“Arefuge containing ten stones from Mount Sinai, one from heaven itself, and one with the visage of Luke’s dark father.” (295). Robert and Katherine ride the Red Line of the Metro, as can you, to the Tenley-AU stop on route to the Washington National Cathedral. The official name is the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, located at Massachusetts and Wisconsin avenues. It was evident that the new nation under God would have a church. Pierre L’Enfant’s original design for the city had intended a place at 8th and F streets, NW, for a “great church for national purposes.” But it was never built and today the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery stands there. Over 100 years later Congress approved construction of a cathedral on Mount Saint Alban, one of the city’s seven hills. An Englishman, Frederick Bodley, was selected as the head architect. President Theodore Roosevelt, a Mason, was present for the laying of the cornerstone on September 29, 1907. Even thought the Cathedral was still unfinished, it opened in 1912. It was completed only in 1990 when President George H. W. Bush on the same day, September 29, attended the placement of the symbolic last piece, the finial (the final tip of a gable or spire—the complement to the cornerstone). This topping of the Cathedral also brings to mind the hermetic adage “As above, so below,” to be uttered in the novel and that has found its way to the two scrolls on the back of the dustcover.
Langdon offers his own lecture tour to Katherine, noting that the ten stones commemorate the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai. The “rock from heaven” refers to a rock in one of the stain-glassed windows brought back from the moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts. There is a little known Masonic connection with the moon. The first two men on the moon, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, apparently performed a “communion” ceremony “33” minutes after landing on the moon. Aldrin carried there and back a Masonic flag that he presented to the House of the Temple and it now hangs in the Library Museum. The “visage of Luke’s dark father” refers not to the Luke of the Gospels, but to Luke Skywalker of Star Wars. The third place winner of competition for children to design decorative sculptures for the Cathedral was Christopher Rader, and his drawing of Darth Vader, sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter, sits high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral. It is just one of 112 gargoyles on the cathedral. A special gargoyle tour can even be arranged for the inquisitive.
The gargoyles are only a part of this neo-gothic structure that recalls the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and as the sixth largest cathedral in the world, the National Cathedral invites comparisons with the world’s largest, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The top of the Gloria in Excelsis Tower is the highest point in Washington, and the Cathedral offers great views of the city from its observation tower. And there are 333 steps to the bell-ringing chamber in the great central tower.
This is a Cathedral of the Episcopal Church under the leadership of a Dean, the Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, who was installed as the ninth dean of Washington National Cathedral on April 23, 2005. In the novel the dean is the Reverend Colin Galloway, a Freemason. He will point out to Langdon that the golden Masonic Pyramid given him by Peter Solomon is a map. The dean also makes an explicit connection between the scientific and the spiritual realms by quoting Einstein in support of the mystical, and admonishing Robert that “You do not yet have eyes to see” (309) echoing Mark 8:18: “Having eyes, do you not see.”
Washington National Cathedral
The Cathedral has played a central role in American history and the power of Washington, and that history is repeatedly intertwined with the participation of Masons. Four American presidents had funeral services here: Woodrow Wilson, once the President of Princeton University, is also buried here; Dwight Eisenhower; Ronald Reagan; and Gerald Ford, a Mason. A memorial service was held for President Harry Truman, also a Mason. In 1937 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Mason, instituted a prayer service the day after inauguration. Ronald Reagan in 1985, George H.W. Bush in 1989, George W. Bush in 2001 and 2005, and Barack Obama in 2009 have continued that tradition.
VIDEO OF THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL
media.cathedral.org/DeanOnCBS.wmv
AN OVERVIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL
www.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc5.htm
THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL
www.nationalcathedral.org
A VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL
www.nationalcathedral.org/visit/onlineTours.shtml
SLIDE SHOW OF THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkHJZVefxrM
