St Mary's Church, Cleator

The official Listing for St Mary’s Church at Cleator concludes:

A fine Roman Catholic church designed by the eminent architect E W Pugin, showing some good distinctive features despite superficial alterations, it merits listing.

Although I certainly found it imposing and lofty, I also thought it horribly gloomy. This might have been on account of the dull sky without and the lack of electrical light within (it seems extravagant to burden a church with additional expense for the sake of a visit). The pervading sense of gloom was also etched onto the faces of the figures in the stained-glass windows; none smiled or offered cheer, but gazed out, eerily, features burdened with melancholy. And well they might. The Church of Rome teaches that while hell awaits the unbeliever, something little better is for the faithful: purgatory.

Sitting in burning flames for hundreds or thousands of years, the length of sentence determined by the number of sins committed on earth: what an appalling prospect! Little wonder the good Catholics pray to the dead to try and procure some relief from future torture. Well might Rome’s churches be dark and morose, for its message of gospel hope is muffled and muted by its extra-biblical teachings.

When Bible Christians attend church, they may do so with a smile and a skip, for they know that the Lord Jesus bore their sins in their entirety and paid the price in full:

It is finished.

   D