Unveiled

“Do you go to church?” Nina asked. My friend was looking for someone to accompany her to a Sunday service.

 “No,” I replied. “But I do go to churches.”

There’s a difference, you know. I love everything about houses of worship—vaulted ceilings, cool marble, ebony pews, hushed echoes, droning organs, luminescent windows, lingering frankincense—everything except inflexible doctrines of worship. Then I’m a little more selective.

So I agreed to go with Nina to the annual Messiah concert held at Falls Church, the landmark from which the city of Falls Church, Virginia, derives its name. We found two seats in the back, under the choir loft.

While awaiting the opening chords of Handel’s masterpiece, I absorbed the brick church’s simplicity and history. Established in 1769, it cost 33,500 pounds of tobacco to build. George Washington, George Mason, Francis Scott Key, and other early patriots worshipped here. The Declaration of Independence was read from the steps of the south doors.

“Comfort ye,” intoned a tenor from above. Veiled from visual distractions, the clarity of the music and the classic story of redemption descended. When the ensemble of professionals and parishioners got to the “Hallelujah” chorus, I started crying. That’s what churches can do to me.

Like when I visited the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis, in Bethlehem, Connecticut. Separated from the public by a latticed grille, cloistered nuns offered vespers in haunting Gregorian chants. Veiled from view and thus untainted by sight and touch, the holy women’s prayers had the same effect on me as the Falls Church Hallelujah.

A monastic grille is a veil, a sieve that purifies the message and protects the messenger. Veiling is almost always associated with women. It can be decorative, like a bride’s crown; practical, like a sari; or religious, like a nun’s habit. In many religions, a veil symbolizes reverence, although it probably grew out of a pagan practice to protect women from demons.

Temples themselves—and the religions they house—might also be seen as veils that separate the message from the messenger. Several Gospels describe the church established by Jesus as his veiled bride.

Veils were a special motif for Benedictine artist Dom Gregory de Wit. He painted a series of murals between 1946 and 1955 at Saint Joseph Abbey in Covington, Louisiana. I often went there to study the paintings that I can only describe as Byzantine realism. Although all his subjects featured crudely expressive faces with sculpted muscles, out-of-scale limbs, and vibrant clothes, his female saints stood out. Wearing a uniquely embellished veil, each emerged as a pure soul, untainted by touch. Mary Magdalene in pearly white. Cecilia in iridescent gold. Beatrice in flaming red.

“Would you take me there?” asked my friend Pat after I described a pilgrimage. “I’d like to bring Caeli.” Her daughter was only two, but I understood. Like me, Pat preferred going to churches rather than church. She once took me to St. Stephen’s in New Orleans. Built in a German Gothic style, the 150-year-old church features pews hewn from trees native to the Black Forest, stained glass from Munich, and gargoyles.

So we headed to Saint Joseph’s, where the monks sustain themselves by selling bread, honey, soap, and caskets. Yes, caskets. But that’s another story.

Not ten seconds into our tour, Caeli was enchanted by church. Bewitched might be a better word. Mortified, I watched her blonde hair go wild and heard her voice reach the highest octaves of delight as she dashed through the nave, across the sacristy, and around the altar. With each lap, the plaster walls amplified her screeching joy. I was appalled at the unholy scene. Pat was nonplussed.

“If you can’t be yourself in God’s house,” she proclaimed with devout hands clasped in front of her breasts, “then, where then can you be?”

Begrudgingly, I admitted she was right. With sacramental music playing unseen and frankincense lingering amidst vaulted ceilings and cool marble, I have been myself, baptized anew with tears.

Maybe before I die, I will be baptized with joy. Rather than cry, I’ll run like Caeli through a sanctuary of religious beliefs, a blessed pagan conquering demons, a sainted woman streaming veils of iridescent euphoria, an unholy messenger with a holy, protected message…

Mother of God, some unveiling that will be!