and in the 11th century a Romanesque abbey was constructed with Gothic style refectory and cloisters added 200 years later. Further buildings were completed in the ensuing centuries until in 1895 a statue of St Michael himself, dragon underfoot, was put at the top of the spire giving it its current appearance. Inevitably at the time of the French Revolution the island and its buildings were converted into a prison but that was closed in 1863. Monks began to return in the 20th century and now there is a small community of monks and nuns living there continuing the tradition of prayer and worship.

Le Mont Saint-Michel in the middle distance viewed from the hilltop town of Avranches

Whether by accident or design le Mont Saint-Michel is a microcosm of the medieval world or ideal Christian society. At the top there stands, representing God, the Archangel Saint Michael protecting the monastery founded in his name. Then comes the Benedictine abbey and monastery where the monks lived their lives in prayer to the Creator. Below there are the halls for noble guests (the aristocracy) and then shops, houses and, outside the walls, dwellings for those that did the more menial work required to keep the whole place running. Even today when you visit the Mount, as around three million people do every year, you have the feeling of ascending through the world towards God. You enter by a large gate with a 15th century captured English cannon to your right. There is a bustling, noisy crowd with shops selling tourist knickknacks and lots of restaurants. As you climb the winding path that leads to the top the crowd seems to thin out slightly. The climb becomes a little more difficult, the steps steeper, and eventually you leave the commercial world behind and stand in front of the abbey doors. Up you go to a large platform outside the main church from where there is a magnificent view of the bay which on a clear day is a truly glorious sight. Then you enter and immediately you are in a different world in which the mundane is left behind and the sacred is all important. It is quiet, even with a still fairly substantial number of people walking about, and the vaulted columns of the choir lift one's spirits heavenwards.

And now a speculative suggestion.

The patron saint of England is St George who was a Roman soldier of Greek origin born in Palestine, a strange choice for a national hero you might think. However Edward III adopted him for his courage in combating adversity and as an example of the triumph of good over evil, demonstrated by his killing of the dragon. Now the only other saintly dragon killer I am aware of is St Michael who crushed Satan and threw him down to earth after the great rebellion in heaven. So I am led to wonder whether St George is actually a human representative of the archangel and whether England might not, in some way, be also under the patronage of St Michael. Of course, many other places would be too but Michael was apparently the most popular saint in medieval England after St Peter, and before the Reformation many churches were dedicated to him, often on hilltops such as the one on Glastonbury Tor. This is pure speculation, I admit, but the idea that certain places have angelic protectors is well known in esoteric teachings and if that is the case then why not nations too?

St Michael fighting the dragon above le Mont Saint-Michel

Here are some of the titles that St Michael is regarded as holding. The first is a translation of his actual name

  I. Who is like unto God.

  2. Recorder of the deeds of men in the Heavenly Books.

  3. The Celestial Medium through whom the Law was given.

  4. Captain of the Heavenly Hosts.

  5. Slayer of the dragon of evil intention.

  6. Guardian of the Holy Sanctuaries.

  7. Preparer of the Way before each Messenger from God.

  8. Leader of the Church Triumphant in Heaven and Militant on Earth.

From these titles we can see that St Michael is not someone to be trifled with. He is a warrior and it seems to me that we need his assistance in fighting evil now more than ever. It is a good time to remind ourselves of his continued presence as God's strong right arm.