St. Francis Xavier

Our last two Saturdays in Paris have involved rather long and feverish tours through the left bank. On the first Saturday we set out for the church of St. Francis Xavier, to keep a promise to pray for a friend at the tomb of St. Madeleine Louise Sophie Barat, who founded a women's religious community dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the aftermath of the French Revolution - while devotion to the Sacred Heart was explicitly outlawed by the French government! Glad they got over that.

Every trip to and from home has us passing one of two historic sites, since two famous persons died just around the corner from us ...

... Mozart's mother, by natural causes ... 

... and Jean Jaures, a famous French socialist, by assassination.

This particular trip took us past this beautiful clock, and that beautiful Psyche ... 

... and through this beautiful Lion's Gate ...

 

... onto this beautifully aged statue of Chateaubriand. 

One of the many research fellowships that E has applied for is named after him. Doesn't he look like he wants her to have it? Why, yes, I think he does.

On our way to the church we stopped at a few... churches(!). First we visited St. Thomas Aquinas, where we witnessed some of the best-executed and most convincing elements of baroque architecture that we have ever seen. The sanctuary and choir of the church are closed in by the back wall of the apse, but just behind the high altar the back wall is thrown open from floor to ceiling by stone-carved cherubim pulling back a stone-carved curtain, giving a view onto a smaller chapel behind with an altare privilegiatum (which I had never heard of before coming to Paris, but which we've seen in a number of churches by now) and a fresco of the transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor. The entire effect was breathtaking - far more so than any of the best of the baroque that I've seen in Rome - and communicated a deep theological message. The curtain evokes the tabernacle, God's dwelling place among us, both in its form as the tent of meeting and as the veiled holy of holies in the temple at Jerusalem, whose curtain was rent open at the death of Christ. The fresco of the transfiguration evokes the belief in the divinity of Christ, who as God incarnate is the definitive tabernacle, God's dwelling place among us. As high priest he enters the heavenly holy of holies, once and for all, offering to God on our behalf the perfect sacrifice of himself on the cross. And all of this beneath the high altar, where that very same sacrifice is believed to be made really present in the celebration of the Eucharist. We tried to get a picture, but the impact is lost in two dimensions. You have to see it in person. 

Second we visited the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, the location of a famous nineteenth-century Marian apparition. I've wanted to visit the chapel for years, ever since a friend brought me back a medal from her time in France. And I promised another friend that I would bring him back a medal, so we had to go. I didn't know before visiting, but apparently a number of great saints have worn the miraculous medal. Blessed John Henry Newman was wearing one when he converted, St. Therese of Lisieux wore one in the convent, and St. Bernadette Soubirous was wearing one at the time of the Marian apparitions at Lourdes. 

On our way from the chapel to the church we wandered down the Rue de Varenne, which brought us to the Musee Rodin, the former home and studio of the famous sculptor whose work E and I both like a lot. For some reason (which we didn't dare to question) we were given free access to the gardens (thank you, France!), which feature a number of the artist's works in bronze, and to a temporary exhibit of some of his works in marble. As it turns out, the Hotel Biron, the eighteenth-century mansion that now houses the museum, has quite an interesting and varied history. I was floored to learn that among its many famous owners and tenants (which include the painter Matisse and the poet Rilke) was St. Madeleine Louise Sophie Barat! She and her sisters after her ran the house as a convent and boarding school for girls for the better part of the nineteenth century. That explains the otherwise totally out-of-place neo-gothic chapel on the mansion's grounds:

The sun was beginning to set as we left the gardens ... 

... which gave us a beautiful view of the dome of the nearby Hotel National des Invalides, which houses the tomb of Napoleon.

That view pretty well made up our minds about where the next Saturday's tour would take us. This one ended, as we planned, at St. Frances Xavier.

 

Fortunately for us, the subway stops right in front of the church, so we decided to take it home rather than walking the four miles back. You can be a pilgrim on the subway too.