5 - The Secular Soul

Summary

And yet it moves

— Galileo Galilei

The Quai d'Orsay invited a dozen Asian journalists to savour the feel of France in the summer of 2004. On a free day during the trip, my tourist map of Paris led me to to the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Many religious observances, whatever the faith, are almost funereal in nature. People attending them are on their best behaviour, as if they are prepared to drop dead and be judged eternally, immediately after the onerous ceremonies are over. But this church, consecrated in 1163, is different. Here — as in the thirteenth-century Cathédrale de Chartres, which, too, I visited — humans are not quite a part of God's family. Instead, the Almighty has been co-opted into an extended human family. And that family was having a roaring party in church when this tourist dropped in.

In Saint-Germain-des-Prés, children played on their parents' laps while priests spoke of the Heavenly Father. One earth-based father had his attention diverted by his little son, who kissed him repeatedly. Close by, on the floor, sat a toddler. He had been propitiated with a set of toys. When he grew tired of them, he made his displeasure known, loudly and forcefully. His mother, who had been focusing on Mass, turned to him in one effortless movement from Heaven to earth and soothed him. She then returned to her prayers and he to his toys. The French, it appeared, do not believe in scolding their children, especially in the presence of the Heavenly Father.

A man was singing traditional, devotional songs. Training had made his voice crystal clear, but what divine training was it that made the voice tactile to the soul? How French, is it not, that enigmatic dictim of the American Don Marquis — that you don't have to have a soul unless you really want one? Here, you really wanted a soul. The children fell silent; it was the adults' turn to have tears well up in their eyes.