Paris, France is a blitz of beauty mixed with maximum security, bi and motorcycle riders, cafes with red awnings where drinkers sit on sidewalks and face the streets as if traffic was something worth watching. Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles de Gaulle, artists, poets, musicians, actors and their heirs wandered and wondered here. Juan Francois Millet, a favorite artist of mine, stirred up the art clicks in the 19 century with his portrayal of overworked, underpaid peasants hoeing and honing their lives working in the fields around this glorious country. He gave them dignity.

Today there are military, police of every category, guards, street barriers, bridges to cross the Seine River, one which actually sports a tiny sliver of a beach, folding up now because fall is arriving with a cool breeze and a shot of good health from the sun. Another has been weighed down by a fad of hanging locks on it – so many that the bridge collapsed. These are locks of love and what else shines better in Paris but love. But the presence of security amplified by terrorist threats and so much history to secure, was so abundant we had to show our room keys just to turn down the street on which my hotel resided. It was a block from the US Embassy on the Place de Concorde which is so overprotected it is like playing chess to get in the door.

Yes, Paris has a giant white ferris wheel (I don’t understand this bent popular in many giant cities, like London, too.). It has the still glamorous Eiffel Tower that puts on a light show in the dark of night. It has the original home of French macarons in Laduree, a kind of tea house with macaron-ery, which we visited and I cannot fail to say they still have the most delicious macarons I’ve ever tasted. But I avoided French perfume, French fashion, French department stores, and other temptations. This is a pilgrimage, not a shopping spree.

Paris , not necessarily a sports town, has a sharp store dedicated to its most vibrant soccer team where one can get bright red or navy jerseys with the name of superstar De Maria on the back or even one with Cavani from Uruguay who also serves them well as a star. But soccer is not as everywhere obsessed as in other countries. Driving in from the airport, we passed by the huge stadium where there was bombings recently.

It has the 19th Best Restaurant in the World (that amazing list) L’Arpege where the chef is a genius at vegetables! And I can not forget the place to which I returned twice that so moved me, Our Lady of Miracles, a small church jammed pack with worshipers in need of healing, prayer, hope, and cures. I was overwhelmed by the faith of the men and women in adoration of the Holy Virgin, including so many Africans and Asians, and the generous nuns from Our Ladies of Charity who comfort, encourage and hold babies of those in despair or need This miraculous medal , the Medal of the Immaculate Conception, was designed by St. Catherine Laboure, whose uncorrupted body is on display in the chapel, so believers wearing the medal with faith and devotion to Holy Mary have hope for answers to their prayers.

We did a speed-stop itinerary, the only solution to having one day to do the things I wanted to do/see/experience. And it included a stroll through the grand dam of Paris, Notre Dame Cathedral, where rests still the possible crown of thorns Jesus bore on his head during his camino to crucifixion, a piece of the Cross of Christ discovered in Jerusalem by the mother of Constantine, named Helen, and a nail of the Passion. The crown of thorns is wrapped in a red velvet cloth in a reliquary worthy of such a remainder from those days, and is only brought out once a year for a procession through the town and that was yesterday, so I missed that. The crown is a band of woven rushes in to which long and harsh thorns are stuck. These thorns, treasured relics for sure, pop up throughout centuries as gifts to give by the emperors of Byzantium or the kings of France. So far seventy thorns have been identified by being the real thing. But these relics, once stored in the basilica of Mount Zion in Jerusalem, were in 1053 transported to Byzantium to this chapel to protect that city from sackings. Then an emperor having financial difficulties, pawned the relics to Venetian bankers, and St. Louis the 9th, King of France in 1238, got them back, transported them to Paris and built Saint Chapelle to house them.

St. Chapelle is probably the most beautiful chapel I’ve ever seen. Once experienced, it is hard to forget. It’s stained glass windows from floor to ceiling on the second level are beyond comparison and their rose windows are as fine as anything in Notre Dame. But, I think, if I understand correctly, after the Revolution all the 22 relics were put into the care of the treasury of Paris’ Notre-Dame. It’s hard to keep up with treasured relics. Even in history, they have a life, both doubtful and proven, of their own. But everything in St. Chapelle is sumptuous, so much so, it makes one heart palpitate and your neck tires of looking up to see the stories of our faith. There are 1,113 scenes telling the story of mankind from Genesis through Christ’s resurrection And there is a window telling the story of the relics of the Passion, those relics now in the treasury of Notre Dame.

The most awesome of relics, to me, is a treasure of Basilica of Sacre Coeur, the sacred heart, which is not only at the highest point in Rome, part of Montmartre, overlooking the city like a blessings, and housing the largest mosaic in France, but it is the most controversial because of it’s history housing revolutionary thoughts and actions. It was filled with people, not only for the view, but at the altar was my favorite relic – In an ornate, extremely tall “monstrador” is a large communion wafer which, in the Catholic tradition, having been made holy through the Eucharistic prayer, is the body and blood of Christ, and therefore elevated as a relic since 1885. A Monstrador is a tall ornate structures usually with gold rays around the glass circle which holds the Eucharist or the relic and ornate sculptures and images at its base.

Our black van squeezed down narrow streets like a fat lady getting into a corset. We pass the Moulin Rouge which hasn’t change its spots since the days of yore, passed by the Louvre, where, in the time when I was working on my Masters in Art History (the ‘80ties) I would normally have spent hours. But some of the sights are under so much vigilance by military and police that it seems better to pass on by. So we whizzed by the Arch de Triumph, stopped for a quick picture when the multitude of buses got out of the way, and also took a quick trip to Chartres Cathedral to see the labyrinth and stained glass windows. The Labyrinth, built into the stone floor, was, of course, covered by chairs, so one could only imagine the power of walking it in prayer. This was our day and a half in Paris. A refresher. A new memory. A new prayer for its people maybe cautious and fearful, but still joyful as the French can only be.