Saint Mundiata’s full skeleton reclines on its side, skull propped up on a pillow-stand, kneecaps drawn toward the rib cage, jewel-eyes staring, jewel-studded arm bones leading down to the hands that grip, respectively, a chalice and a quill, bejeweled dressing gown hanging loosely over the clavicles down to the ankles. The display’s decadence evidences the devotion that must have led to its creation, just as its unflinching exposure of elemental human structure evidences an unwillingness to turn away from suffering and death, a testament to the commonalities—the high and the low, the elaborately-decorated and the stripped-of-all-flesh—that connect the faithful across centuries.

All dark stone and stunning high vaults, the church is defined by a narrow-seeming nave, its columns adorned with statuettes.

Art plays on memory in its own way, at its best leaving one with a question, or a thought that cannot be completed, that is failed by words; and so it was with this experience, this day, this lingering sentiment now (and perhaps for a long time) occupying my consciousness: the musical work of a sixteenth century English composer, sung in Latin, arranged by a Canadian artist and placed in the cool white space of an Austrian house of worship, being heard by an itinerant American—art and faith crossing boundaries and centuries