Fri. Mar. 4, 2022

Cloud of Witnesses

John Stromgren

One of my favorite parts of Compline is before it all starts, when I’m alone in the church, climbing the old wooden stairs to set up in the balcony, or at the very end, when the congregation is gone, and I’m turning out the last lights, and walking back through the dark nave from the sacristy to the front door.

I think of all the saints, some of them memorialized on the walls of the church, who climbed these same stairs, or prayed in these same pews - who worshiped here over the last couple hundred years. I think they’re still with us. I talk to them, sometimes. They must be nearby, perhaps like a cloud – a quiet one that I can’t see.

This mysterious community, this Church, doesn’t seem to care about distance or time. We are right next to brothers and sisters on the other side of the world, and praying with saints who filled this place two hundred years ago. And that was just recently. We’re surrounded, behind and before, and all around, by a holy host.

I think about these things when I’m all alone, and not alone at all.