St. Suplice

St. Suplice is the second largest church in Paris and has one of the finest organs in the world. They played the organ before Mass for about 15 minutes. Of course, they played it during mass. The cantor had a beautiful soprano voice. They rang the bells at the beginning of mass and of course, they used incense. It was a beautiful service.

The French Catholics have gone high-tech. On the collection. Basket is a little QR code so that you can scan it and tap to tithe. Of course I noticed several people who had trouble getting it to work The usher had to explain what they needed to do to make it go through. Not sure if this is more efficient...

Afterwards, there was an English language tour of the church. The most famous art in the church are the three large paintings by Delacroix, which were his last works before he died.

The priest who got the funding to build the church has a special tomb with a unique statue of an angel pushing back a skeletal death as he points the priest to the glories of heaven. His dream was to have a statue of the Virgin Mary made of solid silver. He self-funded this statue with every dinner invitation he got at a rich person's house. He would pocket the spoon and fork and collect them until he had enough silver for the statue. Unfortunately, the statue was stolen and melted down during the French revolution.

The revolution damaged the church quite a bit. And of course all of the great art and furnishings were looted.

One of these pictures shows the altar with the crucifix, the Statue of the Virgin mother, and a beautiful stained glass window of the risen Christ. It displays the three tenants of the Catholic faith: the immaculate conception, the passion, and the resurrection. The stained glass window is not original because was destroyed by a cannonball during the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war. Supposedly they were aiming for a radio telegraph tower

The church figures prominently in The DaVinci Code fiction.

After the tour, one of the organists started practicing. I sat and listened for a while, as did others. When a great organ blasts low notes, you can feel the vibration in the air.

I noticed a poster for Mass and Drinks. They invite young adults to go down to the crypt for drinks after the evening Mass. What a great idea that is. That's how you put people in the pews. Also it encourages Catholics to marry other Catholics and make new Catholics.Read more