Of the End of Time and the End of My Time: personal narrative and photos by Ronald K. Bullis

Close-up of the Astronomical Clock, Strasbourg Cathedral

(photo by the author, Ronald K. Bullis)

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Of the End of Time and the End of My Time: Strasbourg Cathedral’s 

Angel Pillar and the Astronomical Clock 

(Strasbourg, Alsace, France) 

“You know, we have a window,” said a friend, an age-peer, after wishing me a happy birthday. “And that window is narrowing.” Then he held up his thumb and forefinger

about three inches wide.

He was a pretty upbeat kind of guy. But I knew what he meant.

We were both on Medicare and both approaching retirement. Sometimes the conversation veered into the sober reflections about friends getting debilitated and, in some cases, passing away. He meant that our overseas traveling days are numbered.

We were both travelers and we spoke of wonderful places we had seen. We recalled the places that particularly moved us or touched us. He liked the East and I the West. He liked the teeming Asian cities that were so busy and exciting. I liked Europe and especially its Gothic cathedrals and medieval art and architecture. I remembered the places that moved me; I thought of them as “places of grace.” His image of our narrowing “window” grabbed my attention about time and its passing and its significance in my life.

Places and time matter more as I have gotten older. When you are down to a dollar or two, you start to count pennies.

I remembered the powerful impact of the Strasbourg cathedral’s astronomical clock and angel pillar. I felt its impact right down to my bones and how it helped me value both sacred time and the rest of my time here.

The cathedral is a place of grace and precious memory. It began over a thousand years ago and has a muscular beauty. Its art and architecture serve as a sophisticated technology of Christian formation and development. That impact can happen quickly.

As soon as I entered the cathedral, I was temporarily blinded by its darkness. My eyes took time to adjust. After all, I was entered from seeing by the light of the sun into a world lit only by the light of the Son. It takes time for the iris to widen.

I leaned back into a corner and waited. Gradually, I could see more. Looking down the center and side aisles, I grasped the enormity of the interior space. My eyes drew up into row upon row of stained glass and into the light and color of the life of Christ, Mary, Joseph, the apostles, saints—the whole company of heaven.

Both heaven and earth stretch out inside this place. Worshippers sat, some with their heads in their hands, some lighted devotional candles, others pointed to the stained glass, and some moved forward toward the Eastern end of the church, the altar—and both the angel pillar and the astronomical clock.

The Angel Pillar and astronomical clock were both built around the same time in the 12th century. They look and function like they were carved and chiseled as a pair to perform

the same purpose.

Visitors can feel that purpose eight centuries later. So did I.

I had arrived before most of the other visitors, so I picked a spot close to the clock. I

looked at it from a distance to get the feel of it. It dwarfed me. The clock had two faces:

an astrological clock and another clock that told two kinds of time.

Walking closer to the East of the church, I approached the clock towers to the right of

the altar. The altar is the most sacred place of the cathedral. That is the place of Eucharist—where the Body of Christ is both visible and consumed by the faithful. This is the place where He opens our mouths and our hearts so we can feel Him on the inside. I began to realize what an intimate act the Eucharist really is.

The clock’s location was key to connect our experience of Christ’s Presence. I had to pay close attention to the clock and the pillar to see how.

The crowds gathered and we politely picked our spots. We pulled out our cell phones, laptops, and cameras. We pointed them at the signs and symbols and seemed to want something more than timekeeping or entertainment. The clock, though, is lovelier than most suppose. There are two clock faces. The upper face is an astrological clock with the twelve gold symbols of the zodiac around the outer circle. The inner field is a rich blue, the sun a circle and a golden arrow pointing near the “House” of the current astrological phase. There is the outer face of astrological symbols, the chronological numbers, the carved figures, its graceful form, and its vibrant colors.

The second clock depicted two kinds of time. The New Testament speaks of two kinds of time, chronos and kairos. Chronos is our usual time, passing from minutes and hours to days and months. The chronos part of the clock marked time in 24-hour increments. To the side of the twenty-four numbers, an outer ring marked each month and marked each day

of any given month.

Kairos time is different. Kairos time is cathedral time, the Lord’s time. It is stopwatch;

it is a time to stop and watch for Presence of God. In Mark 1:15, Jesus said that

“…the time (kairos) is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God has come near…” This time

is not “told” by a watch, but by a divine sense of His seasons. Jesus uses the fig tree

in Matthew 24 to illustrate.

The fig tree bears its fruit by the seasons, by its internal, inspired clock. You do not calculate kairos time; you feel it. In Greek and in Hebrew, the word for “spirit” is the same for wind and for breath. While you cannot see the wind or the breath, you can feel it.

You can feel its breeze and you can feel it getting stronger or weaker. This feeling sense

of kairos makes it an intimate time. You must get close to someone to feel their breath.

You can’t think your way into Christ’s intimate kairos time. You must feel your way.

The crowd had gathered to hear the chimes and to see various figures rotate around the upper section of the clock. Solar noon is particularly popular. Today, solar noon was scheduled at 12:30 pm. When the chimes sound, Christ and his apostles process across the top of the clock. In this small act is the concept that Christ processes throughout time and space. At the peak of the sun, the Son shows Himself with His apostles.

