On Wednesday the 28th I spent another day in Cambridge experiencing some fascinating stuff. First off I’d like to show you a shocking churchaurant- yep- a medieval church made into a restaurant:
Almost as shocking was when I went to Great St. Mary’s, a beautiful Anglican church in the centre, and bought a ticket to go up the tower to see Cambridge from up high. The woman who sold me the ticket asked me if I was a student and where I came from. I showed my student card with ”Helsinki” on it and told her to guess where I came from. Her first guess was one of the former Yugoslavia countries, can’t remember which, and her second guess was Sweden! I don’t know which was more shocking/offensive!;)
So here (above and below) are two photos of Cambridge looking down from Great St. Mary’s tower.
At 2 pm I met the chaplain of Magdalene College, Rev. James. He showed me places related to C.S. Lewis who was once a Fellow at the College. I saw the place where Lewis used to sit at morning prayer and a part of the place where he lived, I walked where he would’ve once walked and contemplated the motto of the college, Garde ta foy. Here are some photos.
Those 15 minutes were definitely one of the climaxes of my time in the historical centre of Cambridge. Later, another beautiful moment was attending the Evensong which was actually a Sung Eucharist at King’s College Chapel. There is a famous choir there and they sang the ”Mass” beautifully. It seemed almost more Catholic than Catholic Masses, eg. with ”and with thy spirit” (cf. et cum spiritu tuo) instead of ”and also with you”. But of course there was the pain of the schism, and I had to leave at Communion.
My bus took me back to Histon where I watched, in two consecutive evenings, a DVD about St. Paul in the Bible series. The film was of great help in my St.Paul research project, it made the religious events, teachings and problems come alive as a true real-life story. Yesterday I found the same DVD with Finnish subtitles in Helsinki at a much lower price and bought it:) Another coincidence was that Wednesday evening I attended a local Bible study group with Michele and we discussed Acts 10-11, whose contents coincided with those of the St. Paul movie… Here are some of us in front of the parish after the study.
And here are the girls brushing their teeth… stay tuned for my last full day in Cambridge.
Emil Anton 