The new space of prayer at Meyer

After five years of discussion, planning and work, the new prayer space of the Meyer Hospital was inaugurated on 17 November, in the presence of the Archbishop of Florence, Mons. Giuseppe Betori. It is more precisely an ecumenical and inter-religious 'Space of the Spirit', with distinct areas for both Catholic and Protestant celebrations, as well as Islamic and Jewish ones, all realized by two Florentine masters, the interior architect Gianluca Soldi and the artist Filippo Rossi, according to a unitary project agreed between the different religious communities.

The innovative idea was proposed to the Jewish, Catholic-Roman, Orthodox, Reformed and Islamic communities by the Hospital Management itself during the last phase of the work on the new headquarters in Careggi. There followed a series of meetings in which - at the request of the then archbishop, Cardinal Ennio Antonelli - who now writes has represented the Catholic side, sharing with the other community representatives both the emotion and the difficulties implicit in this dream. In fact, the purpose of the meetings was first to understand what the Direction of Meyer wanted, and then evaluate how best to achieve it.

Aware of the role of the spirit in the process of physical healing, as well as the need of the suffering and family members of hope, inner strength and consolation, Meyer's medical staff wanted to set up a place suitable for personal prayer and collective celebrations. Being a hospital for children and teenagers, it also wanted to suggest the universality of the traumatic experience of illness as well as that of healing, regardless of ethnic, social and religious differences. In a rapidly changing demographic situation, such as ours, she wanted above all to assure non-Catholic patients and family members a concrete opening to their spiritual needs.

For their part, representatives of religious communities, while enthusiastically welcoming the proposal, have highlighted some limitations. Everyone emphasized the theological uniqueness of their faith and the impossibility of common liturgies; many insisted on the identity function of the particular signs and furnishings of their tradition; for the Catholic part, a clarifying dialogue has also been opened with those responsible for the Diocesan Health Pastoral Care.

The practical solutions agreed upon by all the interlocutors come from these discussions, since their plastic and visual translation suggested by Soldi and Rossi, the same ones that in 2005 created the new chapel of the maternity ward of the Careggi Hospital; as in that project, even at Meyer the available space was in the basement. At the end of a wide access corridor culminating in a fountain, Meyer's architects had set up a large circular chamber illuminated by a hinge; to the right and left of those who enter, secondary spaces opened up, thought up from the beginning as 'chapels'.

 These chapels that develop from the central area are destined, respectively, to Roman and Orthodox Catholics (the one on the right of who enters) and to Jews and Muslims (the one on the left). The large circular space under the lamp becomes a common area, with seats that can now be directed towards the Christian chapel, now towards that of the Jews and Muslims, depending on the need; a curved sliding wall can close these chapels, allowing more intimate celebrations within them. A closed chapels, even the central space becomes a separate place, intended for celebrations of the Word for the reformed Christians.

Among the furnishings, of particular beauty is the crucifix made by Filippo Rossi for the catholic chapel: a cross in wood worked and antiqued with a height of around 1.90 meters and a width of almost 1.50 meters. This cross, split in the middle with a single ax, reveals inside a soul and a new shape: a shaft, made of gold leaf with a cut on the right. The edges of the two halves of the cross were burned and consumed by fire. Echoing the medieval forms of the crucifixions of the two-fourteenth century, it was made with several panels of wood "antiqued" by hand, through a long and laborious process, which provided for the flaking of the fibers in several points with chains and percussive instruments.

The central rod, perfectly smooth, has been covered by two layers of gold leaf in different shades and has a noticeable lateral fissure painted in scarlet red, resting on a panel painted in dense black acrylic. This element covered with gold leaf represents the divine mercy that springs from Christ immolated, becoming light and new life for those who believe in him. The central shaft, bright fire of love, "burns" and "consumes" the agony of the cross, splitting it, opening it.

At the height of the heart of the cross there is a face of Christ in frontal vision, like an icon: a face reworked by a Christ in glory by the sixteenth-century Flemish master Mabuse. In his work, however, Mabuse reworked another face of Christ, the one also then famous of the polyptych of Gand by Jan and Hubert Van Eyck - the Christ paradoxed by High Priest and placed above the Mystic Lamb adored by the saints. The face on Rossi's cross, which coincides with the head of the celebrant when he is at the altar, thus makes the suffering and glorious Lord the only celebrant of the liturgy that makes him truly present in the Eucharist.

* Mons. Timothy Verdon is Director of both the Diocesan Center for Ecumenism and Inter-religious Dialogue and of the Diocesan Office of Sacred Art of the Diocese of Florence