Holding my breath, I pushed against the revolving door and plunged into a vast space, holy with silence—St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The majesty, the beauty, and the stillness of it filled me with awe. Later, at the Advent Carol Service, I would see another side of it. It would cease for a time to be a place for the heart’s silent communion with the sacred and become, instead, a place of community worship, vibrating like a giant musical instrument to the praises of God.
On that first morning, though, it was still. A few sightseers like me wandered around, lost in the vastness. It seemed as if a thousand ordinary conversations might be swallowed up in that space, leaving the quiet essentially undisturbed.
Almost on tiptoe, I crossed to examine a metal plaque set into the floor near one of the piers. The English are in some ways a peremptory folk. Their memorial plaques do not begin tentatively, "In memory of…" Instead, they command. I had noticed that earlier in Westminster Abbey, that other great treasury of British national memory. "Remember Winston Churchill. Remember…Remember…"
No plaque I had yet seen struck me with the force of this one in the floor of St. Paul’s. It said, "Remember Men and Women of St. Paul’s Watch, Who by the Grace of God Saved This Cathedral in War, 1939-1945."
As I read the words, tears sprang to my eyes. I remembered the miracle I had seen in the schoolbooks of my childhood—the great church standing, seemingly inviolate, during the Blitz of World War II, as the City of London went up in flames around it. Now I knew, at least in part, how the miracle had been wrought. The knowledge seemed to make it more miraculous, not less.
The heroes of St. Paul’s Watch were ordinary people, like the rest of us. They saw it as their piece of God’s work to preserve their cathedral—not because it was God’s house, for they were surely wise enough to know that God is not confined to any building—but because it symbolized the human striving for God, the human tribute to God. In a world gone mad with hate and horror, St. Paul’s asserted, as it still does, that God is.
And so, night after night, these people risked the maelstrom, putting out small fires before they could become an inferno that would engulf the whole building and send it crashing into ruins. And as they worked, hell raged around them.
They had no guarantees. They could not know that they would succeed, or even that they would survive. And that is what places the members of St. Paul’s Watch in the great tradition of God’s servants, down through time. All have been willing to follow the prompting of God without guarantees.
Abraham was willing to follow his new deity even though he was torn from his home and kinsmen and led into the desert. When he chose to believe and to follow God he had to make the leap without any guarantees, except the guarantee of faith.
Albert Schweitzer left a burgeoning career as a theologian and musician in Europe to study medicine and minister to sick Africans. Many thought his humanitarianism misguided. But he took the risk, asking no guarantees; and the move set the seal on his greatness.
In the same way, the heroes of St. Paul’s Watch took their stand, not knowing whether they would live to see the dawn; and the cathedral was saved.
For countless other servants of God, the outcome was not so obviously happy. Many perished, not knowing their lives had made a difference. For some, even the final assurance of faith was denied. Jesus himself, on the cross, was moved to cry out, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Despair is shared by all who share human nature, and it would be strange indeed if those dying in pain and torment, or living
rejected and vilified for God’s sake, did not sometimes succumb to it.
There are moments when the glory is obscured, and life seems sacrificed in vain. So it must have seemed to Janos Korczak, the Jewish educator and writer, who chose to die in a gas chamber with the children from his orphanage, rather than send them to their fate alone. So it must have seemed to Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish priest who permitted himself to be starved to death so another Auschwitz prisoner might live. What history shows us, in the main, is
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.
That is why, in the eyes of the world, God’s servants so often seem to be fools.
And yet, in our highest moments they inspirit us, these fools of God. It is as if we have known all along that in the long run the "fools" are wiser than the world, and that all that matters is to answer the Lord’s call as Isaiah did: "Here am I; send me."
So it was with the members of St. Paul’s Watch. Asking no guarantees, they said "yes" to God. Their imprint is on the cathedral as much as that of its great builder, Sir Christopher Wren. Here, in the holy stillness, if you seek their monument, look around you.
On that first morning, though, it was still. A few sightseers like me wandered around, lost in the vastness. It seemed as if a thousand ordinary conversations might be swallowed up in that space, leaving the quiet essentially undisturbed.
Almost on tiptoe, I crossed to examine a metal plaque set into the floor near one of the piers. The English are in some ways a peremptory folk. Their memorial plaques do not begin tentatively, "In memory of…" Instead, they command. I had noticed that earlier in Westminster Abbey, that other great treasury of British national memory. "Remember Winston Churchill. Remember…Remember…"
No plaque I had yet seen struck me with the force of this one in the floor of St. Paul’s. It said, "Remember Men and Women of St. Paul’s Watch, Who by the Grace of God Saved This Cathedral in War, 1939-1945."
As I read the words, tears sprang to my eyes. I remembered the miracle I had seen in the schoolbooks of my childhood—the great church standing, seemingly inviolate, during the Blitz of World War II, as the City of London went up in flames around it. Now I knew, at least in part, how the miracle had been wrought. The knowledge seemed to make it more miraculous, not less.
The heroes of St. Paul’s Watch were ordinary people, like the rest of us. They saw it as their piece of God’s work to preserve their cathedral—not because it was God’s house, for they were surely wise enough to know that God is not confined to any building—but because it symbolized the human striving for God, the human tribute to God. In a world gone mad with hate and horror, St. Paul’s asserted, as it still does, that God is.
And so, night after night, these people risked the maelstrom, putting out small fires before they could become an inferno that would engulf the whole building and send it crashing into ruins. And as they worked, hell raged around them.
They had no guarantees. They could not know that they would succeed, or even that they would survive. And that is what places the members of St. Paul’s Watch in the great tradition of God’s servants, down through time. All have been willing to follow the prompting of God without guarantees.
Abraham was willing to follow his new deity even though he was torn from his home and kinsmen and led into the desert. When he chose to believe and to follow God he had to make the leap without any guarantees, except the guarantee of faith.
Albert Schweitzer left a burgeoning career as a theologian and musician in Europe to study medicine and minister to sick Africans. Many thought his humanitarianism misguided. But he took the risk, asking no guarantees; and the move set the seal on his greatness.
In the same way, the heroes of St. Paul’s Watch took their stand, not knowing whether they would live to see the dawn; and the cathedral was saved.
For countless other servants of God, the outcome was not so obviously happy. Many perished, not knowing their lives had made a difference. For some, even the final assurance of faith was denied. Jesus himself, on the cross, was moved to cry out, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Despair is shared by all who share human nature, and it would be strange indeed if those dying in pain and torment, or living
rejected and vilified for God’s sake, did not sometimes succumb to it.
There are moments when the glory is obscured, and life seems sacrificed in vain. So it must have seemed to Janos Korczak, the Jewish educator and writer, who chose to die in a gas chamber with the children from his orphanage, rather than send them to their fate alone. So it must have seemed to Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish priest who permitted himself to be starved to death so another Auschwitz prisoner might live. What history shows us, in the main, is
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.
That is why, in the eyes of the world, God’s servants so often seem to be fools.
And yet, in our highest moments they inspirit us, these fools of God. It is as if we have known all along that in the long run the "fools" are wiser than the world, and that all that matters is to answer the Lord’s call as Isaiah did: "Here am I; send me."
So it was with the members of St. Paul’s Watch. Asking no guarantees, they said "yes" to God. Their imprint is on the cathedral as much as that of its great builder, Sir Christopher Wren. Here, in the holy stillness, if you seek their monument, look around you.
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