Easter Week in France

Two years ago, I treated my sister to five days in Italy - an April birthday present that enabled her to spend some time with her daughter Chelsea, who was attending high school outside of Rome that year. We flew into Rome on Maundy Thursday morning and left on Easter Monday, driving first north to Bologna, then the next day, west to Genoa, and then back south through Tuscany to Florence, finishing back in Rome. It was a great trip (good bed and breakfast experiences, great pasta and wine dinners, and lots of walking); one of the highlights was experiencing Easter Sunday in Florence (Firenze) in the Piazza de Duomo (the plaza in front of the grand cathedral in Florence). The Easter Sunday service took place in the Duomo (of which we caught a few minutes), and afterwards, there was a fantastic fireworks display in the plaza, followed by a parade of all the participants in the service as they left the church. It was my first and exuberant taste of an European Easter, with its ubiquitous chocolates and religious pageantry.

My first Easter in France was a reliving of some of the pageantry and chocolates, but with a new and unexpected experience along the way. Easter week begins with Palm Sunday, and that day I found myself conducting my choir, the Choeur Gospel, in the service at the L’Église Réformée! This was not on my radar screen even five days before - for just at choir rehearsal on the Wednesday evening prior, we learned that our participation had been requested in the Palm Sunday service. As my blog readers might imagine, this did not phase the group much, as we had just performed a concert two weeks before on March 21st. But when the group learned that the conductor was not going to be able to be at the church service, they momentarily panicked. But Gottfried, bless his heart, turned and pointed to me - I would be his substitute for Sunday's performance! Although it made perfect sense for him to ask me (well, he didn't really ask me, but, whatever), as I was the only musically-trained singer in the group, nonetheless, I was flattered and humbled. And suddenly nervous.

My friends in the chorus were completely at ease with Gottfried's decision, but they were a little nervous too, and insisted that Gottfried let me practice leading them in the songs we rehearsed that night. And he coached me too, which was helpful. But it was remarkably easy, once I remembered how to conduct (I had taken conducting lessons in my musical past, and conducted my a cappella group, the Bacchantae, for two years in college). But I went home that night determined to practice, and get it right for Sunday. Luckily I had already memorized most of the songs we were going to sing, so it was a matter of getting my hand and voice in sync so that I would be leading, not confusing, the singers! I walked around Nice over the next few days, conducting and singing to myself the songs for Sunday...

Sunday morning I arrived at the church early, and found the woman pastor in the Nave, preparing for the service. We had been alerted that this would be a service involving the children, similar to the service the Sunday before Christmas when we had last performed. I introduced myself to her as the subsitute for Gottfried, so she walked me through the service program and showed me the three points during the service that we were being asked to perform. All of a sudden I had to do some programming; fitting in the pieces we were going to sing in the right places during the service. In the end, with approval from my singers, we sang "Jacob's Ladder" and "All Over the World" after the processing of the Palms, then "Lord, You are the Light" after the sermon, and then "Heaven is a Beautiful Place" and "The Blessing of Aaron (Seven-fold Amen)" at the end of the service. We had enough time to rehearse before the service, and everyone was up for the day - it all worked really well. "All Over the World" is a foot-thumping kind of piece, and I had the crowd clapping during the song, which helped keep the children, who were clustered at our feet as we stood singing at the front of the church, engaged.

Before the service began, I realized I had my camera in my knapsack with me, so I took some pictures during the service, but then thought it would be great to have some pictures of me conducting too. I saw my friend Suzanne on the other side of the church, and I knew that she would be great about taking some photos if I asked her. So in the middle of the service (at an appropriate break), I walked around to her pew and handed her the camera and asked her if she would be so kind to take some photos. As I thought she would be, she said yes with no questions. Yet another moment in time where I was feeling surrounded by friends! And later, after the service, I discovered happily that my friend Priscilla had accepted my invitation to come hear the group, and was sitting in the service without my knowing it that morning. Surrounded by friends that morning, that I was!

That Palm Sunday Service at L’Église Réformée did not really qualify for pageantry; I found pageantry at the Cathédral Sainte Réparate in the Old Town (Vielle Ville) on Holy Thursday. I like to participate in the Catholic services sometimes for high Holy Days; I went to the Cathédral for the "Office de la Dernière Cène," the office (mass) that celebrates the Last Supper, also known as the Service of Light, as at the end of the service all the lights are extinguished except for one, the one that burns as a reminder of Christ's love. The St. Réparate cathedral is quite lovely, a several hundred year old building, I'm sure, and the Maȋtrise de la Cathédrale and his equipe (worship team) were all dressed up in lovely long gold-brocaded robes for the occasion. They even performed the ritual foot washing, albeit a bit staged: 8 people had been designated to sit on stools up near the communion table and have their feet washed by the Maȋtrise himself, while the rest of us watched. The Communion Service is also very ritualistic, and the chanting was punctuated by the clanging of bells, which has some significance of which I am unfamiliar. (Priscilla and I had heard a lovely and moving polyphonic arrangement of the service performed by a choir back in September, when we had attended the Rencontres Polyphonique in Calvi, Corsica.) There was quite a bit of music during the service, performed by a choir that was not dressed up for the occasion (but then the Catholics tend not to be dresser-uppers for their masses). The singing was ragged, although the conductor was doing his best to keep them all together, but the average age of his singer was roughly 60, and my guess, they were all untrained. The thought occurred to me to walk up to the conductor and ask if I could join in (it would have helped).

My encounter with chocolates came about in a more mundane way - on Monday, when I entered Carrefour, the huge superstore I shop in these days, I was confronted by an enormous display of chocolate bunnies. Well, that's what struck me, but once I started walking down the aisle, the Easter chocolate theme carried on for as long as the eye could see. I took out my camera and took some photos - there was just such an abundance! On my way home from Carrefour, I passed by a local artisan chocolatier's store, around the corner from my apartment, and took pictures of his front window - beautiful baskets of chocolates decorated the front pane. I continued throughout the week to window gaze at Patisseries and Chocolatiers around town, the enormous displays of expensive (!) chocolates - rabbits, eggs, cakes, whatever - were beautiful and mouth-watering. I bought a few Lindt bunnies for my Easter Monday guests, Uli and Utta, but refrained from self-indulgence - the visual indulgence was plenty.

Easter Sunday this morning at my church was a more subdued affair than last week's service, but it was a full house - extraordinarily multi-cultural too - and we did lots of singing, which I always enjoy. Communion was served too, and the circle we make around the communion table today was as large as the church itself, and wound down the center aisle too. It was good to see my friends in church; I sat next to one of my fellow choristers and her daughter, and kissed greetings to several people after the service. In the courtyard, I saw an American I had met last week; he's studying French for a month in nearby Villefranche-sur-mer. Standing with him was another young woman, who it turns out is at the University of Nice on a semester abroad from the University of Maryland - she lives in Silver Spring. VERY small world! I'll have lunch next Sunday with John before he returns to Texas at the end of the month; Rebecca and I will meet for lunch after church on Mother's Day. I love expanding my circle of friends here.

Bon Pâques!