These words from Austin Clarke’s poem came to mind as the bus from Dublin to Derry wound its way northwards through a seamless landscape. Like the astronauts looking at earth hanging as a blue jewel in space I realised that the only borders in the universe are on Earth and made by us humans. Nature wisely ignores them!

I was on my way to St. Columb’s Church-of-Ireland Cathedral to open an Icon Exhibition there for Holy Week and Easter. The Dean of the Cathedral, readily supported the exhibition as a way of furthering peace and reconciliation and gave a very warm welcome to all who were gathered for the event.

The awareness of Ulster’s history stayed with me as I entered the beautiful and splendid 17th century cathedral. It was the first cathedral built in Europe after the reformation. It was intended as a place of worship for those who came onto the land from Scotland and England during the plantation or colonization of Ulster. Native landowners were driven into mountainous and poor lands to eke out a living. The painful legacy of these events was very much with me as I entered this great cathedral.

At the lectern the golden eagle’s wings supported my few written notes. As I looked around the Congregation I could see my iconography friends from Derry who had worked with helpers from the Cathedral to organize and set up the event. The grand sweep of the cathedral brought my gaze from the altar to the great doors at the aisle’s end. Down along each side I could see our seventy Icons depicting images of the Blessed Trinity, Christ, the Virgin and the saints as they glowed in the afternoon sun.

I was delighted to welcome everybody to the event in the tongue of my ancestors. As I spoke about the art of Iconography and the contemplative and sacred nature of this work, I became aware of a presence and something shifted within me. With a sudden clarity I saw that this Cathedral was a sacred and holy place despite the great suffering and pain of its beginnings.

As I looked around me I could see many symbolic features in the cathedral that speak of Christ and the blessed Trinity. The sunlight coming through the stained glass windows lighting up for us the saintly figures, reminds us that the whole community of saints surrounds us. The vaulted ceiling speaks of the great heavens and all of creation. The pillars are the powerful and compassionate arms of God holding the whole universe together. The sanctuary and altar-space draws us into the place of worship and liturgy to celebrate and praise God. The wood and stone and glass and us humans, are kin for we have all evolved from earth, our mother and our home. We are all Earth!  So when we pray and worship and celebrate our God, it is Earth that prays and worships and celebrates through us and is held in the great arms of the Creator. St. Columb’s Cathedral in itself is an icon and a wonderful sacred space for the Icon exhibition.

The St. Columb’s newsletter estimated that over two thousand visitors came to the Cathedral and the exhibition during Holy Week and into the Easter season.

The bus coming to Dublin crossed the new Bridge of Peace over the Foyle.  Through the back window I could see the city of Derry moving away from us. Outlined against the sky were two great spires, one of St. Columb’s Church of Ireland Cathedral and the other of St. Eugene’s Catholic Cathedral.  As they moved into the veil of the horizon they became like hands joined, reaching upwards in prayer for that peace that ‘comes dropping slow, dropping from the veils of morn to where the cricket sings.’  We turned a corner and the image vanished.  But as I dozed my way home the song of the engine became that of a singing cricket. Was I dreaming, or what?

Grainne, Angela and Patrick McMacken, and their cousin Cecilia – relations of Sr. Aloysius McVeigh

Rosaleen Hogan rsm
South Central Province