Bon Dimanche!

This morning Hannah and I walked to a cathedralesque church about half an hour from the dorms to attend service. We weren't precisely sure what denomination we were visiting, but the moment we stepped inside, it became clear that our hosts were Catholic. So, I've officially participated in my first Catholic church service.

What I didn't expect, was the beauty of it all. I've always been puzzled by the draw the Catholic church has for many Protestant artists and intellectuals. Although I respect my Catholic friends, many of their beliefs strike me as un-biblical and superstitious, and their traditions suffocatingly restrictive. And yet, as we walked into the church, I was stunned. The interior was ancient and ornate, with a high, peaked ceiling, and exquisite carving and decoration. The lower walls were paneled in dark, heavy wood, and the floor was of worn sandy flagstones. Seated on frail wooden chairs with wicker seats, a sea of elderly worshipers stretched out ahead of us. Neat, white haired women huddled into their dark coats and scarves, while stoop-shouldered, mild-faced men leaned protectively beside them. One young couple knelt on the stone floor in front of their seats, dark heads bowed. A small boy, one of only two or three young people in the room, squirmed impatiently beside his grandmother. At the front, a few nuns could be glimpsed, scattered here and there, serenely veiled in dusky blue. At a little lectern, dwarfed by the massive height of the ceiling, a frail man in a crimson jacket was singing.

I wish I could describe the music.

His lone voice was rich and sweet, quavering a little with age, filling the room to the last shadowy corner and dizzying height. Below and around his voice, like water flowing, the strong, low chords of the organ began to move, so natural and soft one hardly noticed them at first. And I felt as though some great, towering and enormous music were moving the universe. When the choir joined, it was like drowning in beauty and solemnity. The chapel was hushed, and filled with singing in the same moment. If a wine, aged and mellow could be a song, then this was the sound of wine. It was light, but not the light of a garish day in the sun. It was like the light that shone in little glows of color from the exquisite stained glass windows. It was like a dusty sunbeam falling from a hayloft into the soft, shrouded interior of a barn.

The rest of the service passed, divided between bursting ecstasies of song, clear resonant voices reading Scripture passages, the murmured, measured responses of the congregation, and the occasional moment of deep stillness. The chapel breathed in its silences. One could almost hear the cold air seeping everywhere from the icy stone walls and floor. My heart wouldn't stop pounding and swelling with the music. I could feel something ancient, and strong, and indomitably powerful as the resounding notes poured around me, in the high clear solo of a flute, piercingly sweet and bright, which cried throughout the room in a wild climax. And all about us, now standing, now sitting, now shuffling in a sort of march to take communion, were the elderly parishioners, fragile and obdurate and grave. If a nation can have a soul, then I feel as though I've glimpsed the soul of France. If a nation can have a soul, then I came near enough this morning to touch it.

I understand now, the majesty and allure the Catholic church holds for non-Catholics. And I can't wait for next Sunday, to go back.