Notre Dame de Sophia
The Chapel at Les Contes
There is a small chapel beside the living waters of Les Contes. I once dreamed of such a place long before I knew I would one day be entrusted with one: a chapel in the French Pyrenees, surrounded by mountains, ancient stones and flowing water, where people might step away from the noise of the world and become quiet enough to listen again.
That chapel now exists.
Notre Dame de Sophia, Our Lady of Holy Wisdom.
The land surrounding Les Contes carries many stories of Mary Magdalene and the Cathars, the mysterious White Lady, the Holy Grail and the hidden Book of Love. Some belong to history, others to the oral traditions and sacred imagination of this extraordinary region.
What I know with certainty is simpler.
There is living water here.
Spring water rises abundantly from the mountain throughout the year, rivers meet nearby, and within the chapel itself the sound of water can be heard moving through the walls.
Over the years, the chapel has changed. And so have I. What began as a sanctuary devoted to sacred mystery has gradually revealed a simpler centre:
Jesus Christ.
Today Notre Dame de Sophia is the home of Living Prayer Ministry, a place of intimate prayer, contemplation, blessing, reconciliation and embodied encounter with Christ. Above the altar rests the Lamb of God, one of my most cherished images of the Father: Divine Love revealed through innocence, surrender, tenderness and immeasurable strength.
The chapel welcomes those of great faith, those who are uncertain, those who are grieving, and those who simply need somewhere beautiful and quiet to sit. It is a place to pray when words have disappeared. A place to bring grief and gratitude. A place for reconciliation. A place where we celebrate Baptisms and Marriages, honour Sacred Commitments and Rites of Passage, gather for Funerals and Memorials, and offer Blessings and Consecrations.
Our Baptisms are particularly dear to us.
In true Living Prayer Ministry fashion, we leave the chapel and walk together to the great spring rising from the mountain behind the house. There, in the living waters themselves, Baptism becomes something wonderfully alive, filled with prayer, celebration, joy and wonder.
We enter the waters. We gather around the one being baptised. We pray. We rejoice.
And beneath the open sky, surrounded by mountain, the words of spirit ripple through the valley.
We Have Returned...
