Chapter One
Sacred Place, Sacred Time
The autobahn from the Köln-Bonn airport approaches Köln from the East Bank of the Rhine. As one drives over the bridge one sees the skyline on the West Bank. It is not exactly Chicago as seen from the Shedd Aquarium (what is?), but it is still striking: the great spired Dom which dominates the city is surrounded, as by faithful servants, by seven Romanesque churches, each one representing a phase in the city's long history. Along the riverbank, picturesque multicolored buildings hint at a late medieval city. Gaily painted excursion boats and big barges with the flags of many countries move majestically in either direction. On the nearby railroad bridge, trains roar by at the rate of two per minute. If one has lived long enough, one remembers pictures of the devastated city immediately after the War in which the Dom, the victim of seventeen direct bomb hits, was a hollow shell surrounded by rubble. Once again, this historic city where the river meets the road has mana ... read full excerpt from: The Catholic Imagination ebook
