Saint Ouen
Illustrated below
“One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we’ve developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God[,] they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.”
~ Malcolm Muggeridge
Where war, barbed wire and death obliterate
A young man’s faith, he tends to turn his face
To older beauty, turning back from hate.
He slogs his way through trench-deep mud to grace
Of any sort that he might find. No God
Presents himself in mangled corpses on
The field or in a random, ruthless clod
Thrown in between the teeth of Private John.
It happens that a church comes into view,
St. Ouen, lovelier to him, much more
Than Rouen’s spire. He cannot take a pew
Because of the effects of English gore.
He pens his soul, “My spirit longs for prayer;
And, lost to God, I seek him everywhere.”
~ Phillip Whidden
Saint Ouen Abbey Church