Angelus
Early this morning, standing at the bus stop in the rain, I suddenly heard the Angelus from St Olav’s cathedral pour out over the cityscape in sonorous benediction. Little gives me as much comfort as the sound of the Angelus bell. It is a marker of civilisation, a proclamation at once discreet and majestic of life’s purpose and sense, direction and finality, spreading its beneficial reach to those, too, who have not the slightest idea of what it stands for. I think of a few lines by Jehan Le Povremoyne set to music by Vierne: ‘The Angelus sounds across my city still asleep; the Angelus of bells in honour of Mary. See how the night flees. How joyfully the Archangel’s greeting resounds upon my city still asleep. As the doe’s fawn behind the hill, the sun will leap forth.’
