God In Italia

I believe I have discovered what my favorite part of Europe is: the churches.

It seems that every town, no matter what size it is, has at least one church. A large city like Florence has dozens. And that church is almost always the center of the town, the most important building. Florence's Duomo is a cathedral that is the center of the city: Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. It was begun in the 1200s and is the world's fourth-largest cathedral. I am still in awe that I live only a 40 minute walk from this place. This week I went inside for the first time. Incredible.

But my favorite church in Florence is not Santa Maria del Fiore, but an unlikely church that you might miss if you're not paying attention. It is a square, rather plain-looking church (on the outside, at least) that sits on the main street between the River Arno and the Duomo area. It sticks out a little bit because of the niches along the outside that each contain a statue of the patron saint of each of the old guilds that used to rule commerce in Florence. The church is called Orsanmichele and was orginally built and used as a grain market in the 1200s. The inside of the church is very small, but beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. That's the best word to describe it, I think. I love just sitting inside on the pews and observing.......

That's the thing about the churches here: as soon as you go through those huge, carved, dark wooden doors, it's almost like time stops and you are in a place of total peace and reverence. Every church that I have been in has felt this way, from the fourth-largest cathedral in the world to a tiny forgotten church on top of the small town of Monterosso del Mare. It's hard to describe the quiet and peace there. And I love how these churches have survived so much. Many of them are almost a thousand years old. We have nothing like that in the United States.

Of course, there's another aspect to these churches. A friend said to me the other day, while we were sitting inside a big and beautiful church: "you know, these churches were built by the clergy during a time when people were starving in the streets. I think that's interesting, because God was not in them then."
I had never thought of it that way before...and I still wonder now, is God in those churches? They are all blatantly Catholic, each dedicated to a different Saint, when they should be dedicated solely to God.

Interesting thought. But I feel that if you are a person in need of God, and you go to one of those churches, and go inside and sit on the smooth wooden pews and look up at the altar made to honor Jesus hanging on the cross, and you pray...then God will be there.

So I still love the churches here.