Sunday in Brussels

On Sunday morning we left our hotel and headed back to the center of town, where we planned to have breakfast, do a walking tour, and eventually visit the museum at the King’s House. Along the way I pictured the characters of my upcoming novel walking these very streets, my Isa who is from a wealthy family and Edward from the bourgeois class. And, since my story takes place during the German occupation of the First World War, I imagined the boots of German soldiers echoing off the narrow, cobbled streets.

Along the way we passed a statue of Cardinal de Mercier, and the name sprung out to me as the priest who objected to so many of the restraints and harsh conditions the Germans imposed upon the Belgians living under their regime.

Then we came to The Saints Michael and Gudule Cathedral that dates back originally to the 13th century and decided to go inside the open doors.
Underneath the cathedral is the original stonework of the vestibule that dates back to 1226.

Cathedrals are lovely, of course, with so much grandeur and history. In the center of Brussels they’ve preserved the old world feel, but just outside of that the modern world lives side-by-side with the old, as you can see in the contrast to the building going up near this cathedral.

It was inside this cathedral I encountered my first special moment of this trip (the first of many, I’m happy to report). I hope you’ll forgive me if I digress from my research travelogue to share this moment with you.

I think I mentioned that earlier this year, my mother passed away. She was a devoted wife and wonderful mother to six of us kids—although I guess it’s hard to imagine us being “kids” when the youngest is in his mid-forties. Despite five of her six children leaving the Catholic Church to practice Christianity in various Protestant churches, she never wavered from her own devout faith. I asked her once why she loved the Catholic Church so much. Some of the things I recalled were chanting in repetitive rituals, or praying to statues that seemed so cold and removed from anything real or contemporary, or sitting beneath stained glass pictures that frankly frightened me.

But in her serene way, my mother told me she loved the Catholic Church because she knew that all over the world people were worshipping our God in the same way. There is a unity there, a feeling of cohesiveness no matter what culture you belong to. And, she told me, if you listen to the words, really listen to them, they’re meaningful and beautiful.

So here I was, in a Catholic Church on a Sunday morning, half a globe away from where my mother had spent her life worshipping the same God I worship. I said to my husband while we lurked in the back during Mass, listening to the same songs, the same prayers in French that my mother prayed in English, that if only I could hear the organ play I’d know my mother was right, that people all over the world worshipped our God in the same way she did. For a moment I loved that ritual, that familiarity so far from home.

Then the organ played and I felt like my mother had been granted a moment to leave Heaven to worship next to me in that grand Cathedral in Belgium. It was a moment, I tell you.

And then we headed to the Grand Place for hot chocolate and Belgian waffles…not exactly the nutritious meal my mother would have wanted me to eat, but I think she would’ve understood. We were in Belgium, after all.