By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
My fate, it seems, is that about every fifty years, someone will up and yell at me in church. The second to last time was when I was 8 years old. The most recent was just last year, in perhaps the most recognizable church in the world, and which just survived a terrible fire.
The ecclesiastical admonition when I was age 8 is a bit foggy in my memory. It had something to do with me allegedly annoying my older sisters or brother during Sunday services at the chapel on Hill Air Force Base near Ogden, Utah.
I was not guilty, of course, but as the youngest child, I was not as adept at appearing completely innocent when my mother turned around to investigate the disturbance. Thus, I got the rebuke and that stern don’t-goof-off-at-mass look.
I vividly remember the most recent church dressing down I got. It happened at the historic Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris on one warm day in June 2018.
My wife, daughter, a tour guide, and I had visited the cathedral that day, along with the nearby Sainte-Chapelle in the former medieval palace on the Ile de la Cite on the River Seine. Sainte-Chapelle was the royal house of worship until the fourteenth century. Its stained glass windows are spectacular. Marie Antoinette was held prisoner, just before her 1793 execution, in the adjoining Conciergerie prison.
Notre-Dame, of course, defies description by mere words. During our tour, we marveled at the French Gothic exterior with flying buttresses, gargoyles, and hundreds of statutes, including the decapitated St. Denis holding his head. Denis was a third century Paris bishop martyred by the Romans. He is said to have picked up his head and walked several miles to consecrated ground to ask for interment there. The Basilica of St. Denis, where many French kings were crowned and buried, sits on the same site.
Inside the Notre-Dame cathedral, we saw the amazing rose windows, towering rib vaulted ceiling, and rare relics such as Christ’s crown of thorns, said to be the original placed on Jesus’s head during the crucifixion. The crown was given to Saint King Louis IX in 1238 (the only French king and saint), who built the Sainte-Chappelle to house it.
Within Notre-Dame’s sacred stone walls, you can feel the reverberating echoes of such momentous events as the 1558 marriage of Mary Queen of Scots, the 1804 self-coronation of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, the 1920 canonization of St. Joan of Arc, and the 1970 funeral of WWII French resistance hero Charles de Gaulle.
Thus, understandably, I was quite awestruck when we decided, after the tour, to attend Sunday evening Mass there presided over by Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit. I felt even more wonder when the powerful 150 year old cathedral organ came to life as Mass started. The organ, which survived the recent fire, dates back to the 18th century. It is the largest organ in France, has five keyboards, 109 stops, and approximately 8,000 pipes. During my recent visit, all the trouble started when the organ played.
Cell phones are allowed in the church, but are not to be used while attending church. I knew this rule, yet in my emotional euphoria, I pulled my phone out and tried to discreetly film/record the organ music. Here is a link to the pirated video/music: https://www.facebook.com/mike.obrien.75436/videos/a.10157604915923642/10157604960258642/?type=3 Within just a few moments, a red-faced, short but formidable, female church usher was in my face yelling in a manner that could best be described as tres rapide French.
I speak a few words of the native language, but I am not exactly certain what she said. I doubt that she intended for it to be lovely or lyrical, but it was! It turns out that even an admonition to stop being a blockheaded tourist sounds like poetry when delivered en Francais.
I immediately complied with the accompanying hand motions suggesting I put my cell phone away. I did not wish to suffer the fate of either St. Denis or Marie Antoinette. It is quite easy, both literally and figuratively, to lose one’s head in Paris.
I did not, however, delete my surreptitious recording of Notre-Dame’s spectacular organ music. It, like the pure joy of getting on the nerves of my siblings, was well worth the price.
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is writing a book about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville.