Divine grammar does not use past, present, or future tenses. He has walked through time; he is walking through time, and He will always walk through time. For a moment, I was participating in that kairos time. I was not just watching the procession; I was walking

with them. Christ was drawing me into His time.

Sometimes you both need to look closely and to become close. I did get closer. I saw small,

formal writing in Latin beside each day of the year. So, I waited until the gathered visitors had gone and leaned over the gate. The writing was so small that I had to magnify photos later to see the exact names. Every day either had a Christian season, like Épiphanie or

a saint’s day, such as Janvier 15 for Paul, the anchorite. I checked Decembre 25 and sure enough, it called out “Noel.” I drew in a breath when I thought of how each started as something new on that day—but I realized that such days live forever. The saint sanctified their day; they made it more than just 24 hours of chronos time; they made it an intimate time to know Christ.

This intimate time is a time to be with Christ. There is no substitute just to be near Him.

So, I just stood beneath the astrological and astronomical clock. I stood inside both chronological and sacred time. Sensing the feel of the sacred space, the perfect proximity of the altar, the divine procession, the 365 names of saints and seasons of the church

and the shadow and spark of the stained glass.

Thoughts came soft as an exhale. I wondered if my “shrinking window” is somehow tucked

within God’s own time. If my life is not as linear as I was always taught, maybe I could inhabit sacred time even beside regular time. I wondered how I could live in an intimate closeness to the Lord. I wondered what could prompt me to live more in that holy closeness to Christ and his own life.

I walked back beneath a pair of stained-glass windows to view the clock at a distance.

A figure of a woman, wearing a blue dress with gold stars, seemed to beckon me. She is about eighteen inches tall, mysteriously lifelike, stood just to the right of the 24-hour clock. She holds the red arrow of time and looks beyond the clock to her right. Her gaze guided me to a pillar that I had not even noticed.

I turned to my left and started walking. After a couple of steps, I almost ran into the beard and scroll of a prophet. Startled, I took a deep breath. The angel pillar. For being so massive, it is easily overlooked. It is unpainted, almost stuck in a corner, a wallflower keeping the secrets of Christ.

His pale, stone eyes looked right at me. The prophets and their sober faces held scrolls revealing the divine plan. It felt like he wanted to tell me something and he demanded that

I listen. It felt like something is about to happen. Then I looked up.

Angels circled around the pillar. They grasped trumpets and drew them near to their mouths. It seems they are very, very close to blowing them. Their heads tilted to one side, their eyes focused elsewhere, like they were listening for something strange and wonderful. Their whole bodies leaned into some silent sound. They begged us to listen as well.

I finally exhaled and realized that I had held my breath since the tiny lady at the clock. Standing there in the shadow of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, or John the Baptizer, they seemed to be speaking now. Their prophesies were not history or predictions. They were something to be known, realized, and experienced right now. Their sacred time did not fly like an arrow in one direction but unfolded all along the way like a lily. For a moment, I stood among the lilies.

I was not just standing in the shadow of the pillar. I felt like I was among the pillar’s prophets

and angels. I felt the exhale of the prophets and the wash of the angel wings.

My next thought was not exalted. I realized how little I knew. I do not know the mind of God and I don’t even know my own mind. My heart is often hidden even from itself. In part, Christ came to reveal who we are to ourselves. At the heart of the cathedral, beside the altar, the clock and pillar pronounce what the heart cannot.

It was as if a horn blasted right inside my eardrum. I had not realized my true intention

for visiting cathedrals. I like to show off my photos and travel stories. I thought I had

a pilgrim heart.

But I did not have a pilgrim’s heart. I had an acquisitive heart. I treated the cathedrals like trophies. I realized that visiting holy places one after another was like collecting lovely

butterflies by pinning them to a specimen board. There is no intimacy in collecting souvenirs from the things of God. It had seemed that if I could hold onto things, I could push back the ever-shrinking window of time. The cathedral revealed the lie.

If only I could remember each day’s angels. Every day, we walk into angels and prophets and those close to Him. If we can become awake into that moment, we can be intimate

with God. When I was thinking of my own “window” of time, I was thinking in narrow, chronos time, not in His season of the sacred inside each moment.

I thought of the supposed “diminishing window” of my life. Maybe the response is something different from adding another thing to the “bucket list.” I wondered if the angels and the prophets were the real windows into His time and His purposes for my time.

Angel Pillar and the Astromonical Clock, Strasbourg Cathedral

(photo by the author, Ronald K. Bullis)

Ronald K. Bullis, Ph.D., M.Div. specializes in writing on Christian sacred places.

He is the author of Spirituality and Social Work Practice and published prose

and poetry in Busted Halo, Parabola, Studia Mystica, Dry Creek Review,

Black Buzzard, Orange Willow Review, Parnassus, Midwest Poetry Review,

and most recently, a photo-prose piece in As Surely as the Sun and poems

to be published in The Penwood Review in fall of 2024.

July 2024 issue