I used to think that every bit of faith was blind. I thought all foundations built from the necessity of understanding were rickety, prone to fall, if only because they didn’t mean nearly as much as something I could see, feel, touch, or understand. It was because of this that I subconsciously declared myself a non-believer before I even knew what believing was. I shoved the flag into the earth below me, drew the bloodied line into the rough sand between myself and the rest of the universe.
I think I know her now—the universe—after years of spurning the tug. I think I found her in Spoleto.
We arrived in Spoleto on a particularly cloudy Thursday afternoon. I’ll never forget the feeling of turning off the Via del Duomo onto the sloped piazza where the Duomo sits. The white stone building, with its sheer size and hypervigilant frescoes, looms over the city and its inhabitants like a watchful giant, like a God. It’s even more striking atop the hill as you gaze down the wide stone steps that lead to it, steps that seem to go on forever as you follow them down to the massive wooden church doors.
I lit a candle that day in the small, glowing chapel in the back corner of the Duomo. It was one of the only moments I had to myself that day, and it felt as if I had finally found a lone tree to stand under during a pressing storm, like I could finally think and breathe and feel safe to do both. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing when I lit that candle—was never taught—but I closed my eyes and breathed in the warm, waxy air, allowed the smoke to fill my lungs, and I didn’t think about a thing as I let it burn among the other melting candles at the offering table. I felt connected to the cold stones beneath my feet, let the tingling energy reach my shaking hands that held the candle, and I let it burn. Then I opened my eyes, accosted by the cerulean light from the frescoes in front of me, and placed the candle in its slot.
In that sanctuary, there’s a statue of a man that sits by the Eucharist under the ever-glowing Sanctuary Lamp. The statue casts a perfectly rendered shadow on the rear wall of the Tabernacle, as if a man—completely immaterial—is also looking toward God’s presence while the candle is lit. I swear it means something.
We took a trip to Montefalco on a separate, scorching Thursday. Montefalco is a beautiful, small, and somehow seemingly more ancient city than Spoleto. Known for its vino and olio d’oliva, the city was permeated with the smell of deeply sour fermented grapes and lovely, salted and spiced oils. The entirety of it, though, culminated at the city chapel—the sanctuary of Saint Clare of Montefalco.
I entered the church wrapped in a cerulean shawl that itched my exposed, reddened shoulders the sun had kissed on our walk up the hill. The highly vaulted room smelled of melted candlewax, of forever flames, of saltwater laden in limestone fonts. The frescoes were wonderfully preserved, as was Saint Clare’s mummified body, as it lay to rest below a depiction of her performing her miracle—light beams emanating from her slight frame.
We were told Saint Clare so devoted herself to the faith that she had the Passion performed on her heart after her death. She had it wrapped in a crown of thorns and had three nails and a crucifix inserted into the silent, never-beating organ. To believe so deeply, to feel connected to something so vehemently—I realized I could never know that feeling. I felt envious of Saint Clare in that moment—of the knowledge she gained through complete surrender, of her bravery, of the sheer beauty of her existence. I was hyper-aware of my exposed shoulders under my shawl, of every regret I’d ever had, of everyone I’d ever loved, even.
Overwhelmed, I made my way to a votive stand in the far corner of the room.
Pathos climbed up the rocky, sand-colored walls, and blue hydrangeas lined the grand votive stand devoted to Saint Clare. The melting candles at my waist warmed my face, the feeling like an embrace. I thought of my grandfather in that moment—his garden in the late sticky-sweet summer months of South Carolina, overtaken by climbing vines, mannered by the light blue hydrangeas he loved so dearly. I stood in front of those candles for a while, let my pain build, let a tear well and fall, let it fall at the foot of Saint Clare, let her take it from me. I lit a candle for my grandfather, for Saint Clare, for my mother. I let the wax melt to my fingers, then placed it before her.
When I was a child, we’d sing this song at camp called “Light the Fire.” I thought it was silly, as I did all the other hymn-like songs we sang around the campfire in that August heat. But fire—as it grows and shows itself like the rising sun—isn’t silly. It’s potent. It’s never-ending.
Like a fire, I felt this strange spirit grow within me in Spoleto. I’d never felt so connected to the Earth, to the wind, to myself, as I felt when I was there, lighting fires. I wouldn’t say it’s a God, per se, that I found, but a source to the feeling I’ve been searching for all my life. The connection from the very depths of me to the far-reaching periphery of what’s out there. A way to touch the universe, to light the fire and let it grow.
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