Rorate Caeli
Showing posts with label Huysmans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Huysmans. Show all posts

The Glory of the Low Mass - Together with the Martyrs in the Catacombs

The tiny transept had its little altar, with a Greek cross in relief against a purple disk. Overhead the enormous curve of the vaulting hung heavy, and so low that a man could touch it by stretching an arm; it was as black as the mouth of a chimney, and scorched by the fires that had consumed the cathedrals built above it.

Presently the clap-clap of sabots became audible, and then the smothered footfall of nuns; there was silence but for sneezing and nose-blowing stifled by pocket-handkerchiefs, and then all was still.