Mid-town Sanctuary

Beeswax candle burning - it is a smell that I will never have enough of. We went in the main door which is at the back of the Church and immediately were greeted with that familiar waft of burning beeswax and the same time a hush that put one in the mood of reverence in the blink of a soul - from the hustle and bustle of the tourist traffic just outside the ancient door to a quiet and yes quite far from a "...fanatical devotion to the pope..." The chairs were not comfy and not a fluffy cushion to be found, no (wee bit of an impish reference to Monty Pyton's "Spanish Inquisition" Skit - for those who want to know). In stark contrast, the solid white oak benches with folding knee boards here were deliberately joined to invoke the posture and patience of the discipline of nothing less than benedictine-like supplication; after all, the church was completed in 1749 and first mentioned in the history of the region in 1315.

Wikipedia tells us that master builder Joseph Schmutzer was responsible for building the entire structure, and working closely with him for finally and finely decorating the interior worship spaces was the talented and regionally well-known fresco artist Matthäus Guenther from Ausburg.

To stand in that incense-filled silence and gaze upon the intricate and ornate frescoes so reverentially rendered yet simultaneously filled to (almost but not quite yet), overflowing emotive faces of angels, saints, and God reflected the beginnings of a change in theological and philosophical priorities of the era, a tipping point from focusing on Renaissance enlightenment and Aestheticism to the new importance of individual subjectivity and the unabashed outpouring of emotional reaction even within the Catholic sense of liturgy: the "Strum und Drang" movement sparked by Goethe's "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers" (The Sorrows of Young Werther) was next in Germany's philosophical history.

And all this poured through my humanities-educated skull but did nothing to dampen the feeling of reverence within in my soul, standing with my son beside me for a brief time, appreciating the depth of history that keeps these places of worship sanctified and holy for any and all who decide it's time to enter therein again.

And as we stood, just about ready to leave, I could not help but almost hear the sing-song end of "Tantum Ergo Sacramentum": the benediction prayer of old, which I had once read in leather bound ancient authenticity, in the Special Collections department, in the basement of Rutherford library, at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada:

"O salutaris Hostia
Quae coeli pandis ostium.
Bella premunt hostilia;
Da robur, fer auxilium."

"Uni trinoque Domino
Sit sempiterna gloria:
Qui vitam sine termino,
Nobis donet in patria.
Amen."

And then we went out into Mittenwald again.
I write

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