...is Notre Dame de Paris. My only real Catholic experience prior to this was one mass at Harvard, and they had a band, which Notre Dame certainly doesn't have. But what it does have is a fantastic organist who manages to improvise links between sections of the liturgy that sound like the very visible (and fragrant) clouds of incense filling the crossing at the same time.
I've been attending vespers there daily. It nests ritual within ritual, adding a regularity to my days that I had been missing. It also gives me a place in this strange city that is in some small way mine, and growing more familiar. The service is in French with a bit of Latin, but as a result of the liturgy it's nearly all singing and silence (or, rather, organ), which means I don't need to listen to anyone read or preach too much in French (my theological vocabulary is pretty small, but it's growing). One of my favorite parts about daily worship at the cathedral, though, is the opportunity to experience the structure as more than an artifact or historical object, which is the primary dimension of my class. Instead of just passing through it staring and snapping photos -- of which I am typically VERY guilty -- I can inhabit it for half an hour each day, trying it on, contemplating the centuries of people who have likewise stood and sat and walked and prayed in what they regarded as exceptionally sacred space. In a way the cathedral is an extension of the worship ritual, or maybe it's the other way around.
By now I can sing and chant in French and Latin along with everyone else (certainly better than the bemused tourists who find themselves in the nave by accident), and I can tell when the cantors mess up (which they sometimes do!). It's all beautiful ritual and vestments and seamless worship leading; even the incense is impressive when it rises through the crossing in a huge cloud from the wide burner in front of the altar as we sing que ma prière devant toi s’élève comme l’encens, et mes mains pour l’offrande du soir. On the downside it's almost too seamless, too businesslike, and a completely different group of people arrives for each mass or office every day.
The most interesting part of it is being able to immerse myself in unfamiliar ritual day after day, dwelling in a dramatic and dynamic architectural/liturgical demarcation of sacred space, repeating and repeating the ritual pour les siècles des siècles as we sing over and over, from age to age. Ritual is pretty powerful stuff -- as is inhabiting someone else's for a few days or weeks or months, no matter what your own theological convictions (or lack thereof) may be. And if it isn't even in your own language? Even more fun!
P.S. Happy Bastille Day. I think (hope?) someone's lighting recreational explosives a few blocks away.
