Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

The Memorial Church in Berlin is a victim of World War II. It was bombed during the war and has spent the rest of its life as a ruin. They've covered up the main tower of the church as they do restoration work.

'Til 2012.

They're not rebuilding the church or tearing it down or anything. They're just preserving the ruin, as a part of the Berlin skyline. Which I think is a wonderful thing.

The church they have up is modern hexagon with walls of stained glass squares. I came in, once again, in time for a quick evening mass. The priest looked so small below the giant Jesus hanging from the ceiling.

Floating, really...

Again, the service was in German, so I mumbled along. My heart is kinda breaking for a Good Word in my own language, but I can float through another hymn in German. I can't help but get annoyed at the tourists who come to look at these churches and then sneak out when they're actually used as a church. They take their pictures and go and I'm not quite sure what they're going to do with them. Then again, I guess I'm the same thing. I just sing along when I'm there after I take the pictures.

After the service, there was a woman sitting in front of the Stalingrad Madonna, of which I really wanted a picture. I was just going to wait around the corner for her to finish praying, but she was pretty dedicated so I stood back from a distance and snapped my picture.

There's so many stories wrapped up in this building. It doesn't do me any good to retell them, but I'm glad they're not forgotten. As long as who we are is aware of who we've been, I guess we're good. Though the euro I dropped in the collection basket on the way out is certainly not enough to assure a memory, I'm sure there will be.

St. Hedwig's Cathedral

St. Hedwig's was a serendipitous mistake on a sunny afternoon in Berlin. We had sat in front of the much larger, much more impressive Berliner Dom basking in the peaceful rest only soft grass in the sun can provide before walking around and exploring the other fancy looking buildings around. We ended up in a plaza where the cathedral was slightly tucked away behind the construction work on another building. Admittedly, the domed building with its white columns doesn't scream cathedral like you expect in Europe.

Inside, though, you get the story of the cathedral. It's the seat of the archibishop in Berlin and the church that was built on this spot in the 18th century was the first Catholic church allowed in Prussia after the Protestant Reformation. Like many other churches in Berlin, St. Hedwig's sustained damage during the war, burning in an air raid in 1943. The structure seen today was constructed in 1952-1963 and it doesn't pay tribute to any previous styles of building. There's a skylight at the top and windows in the walls, but no pictures in the stained glass and no candeliers for lighting- just these odd orbs of light on strings hanging down from the ceiling. The altar is in the center of the room, surrounded by pews and the additional chapels are down a staircase right in front of the altar.

Downstairs, they have a chapel for St. Hedwig, of course- her relics are kept here in the cathedral that honors her name. St. Hedwig has little or nothing to do with the more famous (I think) snowy white owl, but she did go barefoot in the winter and donate to the poor a lot, so she's solid in my book. There remains of Bernhard Lichtenberg are in the crypt as well. Father Litchenberg was persecuted by the government after praying for Jewish families in the aftermath of Kristallnacht. The chapels are good and quiet, each with a different purpose and atmosphere. On the whole, though, the entire cathedral was rather deserted. I don't think St. Hedwig's is on a list of cathedrals to visit in Berlin.

Upstairs, there was a little nook that had a statue of Mary and two candelabras, full of votive candles.

I lit mine for the women in the park in front of the Berliner Dom, who each told a different story of a different country's unrest or tragedy that brought them to the streets of Berlin. One of them had wandered over to St. Hedwig's and sat just outside of the door, rocking her baby. I know that handing them a euro coin won't make their lives any better, but one of the reasons I still believe in the church is that it still does good deeds. Maybe the euro I put in for my candle will sneak into a fund for the people on the streets of Berlin.

The smoke didn't drift up to the bulbs they had for lighting in the sanctuary, but they caught my eye anyway. Looking around the room, you'd almost forget that this cathedral belonged to a religion millenias old. I thought of the places the women had claimed to be from. Libya. Egypt. Afghanistan. A modern church for modern problems, centuries old.