Some years ago when I was 25 years ordained I was able to arrange coverage for my parish and school and took a three month sabbatical to Italy. I lived with a group of Franciscan juniors in Assisi, the home of St Francis, next to the great basilica where Francis is buried. Assisi has an number of churches of course, all of which are prayerful places but also tourist haunts. A busy commercial street winds through the center of town. But up the hill, on the edge of the small city, is this church of San Stefano, (Saint Stephen) accessed by stone stairways and long stone paths. Few people go there because it's not a monumental church and too much of a climb. San Stefano is of Romanesque design, built perhaps as early as the mid-11th century. That means it was there already when Francis lived in Assisi. He would have known this place.
While in Italy I always carried a Mass kit with me — a paperback missal, little bottle-cruets of wine and water, a couple of hosts, a purificator and corporal, an amice, alb, cincture and white stole. Wherever I went, all I needed was an altar. But more than any other place I offered Mass alone at San Stefano because it was quiet and the sense of solitude was deep. The only sound was birdsong coming through the little aperture windows. There was no tourist noise, no interruption, no one even questioning, "What are you doing here?" or "Who gave you permission?"
See the picture below of the church's three small bells in a gable above the clay tile roof. It is said that when St. Francis died these bells rang spontaneously in joy. Why not?
Of course, it is a tiny, physical building at the edge of the city, but all the more, it is a state of mind. It is my (your) inner place where I am alone, praising God, thanking God, enjoying God, loving God. Indeed, nothing need be said at all. It is the inner place where I am most myself in solitude before God who sees me, is with me, knows and is glad that I am there.
I am not shirking my responsibilities or being selfish because I go there. God is pleased that I have this soul place. It is a place for all of us, not just a priest on sabbatical. It's wonderful to visit this geographical chapel, but it isn't necessary, the inner place exists for everyone.
It can be any place of remembering, present moment (or creative imagination). It is the act of gazing. There was an acre of still wooded "forest'" behind my 1950's childhood home. It was my first encounter with jack-in-the-pulpit, pin oak, white pine, moss and fern, rabbit, box turtle, cardinal and jay. I don't have to wait in the airport to go there or suffer a long covid flight half way around the world — I just have to close my eyes and be quiet. I can stand on a supermarket line to go there. I can be in a dense and noisy crowd and remain utterly and wondrously alone. I'd call that contemplative life.
