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Labyrinths in Christian History
The oldest existing Christian labyrinth is probably the one in the fourth-century Basilica of Reparatus at el-Asnam in Algeria. At its center are the Latin words "SANCTA ECCLESIA," testifying to its Christian significance. While Christians used labyrinths on pre-Christian sites and modeled their own after ones used by earlier cultures, the development of the high medieval Christian seven- or eleven-circuit labyrinth was a breakthrough in design. Its path was cruciform, thus incorporating the central Christian symbol. The prayer labyrinth is not a maze and rather has one path on which one cannot get lost, serving as a powerful symbol of individual life journeys and the pilgrimage of faith.
Use of these labyrinths flourished in Europe throughout the 11th and 12th centuries and beyond, especially in the French cathedrals of Chartres, Sens, Poitiers, Bayeux, Amiens and Rheims and in the Italian cathedrals at Lucca and Santa Maria-di-Trastevere in Rome. Prayer labyrinths were often viewed and modeled as a journey to Jerusalem and were even called Chemin de Jerusalem (Road of Jerusalem) serving as a spiritual pilgrimage for those who could not afford the expense (or the danger, during the Crusades) of travel to Jerusalem, the center of the world. The faithful often made the journey through the labyrinth on their knees, sometimes taking up to four hours. By the 17th and 18th centuries, the spiritual meaning of labyrinths was no longer understood. Before long, many were destroyed.
But the one at Chartres survived, even though it was obscured by chairs and generally disregarded. Almost twenty years ago Lauren Artress, an Episcopal priest and Canon of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, led a small group of people in moving those chairs in order to prayerfully walk the 42 foot Chartres labyrinth. Her work and her writings since then have brought about a worldwide resurgence in the creation of prayer labyrinths in churches, schools and hospitals from across the theological spectrum. And today the Chartres labyrinth is once again in regular use after 250 years of neglect.
The labyrinth is a universal symbol for our path through life, with its complications, difficulties, unexpected turns and twists. The entry to the labyrinth is birth; the center is death and eternal life. In Christian terms, the thread that leads us through the labyrinth of life is divine grace. Purposefully walking the labyrinth can remind us to step forward in faith, confident that Christ is central and at the heart of our life in God. Like any pilgrimage, the labyrinth represents the inner pilgrimage we are called to make to take us to the center of our being. It can help to quiet the mind, and prepare it to listen for God. It can help one to pray with the heart (instead of with words). It offers opportunity for spiritual reflection and can have peace-producing effects, which appeal to hospitals, cancer and grief support groups, stress-reduction clinics, religious groups, prisons, and families.
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