Remain in My Love: A Visit to the National Cathedral

When I was a seminary professor, I began something of an annual pilgrimage with my students. It wasn’t a long pilgrimage, nothing like the Canterbury Trail in England or the Camino in Spain. We simply walked up the road to the National Cathedral here in Washington, D.C. Through lectures and readings, we had already studied some of the great medieval thinkers: Anselm, Bede, Julian of Norwich, Bonaventure, and, of course, Thomas Aquinas. We had also studied the social history of Christianity, a widely misunderstood period of immense depth, ingenuity, and creativity. After all that, we went to the cathedral, and there I took my church history students on an immersive experience with the medieval worldview, using the sixth largest Gothic cathedral in the world as the ultimate teaching tool.

Most of us know the National Cathedral as a place of national gathering, both in times of celebration and in times of mourning. It is where we pray for presidents at their inaugurations. It is also where we hold many of their funerals in the White House, years after they have left office as president. But the Cathedral is more than just a place to pray for presidents. Indeed, it is more than just a place of national gathering. What some people do not yet realize is that it is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and, as such, the seat of diocesan Bishop Mariann Budde. It is also, uniquely, the seat of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, currently Michael Curry but soon to be Sean Rowe. It rightly describes itself as a place of prayer for all people. But this article is not just about the National Cathedral as a contemporary institution. The reason I took my students there is because the cathedral, like Gothic architecture around the world, is one of the finest examples of theology in stone.

I was reminded of this on a recent visit to the Cathedral with a friend here in Washington. He is on his way to the priesthood and we have begun to meet regularly to discuss some of the books of the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, as my friend continues to explore God’s will for his life and calling. We unexpectedly had a few hours of free time and he had never been to the Cathedral, so we went up St. Alban’s Hill in the northwest quadrant of the precinct to explore.

The cathedral’s cornerstone was laid in 1907 in the presence of Teddy Roosevelt and over 20,000 people gathered to celebrate the opening of this great national church. Like cathedrals of yore, the National Cathedral was built from east to west, beginning with the easternmost crypt chapel, today’s Bethlehem Chapel, which was completed in 1912. By the 1940s, the high altar, choir, crossing and transepts were complete. And it was the visionary Dean Francis Bowes Sayre Jr. who insisted that the 300-foot-tall Gloria in Excelsis tower over the crossing be completed before moving on to the central nave to gain continued support for the project. This was completed in 1964 and can still be seen throughout the region today. Just a few years later, Gerald Ford and Queen Elizabeth II were present at the nave’s dedication in 1976. Eventually the last spire of the west facade was laid and the cathedral was completed in the presence of George HW Bush in 1990. You learn such information every time you visit the cathedral – and you even see the Darth Vader gargoyle – but it is the theology of the building that keeps drawing me back. Cathedrals like this speak.

And so a few days ago my friend and I began our tour of the building, like so many others, at the west façade. That’s not the front. The front of every cathedral is the east, not the west. At the front is the altar, that is, where we encounter Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. But we must enter the building, and that is from the west. As with other cathedrals, the west façade of the National Cathedral is quite massive, and that is how it is intended. It is a bulwark, a wall of defense against the forces of darkness and a means of escape from them. And so it is imposing and immovable, with its twin towers dedicated to the saints for whom the cathedral is named, St. Peter and St. Paul.

The west facade of the National Cathedral is unique because unlike many previous cathedrals that depicted scenes of the Last Judgement above their main doors—essentially meaning come in and escape what is coming—the National Cathedral begins with creation. The tympanum above the three doors depicts the creation of light and darkness on either side and the creation of humanity in the center, ex nihilo. Famed artist Frederick Hart created these beautiful, moving carvings. Together with the rose window of Creation above, they set the overarching tone of the entire building: the story of God’s creative work and his ultimate redemption in Christ.

Entering a cathedral is in itself a theological act. This is even more pronounced in cathedrals without electric lighting, where the stained glass windows dictate the light of the space. In these cases, one leaves natural daylight behind and enters a space lit by windows that tell the story of God’s renewing work; in other words, we must adjust our perspective to God’s perspective to see where we are going. In the case of the National Cathedral, another adjustment is required when one enters the nave, a towering space with its multiple levels of stained glass on either side of the ribbed vault above. Spaces like this have multiple purposes and multiple levels of meaning. For one thing, anyone entering a space like this is reminded of how small they are and how huge God is; this is His house, after all, and He transcends it. The transcendence of God meets us in this immensity. And yet at the same time we are surrounded by the immanence of God in the details, in the purifying waters of baptism and in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The altar is the highest point on earth.

Yet when you enter the nave, you also enter the story of God’s redemptive work. The clerestory windows – the highest windows on either side of the nave – tell the story of God’s work, beginning with creation in the west and continuing through the stories of the Old and New Testaments along the nave to the crossing. The bosses – decorative keystones in the center of the ribbed vault of the ceiling – help us to better understand the narrative. They represent the key phrases of the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed, highlighting creation, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and final triumph.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the lower center windows or the triforium level, which don’t tell a unified story at the National Cathedral, but rather highlight the work of men and women throughout history who have glorified God. These include windows depicting the founding of this nation and even the now famous Moonstone Window, a tribute to space exploration with a rock from the moon in the window itself, brought back by the Apollo 11 mission.

But back to theology: we have entered the nave and are walking towards the crossing, and the chancel with the high altar comes into better view. The pulpit is on the right. It is older than the building itself, a gift from Canterbury Cathedral and built from stones from that ancient foundation. Engraved on the pulpit are scenes and figures important to the development of the English Bible, including Alfred the Great, who gave his people the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer in their own language; Wycliffe, who translated the Bible into English in the 14th century; Andrewes, who was a leading figure in the development of the King James Bible; and Westcott, who led the effort to produce the Revised Version in the 1880s. The lectern on the opposite side features figures representing the authors of Scripture themselves, including Moses, David, Luke, and Paul. But to enter the choir and what is actually called the chancel, we must not only climb a few steps, but also go through something called the rood screen.

Rood screens and rood screens are wonderfully medieval. They mark the most sacred part of the building, but are also designed so that we can see through them into that sacred space. Rood screens – and this is true of the National Cathedral – feature saints and angels pointing us to the sacred, and at the top of the rood screen (which means “beam”) is a crucifixion scene, with Christ in the middle and Mary and John on either side. The rood screen is a statement of how far God will go to reach us, to redeem us, and to overcome sin and death. And we must pass through it both physically and theologically as we approach the altar, where we encounter the crucified and risen Christ.

A unique feature of the National Cathedral at this point – just as we enter the choir – are the carvings of angels of all ranks, from angels and archangels to virtues and dominions, cherubim and seraphim, flanking the archway that stands over the crucifixion scene on the cross below and the entrance to the choir. We move toward the altar and every time I see these angels I am reminded of Charles Wesley’s beautiful description of angels trying to understand how Christ is present in the Eucharist:

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Ryan N. Danker is director of the John Wesley Institute in Washington, DC. He is also deputy editor of arsonist.