The first thing that we went to see was appropriately Canterbury Cathedral—the church founded by Augustine when he was sent by the pope on a mission to evangelise the Anglo-Saxons in this island. Canterbury Cathedral has a great Christian heritage and it is the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury. We couldn’t have asked for a sunnier day for this day trip to this UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The 7 of us from COCM met up with the Canterbury student fellowship people (our local tour guides for this trip) and also friends from a London student fellowship at the Cathedral and began our tour.
The most famous story that is told about Canterbury Cathedral is that of Thomas Becket’s murder in this cathedral in 1170 because he angered the king at that time over issues of the rights and privileges of the Church. After his martyrdom and canonisation, Canterbury Cathedral became even more famous and the number of pilgrims to the cathedral increased.
I was curious about the cloister—the center of monastic life where the monks carried out most of their activities—which I had learned so much about in the Monastic Culture class I took at Bristol last year so I went and found it behind the quiet closed door by the side of the Cathedral. Not too many people knew to go there so it was quieter and I could imagine all the studying, meditating and exercising that would have gone on in and around this squared space. It was fun to walk around the corridors and enjoy being in this space.
After that, our group gathered and Pei Ge, our enthusiastic local guide/brother, pointed out the shiny white statues of the Queen and Prince Philip on the Western facade of the cathedral. What I noticed and treasured more was the image of Jesus carrying a little sheep in the middle. It reminded me of recent reflections about God’s care for us—His wandering sheep. It was just a comforting image and spoke to me about God’s care for his little ones.
Next, we went to Augustine’s Abbey—its ruins to be exact, and we did not go in. It looked rather like St. Mary’s Abbey in the Museum gardens in York.
Speaking of which, as I walked through the main streets of Canterbury, I couldn’t help but notice its similarity with York in terms of its historical atmosphere and the look of the buildings/streets.
The third church we visited was St Martin’s Church, the third World Heritage Site that we saw today. It is the first church founded in England, the oldest parish church in continuous use (people still meet here to worship every week), and the oldest church in the entire English-speaking world. It does not have the splendour of the Gothic architecture that Canterbury Cathedral has, only having a simpler shape and size characteristic of early Norman architecture. It has Roman bricks in the oldest part of the church, which was Queen Bertha’s private chapel in the 6th century before Augustine arrived from Rome because she was a Christian Frankish princess who married King AEthelberht of Kent, a pagan. The lady at work there kindly read this story to us and also told us that there would be a wedding taking place in the church this afternoon, hence the flower decoration on the benches.
By that time, we were getting hungry, so we headed back to the city centre for lunch at a restaurant Sherry, our trusty guide/sister from Canterbury had already reserved for us.
Walking into the private upper room we had, we were all amazed at the feast table we were about to dine from—with table candle chandeliers in the middle—so fancy!
It was fun to get to know new brothers and sisters in Christ from different cities and eat a good meal together before we head to the seaside in the late afternoon.
Stay tuned for photos of Whitstable in the next post~
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