Seeing the light

It had been ten months since I had moved to Paris and I was beginning to feel worn down by the city's crowds, pollution and general noise. Back home in Michigan, my very Catholic parents and brothers were spending Easter weekend as they always did: Saturday night at church and then stuffing themselves all day Sunday. I planned to spend Easter alone in my tiny Parisian flat. After sufficient moping, I decided to get off the couch and go to Easter Vigil alone. After all, Paris does have some of the most beautiful churches in the world! Why should I need someone to go with me?

I decided on the Sacré Coeur's mass at 9pm, rushed out of my apartment and into the Métro. Exiting at the Anvers station, I headed up the hill toward the basilica through swarms of tourists shopping for kitschy berets and Eiffel Tower keychains. It was noisy, dirty and crowded, but I was fixed on my goal and pressed on. I arrived at the base of the butte Montmartre and looked up at the white church above me, contemplating whether to take the "funiculaire" instead of the 222 steps ahead. To my own surprise, some deep-seeded Catholic guilt took over and I found myself embarking a sort of pilgrimage to the top of the hill.

I was about ten minutes early, but the church was already packed. Finding a seat was a challenge. And why were all the lights out? Then I remembered: this was the mass when the Paschal Candle is lit as a symbol of Christ, the Light of the World. I grabbed a thin white candle of my own and squeezed into a pew in the back, between two French families.

The reverent quiet of the huge space was suddenly interrupted by a Priest's chanting in Latin. We all listened, standing in the dark waiting for the big candle to be lit from a fire burning outside. A flicker of light entered the church and began to spread as alter-servers lit smaller candles and passed the flame to candles in each pew. I watched in awe as the light from our individual candles danced off the golden dome above us. My neighbor held out her candle to me and I in turn passed along the Paschal flame. The entire basilica was flooded with light.
In that moment I forgot about the noisy streets below and got lost in the comfort of light, tradition and family. My own family was thousands of miles away, but in that space I felt at home, welcomed and loved by the strangers around me. That surge of light reminded me of the beauty I was surrounded by daily.

That was when I first felt at home in Paris.