“People come to kneel where prayer has been valid,” wrote T.S. Eliot.

Whenever we celebrate or observe a high holy day at school, such as Ash Wednesday, Eliot’s words come to mind. The chapel is a sermon preached through art, bricks and cement. Eliot’s words, written many years ago, seem to be a fitting commentary on this sacred space. We gather in our chapel because we sense that here, prayer has been valid. In its 70 years, the walls have been saturated with the prayers of all the people who have found God in our chapel.

As Eliot writes: “You are not here to verify, instruct yourself, or inform curiosity or carry report. You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more than an order of words, the conscious occupation of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.”

He writes from his personal experience of his encounters with God. He knows what it means to be in a sacred place, to be overcome by (and filled with) the presence of God. There is a story told about Eliot’s visit to the Society of Saint John the Evangelist’s community chapel. It was an early morning Eucharist in the 1930s, during the consecration of the elements, he suddenly experienced the presence of God so powerfully, so heavily, that Eliot not only kneeled, but he also fully collapsed onto the floor of the chapel.

The various statues, stained glass windows and paintings are all reminders, that in this place, our school chapel, the transcendent God has broken into our time-bound world, and we can point to where it happened.

REVD RAKGADI KHOBO
CHAPLAIN