EnVisionChurch

July 16, 2008

After sponsoring a study tour of Rome for two years, the Georgetown Center for Liturgy (“GCL”) offered a tour of the lesser known but no less interesting Low Countries (The Netherlands and Belgium).  From June 6 through June 14, a group of us traveled to such mesmerizing cities as Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, Louvain, with each one of these cities offering an overwhelming richness of religious, artistic, and culinary opportunities.

We began our tour in the Beguinage church of Amsterdam (Église du-Béguinage) with Sunday Mass, which was celebrated in a style that blended tradition and avant-garde, a combination that proved characteristic for Amsterdam.  The next day, we felt the light on our face and soul as we entered the luminous gothic cathedral of Antwerp, which is dotted with great works of art by such masters as Rubens and Jordaens.  In Bruges we venerated the relic of the Precious Blood, which has been the center of popular devotion for over 800 years.

The theologically intricate and artistically masterful Mystical Lamb (1432) painted by Flemish Primitives Jan van Eyck and Hubert van Eyck for the Cathedral of Ghent rendered all of us speechless.  From there we went to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, where we observed the evolution of Christian art in the Low Countries between 1200 and 2000. In Louvain, we toured the oldest continuously operating Catholic University in the world (1425) and enjoyed a visit to Mont César, one of the great centers of the Modern Liturgical Movement.  At the close of the trip, Rev. Lawrence Madden, SJ, director of the GCL presided at a Mass we celebrated at The America College of Louvain, one of two American seminaries in Europe.

By Johan van Parys.  The Director of Liturgy and the Sacred Arts at the Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Artistic Director of EnVisionChurch.

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