St. Vincent's Paris

PARIS (Aug. 7)--Our itinerary promised "a fascinating day" was in store for us today. After eating a big breakfast, we were on the bus at 8:30 sharp to start our tour of the quintessential Vincentian sites in Paris.

Yesterday's weather was so beautiful: very sunny and warm. Today began with rain and alternated between sunshine and heavy rain throughout the day. At one point, there was a downpour while the sun was still shining. It was stunning! Even rainstorms somehow seem more beautiful in Paris.

Vincentian Motherhouse
The first stop on our tour was the Vincentian motherhouse at 95, Rue de Sevres. In the magnificent chapel that is part of the motherhouse, the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M., told us that we were there to look at why we are DePaul and to get in touch with what moved St. Vincent. There was a statue of St. Vincent above a doorway in the motherhouse welcoming us.

The highlight for most of us had to be the magnificent chapel with its reliquary containing the body of St. Vincent. For those of you as unfamiliar with reliquaries as I was, we aren't talking about the body of St. Vincent in a symbolic way. It was a wax effigy enclosing his relics. The reliquary sits high above the altar of the chapel. After you climb stairs behind the altar, there you are looking at the body of St. Vincent. His skull is covered with a wax mask that looks so lifelike that one colleague said it was like attending his wake. His remains lie encased in glass. Here's a photo I took:

After hearing St. Vincent's name or references to his deeds nearly every day for the nearly seven years I've worked at DePaul, it felt surreal to be standing inches away from him. We stood in awe for what seemed like a long time. Then we started our picture-snapping frenzy. It was a lot to take in, and we didn't have enough time to soak it all in, so we took as many photos as we could. Before too long, we were ushered into the nearby Vincentian Museum (also housed in the motherhouse).

Vincentian Museum
The museum houses many treasures. What really stood out were a cassock and leather house slippers worn by St. Vincent. They were tattered.

St. Vincent was a man surrounded by the wealthiest people in France, many of whom were benefactors who helped support his charitable work on behalf of orphaned children and the poor. Yet he dressed more like the people he spent his religious life serving. (His slippers were pretty worn as well, but we know that his shoes had slices in them to more comfortably accommodate his feet, which were swollen late in his life due to illness.)

Daughters of Charity Motherhouse & Miraculous Medal Chapel
Next, we visited the nearby motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity with its famous Miraculous Medal Chapel. We arrived during a Mass, and the chapel was filled with people.

The visit was not at all what I had imagined it would be. I heard that the heart of Vincent's was housed in a reliquary in the chapel. But even my DePaul colleagues disagreed about whether it was the actual heart of St. Vincent, or whether "heart" was meant symbolically.

So I put the question to Father Rybolt, our tour guide for the day. Watch this brief videotaped interview for the answer:



OK, so at this point, you've watched the video so you know that the box contains his actual heart! Prior to my visit, I found that possibility really scary. I imagined someone removing St. Vincent's heart from the rest of his body. Sacré bleu!

To my surprise, when I walked into the bright and beautiful chapel, I didn't feel that way at all. After Mass, many people rushed up to the front of the altar and got on their knees on the steps and prayed.

When I approached the reliquary of St. Vincent's heart (located in front of a statue that is to the right of the main altar) that is pictured below, I didn't feel scared or uncomfortable. I understood why the worshippers wanted to be near a part of St. Vincent, or their other saintly heroes for that matter. It makes them feel safe, protected and loved.

Church of St. Sulpice
On our way to our next official stop, the Church of St. Sulpice, Father Rybolt pointed out a firehouse on the Rue du Vieux Colombier that previously had served as the Vincentian motherhouse. It had housed the remains of St. Vincent until the Vincentians purchased the current site.

If you read the DaVinci Code, you are aware of the Church of St. Sulpice. It's one of the churches featured in the book, which is set in Paris. The church is extremely beautiful. The photos I took don’t do it justice, so I won't bother to post them here.

Hotel des Invalides
Our next stop was the Hotel des Invalides. Here it is:

The sun was shining as we strolled through the massive gardens. The French garden is distinctly different than an English garden, which is colorful and grows wild. This garden is very orderly and all the perfectly trimmed cone-shaped shrubs are spaced evenly from each other. The flowers are spaced evenly apart, too. It looked like a garden would look if it belonged to the military. That makes sense since it did belong to the military. My handy Michelin guide for France says Napoleon used to parade his troups in the main courtyard. It also says the South Pavilion forms the facade of the Eglise St-Louis, which houses the tombs of some of France's great soldiers.

Not knowing much about the Hotel des Invalides, I expected it to be a small museum of a hospital that used to serve invalids, like it kind of sounds, right? Well, of course, I was wrong. The vast, solemn edifice contains the tomb of Napoleon. As you look down on the majestic tomb, you wonder if it is actually the largest tomb in existence in the world. (I’m bad with dimensions, so I couldn’t even estimate that for you. I’m sure that information is available somewhere on the Internet.) But just take a look at this photo. I doubt it will adequately convey the massive scale of the tomb or the entire structure.

Saint-Etienne Du Mont
It started to rain again as we embarked on our last visit of the day--a church called Saint-Etienne Du Mont. While we enjoyed our visit to this beautiful church, we went there specifically to see the cloister stained glass windows. Actually, the 12 windows are believed to be painted glass windows. Anyway...each of the windows illustrates different scenes related to the Eucharist and salvation through Christ. They were significant for our group because the windows were created and on display during the time of St. Vincent. I tried and tried, but I could not get a good picture of the windows. They all were too dark.

We certainly covered a lot of ground today. It was "a fascinating day," indeed!

P.S. For all you foodies out there wondering what we ate today (because we are in Paris after all) this is for you: We were served a gigantic lunch at Le Cafe du Commerce http://www.lecafeducommerce.com/. I actually couldn't finish most of it. We thought lunch was the turkey salad they served with bread. We were surprised when it was followed by a massive grilled chicken breast topped with a brown mushroom sauce and served with a huge side of pasta. Dessert was delicious and decadent chocolate mousse. And for dinner, a colleague and I decided to eat light, so we stopped at a cafe for dinner and ordered a couple of club sandwiches. Mine was chicken, lettuce and tomato topped with a hard-boiled egg on white toast with extra mayo (I didn't request that. It just came that way.) It was the best club sandwich EVER, but it sure wasn't "light." And for some reason, we ordered dessert. We shared a huge bowl of crème brûlée. I'm talking a bowl the size of a soup bowl you would get in a restaurant in Chicago. We washed it down with espresso. Did I mention we had wine with dinner?