Coventry Cathedral

It was more of an afterthought, really. On Saturday, the ABU-Oxford group took a trip to Warwick Castle -- no, it’s pronounced Warrick, you plebeian! It was a historically informative, light-hearted, playful tourist attraction, so it made for a great day trip, but by the end of it, we were all pretty tired. Many of us would have been happy just to go back to Charlbury, but, a few days earlier, we had been given the option of making an extra stop at Coventry Cathedral, and at Annie’s inspiration, we all agreed.

The city of Coventry (home of Lady Godiva) is quite a contrast to the others we have seen so far. It looks almost North American, because so much of it is concrete and brick – we have gotten used to stone, even thatch. This, we later discovered, is because so much of it was bombed during World War Two (Nov. 14, 1940). The town has suffered very much, and today "Coventry has developed an international reputation as Europe's major city of peace and reconciliation".

Among the casualties of the bombing was St. Michael’s Cathedral. Peter, one of the coordinators of the program, told us tonight that, in 1940, British Intelligence actually knew that Coventry was going to be bombed. However, they could do nothing to warn the city or prevent the attack because to do so would have revealed their sources to the Germans. So the beautiful old cathedral was destroyed, along with many lives. But a vow was made that "the Cathedral would rise again, more splendid than before". And it did.

I didn’t know much of this back story before going, but as I walked up the stairs, I was struck right away by the power and beauty of the statue on the front of Cathedral. This building, with its art, architecture, and inscriptions, tells its own story much better than I ever could. Nevertheless, let me share with you, in the pictures above, a small portion of one of the most powerful experiences of my life, which is itself only a small portion of the work of this place, holy to the Lord.