Every first Friday a service is held at Notre Dame for the veneration of some relics of the passion: the crown of thorns, a piece of the true cross, and a nail. These relics (and many others) were brought back to Europe from the Holy Land in the fourth century by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine (by the way, Evelyn Waugh, one of my favorites, wrote a great novel based on her life). The relics of the passion were eventually brought to France by St. Louis, who built the Sainte Chapelle (!) to house them. We've got to go there. But now the relics are kept in a side chapel of the cathedral, under the care of the Knights and Ladies of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, who were present in full force and regalia to guard the relics while exposed.
Afterward we walked across the bridge to the Isle de Saint Louis and down its charming main street where we got an espresso before going back to the cathedral for mass, which was followed by more viewing of the relics, guarded by more Knights and Ladies of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem.
The relics are almost certainly not the actual instruments of the passion, though they are definitely the relics which St. Helena brought back in the fourth century and St. Louis obtained in the thirteenth. Even so, sitting in Notre Dame for over an hour, waiting to approach the relics with the large crowd of other believers, and eventually making it up to the relics themselves, gave us a good opportunity to contemplate the passion as a physical and historical reality, and to think sorrowfully of ours sins, which required such a sacrifice.
We've visited a number of other churches since we arrived: Notre Dame des Victoires, St. Gilles and St. Leu, and St. Germaine d'Auxerrois. And we're beginning to get a sense for French piety. Our impression so far is that it's very reverent and very sweet. For example, I saw a young man blow a kiss to the virgin and child in prayer. The popularity of St. Therese of Lisieux is making more and more sense.
Saturday we did some more exploring of our neighborhood. We walked down to the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, where E will take up residence next week, and visited the shops and gardens at the Palais Royale nearby. The French have this thing about tidy gardens, you know.
We still haven't discovered the famous cafe culture we've heard so much about. In fact, we haven't found a single place where we could drink coffee for cheap and use the internet for free. But we won't be reduced to Starbucks in Paris.
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