Sunday at Westminster Cathedral

Let me first avoid any confusion. Westminster Cathedral is different from Westminster Abbey. The Cathedral's parishioners are Catholic. The Abbey, Catholic from something like the 11th century, was converted into King Henry VIII's branched off faith, which fully merged then with the state, and became known as the Anglicans. There was a lot of back and forth after Henry's self denominated Supremacy. On both sides of the battle, alas, there were martyrs.  But ultimately a combination of Evangelism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism took hold and Catholics became the minority. Luckily, things became a bit more tolerant on all sides.

So sometime in the mid 1800's a Catholic Cathedral was built off Victoria Avenue, about a mile and a half from the Abbey. It's style was, and is, completely different from that of the Gothic Abbey (and man I love the Gothic Abbey as you will recall), more Byzantine. But like all the Churches in England it simply is so much to look at. It is deep and comfortingly dark.  Well before the altar hangs a most dramatic Franciscan Crucifix that constantly refocuses the eye of the heart.

Oh, dear, as I searched for the photos I took of the outside of the Cathedral, I realized that somehow I deleted them along the way. But I guess the most important part of going to the Cathedral is in some ways less about the edifice than about sharing a beautriful choral Mass at 10:30 celebrated by the Archbiship himself, and joined by my friend Freddy, who mved back  to England, his land of birth, last summer.

I have long known Freddy, probably close to 30 years. We were parishioners, servers and choristers together at St. Victor's.  He even rented the place I now live in from me for a couple of years before he returned to England.  So there was something incredibly joyous about sitting next to him in the crowded Cathedral as of old in our small parish. 

After Mass, Freddy asked me what I wanted to do. He suggested Covent Garden (you know, of My Fair Lady fame), but I had actually been there on one of the days on which Denise, Heather and I saw our first play. It was fun, but not unlike many tourist like markets, with food, trinkets and entertainment, I have seen in many other places including Los Angeles. I wanted to go toward Notting Hill, (yes, it is because of th\e movie with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts which I STILL love). As it turned out Freddy used to live on the border of Notting Hill and Bayswater, so being so familiar with his haunt from a time before he had even mved to Los Angeles, he took me around.  We stopped first at the Pub he used to frequent and had a Sunday Lumch, a massive thing of roast beef and bread. And of course a pint.

I rather wanted to see where Freddy had lived as a young man, and so he took me to his former "flat". He had owned it, and when he sold it in 1980 somthing to move to America, he received about $26000 pounds, in today's exchange rate, about 40 thousand dollars.  Suffice it to say that his neighborhood, like neighborhoods in so many places all over America and Europe, the cost to buy today would be well into the million or more range.

I loved the neighborhood. And saw all those little private gardens that were featured in the movie Notting Hill. Many in London have become public but there still remain a few attached to the homes and apartments in the area. I could live here. Oh, except for that darn weather again. 

 

Freddy walked me through Kensington Gardens, and there was the palace at which young Will and his bride, and mother to be, live. Hyde Park. Everything was perfect and the people were all over enjoying the uncustomary sun. Water, and plants and picnics and blankets, and bicycles. At St. James Park (after we stopped for a spt of tea and a rest) we passed over a walking bridge with a view of water and lily pads. 

 

In the distance, Big Ben and the London Eye. 

 

Freddy and I walked toward them, he to pass over Waterloo Bridge and his train and me to the metro to get back to the Penn Club and a much needed rest of my feet.

 

In addition to rest, Heather and I shared wine and bread and cheese in the dining room of the Club. It was easy, pleasant and I felt like I was home.