Mont Saint Michel July 8

I have visited the Mont Saint Michel numerous times as a member or leader of a group, but this is my first personal tour. I left the main street up to the cathedral this time and discovered a whole network of winding pathways that connect the village clinging to the rocky hillside of the Mount. I found another walk along the ramparts with access to restaurants and an elegant hotel that I had never seen and felt foolish to have never delved further than the superficial here. The parish church of St. Peter is still one of my favorite spots, a dim quiet corner under the towering figure of Saint Michael. It was here that I first met Saint Roch and his dog, whose portrait I always take for Sue. Here too I met a Benedictine monk when inquiring about my chapelet honoring Saint Michael. I still have his mailing address from having sent him the beads.

The island offers a treasure of architectural history, from the primitive hermitage in the early centuries of this era up to the gothic marvel of the cathedral that towers above the sea as a landmark visible in a shimmering haze from far across the Norman plain. This place was home to centuries of Benedictines who preserved and carried on the work of book making. It also carries on the tradition of visions urging the dedication of a chapel to Saint Michael, whose first sanctuary was consecrated to him in Italy in 490 by the bishop of Siponto in a grotto on Mount Gargon. Monks brought relics from that site to the new Mount off the Norman-Breton coast in 709; those relics of Saint Michael disappeared in 1791 during the French Revolution. There is also a Saint Michael’s Mount off the Cornwall coast at Penzance, and the Tor of Glastonbury is crowned with the tower of a church once dedicated to Saint Michael.

The beheaded statue is a common sight in French monuments. During the French Revolution, the political power of the church sided with the power of the monarchy, putting all that represented Christianity in the line of fire of the revolutionaries. It was as foolish of them to find satisfaction in crippling the artwork as it was of the church leaders to lust for the trappings of temporal power. The legacy is a stark reminder of the role of faith in our lives, and the potential for abuse, a seemingly endless trail of new and twisted abuses in the name of faith down through the ages.

There is a magic about this place that defies description and makes of it one of the wonders of the modern world.