At last, Westminster Cathedral has a mosaic of St David!

One of the great scandals of Westminster Cathedral, the mother church of England and Wales, is that it has chapels dedicated to St Patrick (patron of the Irish) and St Andrew (patron of the Scots), yet has no shine to St David, patron saint of the Welsh, as well as the ancient Britons! Well, today that wrong has been righted - as a new mosaic dedicated to St David has been put into place, between the Chapels of St Andrew and St Paul.

As all the Cathedral's chapels have already been taken by various saints, it seems that St David, or Dewi Sant, as he is known in Welsh, will have to make do, for the time being, with a bit of wall. One day, though, some brave Archbishop of Westminster, possibly a Welshman, might order the rededication of one of the Cathedral's chapels to St David! Personally, I think St Andrew wouldn't mind making room for a native saint, especially seeing that he himself isn't even Scottish, and that the Scottish Church is properly independent of the Catholic Church in England and Wales!

This new mosaic of St David was designed by Ivor Davies, and was assembled and installed by Tessa Hunkin's workshop. It is a meditation on one of David's titles: the Waterman, or Aquaticus ("Dewi Dyfyrwr", in Welsh). This title refers to the fact that David and his monks drank nothing but water, as a witness to the virtues of temperance and self-denial. The artist has used the theme of water, as well as elements of the so-called "Celtic Church", in quite an adventurous and mystical way. I noticed that, in an attempt at historical accuracy, the Saint has the Celtic (or British and Irish) tonsure, as opposed to the classical Roman one*.

Having said that, realism does give way, by and large, to the many mythical elements that pertain to St David's life and his ancestral culture. If one looks closely, it is possible to see eyes peering from some parts of the work, which are reminiscent, in a way, of the "Green Man" that adorned many medieval churches. These eyes also appear to form a score of music, possibly reminding us that Wales is the "land of song"? The saint also looks as if he is standing on a green orb, which mimics the world - though this is a reference to a story from David's live that describes an occasion when the earth rose to form a hillock, from where he missionary-monk preached.

Another mosaic had been designed, and initially accepted; though this piece was possibly rejected at the last moment by the Welsh bishops, who were ultimately responsible for the commissioning of the work. That mosaic would have been far more realistic, or "gritty". The one possible criticism of the piece that was finally chosen, the one installed today, is that it's a bit too "other worldly". Some who might walk past this mosaic of St David would assume that it's an image of an angel - for it is very bright, and the arches or rays formed by the water look like wings.

Pope Benedict XVI will bless the new mosaic, as well as the statue of Our Lady of the Taper (see previous posts), when he visits Westminster Cathedral on 18 September. He will do this after addressing the people of Wales, which he will do after celebrating Mass and greeting young people gathered in the Piazza. One of the Cathedral priests, Fr Tim Dean, visited the Shrine of St Non, St David's mother, during the summer. One of the nuns there gave him some water from the Saint's well, and this is the water that the Pope will use to bless the mosaic!

To read more about the life of St David, please see my post, here. This post was written for St David's Day, and contains quotations (translated) from St David's medieval life, Buchedd Dewi Sant. For higher resolution images of the mosiac's design, please see this month's issue of Oremus (Westminster Cathedral's magazine), which also contains a short piece by Fr Tim Dean about his recent trip to St Non's. To see more of Ivor Davies's work, especially his paintings of the Welsh princes, see here.

UPDATE 06/09/10: Here is a photo, taken on Sunday, of the mosaic in all its splendour.

[Picture note: Tessa Hunkin installing the new mosaic today. Also, Ivor Davies's original design for the mosiac]

* The ancient British or Irish tonsure, used by monks following the now extinct British rites of the Catholic Church, involved shaving the front half of the hair on top of one's head, and allowing the hair at the back to grow long. The Roman tonsure was a shaved circle around the head's crown (as is familiar to those with a knowledge of Western monasticism).