God of creation,
our forebears chose the spacious liberty of this favoured plain.
Courageous and resolute, they dared to dream,
and employed prodigious gifts of ear, and hand, and eye,
to mark out this space, shaped after the cross of Christ.
They laid strong foundations, consecrated the stones,
and raised our cathedral church of New Sarum.
Ever since, in the holy place which their hands made,
men and women have sought the grace of your glorious presence.
They have sung your praise in close and cloister, in chantry and chapel,
they have prayed, and waited, and listened,
they have celebrated sacraments and honoured saints,
they have gone out to serve all humanity,
in peril and plague, poverty and plenty.
The great spire points us heavenwards,
its lofty serenity an intimation of eternity.
It calls us in our day to bold courage and fresh resolve.
It calls us to live what this place proclaims.
Teach us to recognize the gifts with which we have been blessed;
teach us to use them;
that liberty might increase, that truth might abound, that beauty might
flourish, that your Kingdom might be built,
in this city where five rivers meet, and throughout the Earth.
Amen.
Nicholas Papadopulos,
Dean of Salisbury
A prayer on the 800
th
Anniversary
of the Foundation of Salisbury Cathedral
At the end of the descriptions of each of the works of art,
the members of the Theological Committee have suggested questions
which visitors to the exhibition might choose to ask themselves.
These questions are inspired by the relationship
between the art and its context within a cathedral.
