What I found in the heart of a Scottish castle

While visiting the Isle of Bute in Scotland, I toured Rothesay Castle, a thirteenth-century fortress once coveted by Scots, Norwegians, English forces, and the Lord of the Isles. For centuries, it was captured, occupied, damaged, and rebuilt. As I wandered through its weathered ruins, I realized the castle’s story mirrored my own spiritual life.

I once imagined castles as vast and imposing, symbols of power and prestige. Yet the castles I visited throughout the British Isles felt surprisingly small, built not for grandeur but for protection. Their walls guarded what was vulnerable within.

My life once felt similarly self-assured. When threatened emotionally or spiritually, I retreated behind my own walls, limiting vulnerability and protecting wounded places within me. Though necessary at times, those defenses also became barriers to the fuller life God was inviting me to enter.

Shortly before this trip, I finished reading The Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila. She describes the soul as a castle with many mansions, each drawing us deeper into union with God. Around the castle lurk the enemies of the spiritual life, those “reptiles” of distraction, fear, and temptation that keep us from exploring inside.

Standing at Rothesay, her imagery came alive. Surrounded by a moat and entered only by a narrow bridge, the castle invited me to imagine crossing into a deeper interior life, leaving behind the noise and anxieties that pull me away from God.

Inside, I discovered something unexpected: a modest chapel. Within a structure designed for defense stood a sacred center devoted to prayer and God’s presence. Like Teresa’s castle, the heart of the fortress was not strength but holiness.

Rothesay also reminded me that the spiritual life is never static. The castle changed hands repeatedly, enduring attack and reconstruction. My faith has experienced similar sieges. Self-assuredness has crumbled, assumptions have been dismantled, and humbling seasons have revealed how much rebuilding was needed. Yet through each reconstruction, God was strengthening the inner chapel.

I sat in the chapel, silently listening to the echoes of centuries of prayer lingering in the old stones—prayers of peace, lament, thanksgiving, and new beginnings. The same prayers echo within the walls of my own interior castle.

And so I trust that even as walls rise and fall, God remains in the chapel at the center, patiently rebuilding my castle from within.