Pentecost in Cape Town

Flowers for Pentecost

This is a Pentecost to remember! A bishop arrayed in rich red silk vestments and mitre celebrating the Eucharist in the Cathedral of Saint George, Cape Town. A chamber orchestra and singers performing Mozart's Mass in B-flat K275 throughout the service, the first reading from Acts of the Apostles  done in Afrkaans, English, isiXhosa, Swahili, and German. Smells (incense) and bells galore. Lots of red...in the vestments, flowers, and the apparel of the congregation, right down to the bright red velour running suit on the guy in the pew in front of us. A trilingual bulletin (Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa), which we sensed was routine and not just because of Pentecost. A darling 13 or 14 year old thurifer who did her job with her right arm around the shoulder of an even more adorable 9-10 year old girl (known as "the boat boy" or thurifer in training in the arcane language fop the Anglican church) who carried the spare incense.

Before we even got to Cape Town we had talked about finding an Anglican church for Sunday services to celebrate Pentecost. We have been enjoying the (Catholic) services at the Little Sisters of the Poor in Brazzaville, but as similar as the liturgy may be, it just is not the same as everyone saying the Collect for Purity together in English. So when we discovered we were an easy taxi ride to St. George's Cathedral, where the main service was at 9:30, we decided some things are simply meant to be.

To give you more flavor of the setting, the neo-gothic cathedral was built in the early 19th Century by British settlers. The first service was held on Christmas 1834. In 1847 the first English bishop, Robert Gray, and his wife Sophia showed up, charged to grow the clergy and church presence. It turns out Sophia was beyond the ideal helpmeet. An architect and artist, an accomplished horsewoman, and a skilled keeper of institutional records, Sophia is credited with designing more than 40 new Anglican churches. St. George's, which was already built in imitation of St. Pancras, London, actually did not measure up to the Rt. Rev'd. Gray's image of a cathedral. Today the now-sprawling footprint of St. George's is still evolving, but includes a courtyard garden and labyrinth inspired in part by the sisterhood of St. George's with Grace Cathedral San Francisco. It is the oldest cathedral in Southern Africa and the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Capetown.

Black Madonna carving

Known as "the people's cathedral," The Cathedral of St. George is distinguished for the fact that it has always been open to all. During the fight to end apartheid this position offered prophetic witness to needed change. Today Bishop Garth Counsell reminded us that as Anglicans we have more in common than we do differences, that in communion we can resolve what differences we have. And indeed in the closing hymn we sang,

Holy Spirit, rushing, burning,

wind and flame of Pentecost,

fire our hearts afresh with yearning

to regain what we have lost.

May your love unite our action,

nevermore to speak alone:

God, in us abolish faction,

God, through us your love make known.

An auspicious beginning for an adventure I have aspired to since 1962, when I read Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.