Annie had been gone all afternoon. Aidan and I had done our laundry, gone to the supermarket and were unloading our groceries when we finally saw her again.
“Where have you been all day?” I asked.
“In the cathedral, you guys have to come check it out!”
There wasn’t much else to do so we followed.
We entered in through the bead curtain that lead to the back of the chapel. Instantly the temperature dropped 15 degrees. The sunlight faded away in the hall behind us.
It was dark like a cave. Shafts of light from the windows showed clouds of dust hanging between the building’s arches. Vines were in the rafters and on the walls along with patches of moss and green algae.
There was no ornamentation. No relics. And therefore no tourists. Only Jesus, nailed to the cross, looked out at us from the gloom. He hung in the center of the building; alone.
We became silent. After fifteen minutes, I left.
Annie Landis and I sat in the sun for a while thinking.
“I was hoping you were going to sing.”
I turned to Annie, surprised. “Really? Why?” Annie shrugged.
“I don’t know. I was just hoping you would.”
Later that night we returned; Aidan, Anne D., Annie Landis, and I. The atmosphere was the same. Again we stopped talking and sat quietly. For a long while we all sat, praying and thinking. I felt Annie’s eyes on me. I breathed in deep and sang.
I’m not sure what my friends believed in that night. But as I sang out the words of my favorite worship song it felt like worship wasn’t coming from me alone but from all of us. My last notes echoed out and we fell silent again. After a while we left quietly.
We had church in Sobrado in a thousand year-old building dedicated to Christ. I realized later that the church felt powerful because of it’s lack of extra fixtures. The cupids and saints in other churches are pretty but the message of the gospel will always be as simple as Christ alone, hanging there for humanity. Annie told me later that that night was one of the highlights of her Camino.