A Vesper Service at the Notre Dame

by: Ariana Espiritu Reyes
                         From its former, darker years of serving as a prison for the likes of Quasimodo, the Notre Dame in Paris has since strayed from social outcast incarceration and settled into a comfortable, dual identity as tourist destination and church. Yes, in spite of it’s historic and architectural appeal, the Notre Dame serves as a fully functioning church, complete with religious services and prayer and various heavenly deities. Beyond the well-known Sunday mass, Vesper services occur daily at 5:45 pm and are even broadcast on catholic television channels. And it was mostly by complete accident, and just a little divine intervention, that I happened to reach the end of my secular pilgrimage to this destination around this time.
            After waiting in a short line of cameras and indistinguishable conversations, I entered the Notre Dame through what seemed like a port to different worlds. Cold, loud, and hectic Paris lay before the threshold, and peaceful, harmonious, community, and art lay beyond it. I was immediately greeted by, not only a crowd of consumed worshippers but also, a harmony of singing voices and instruments. All the tourists that I entered with, and of whom I was amongst, were silenced by the captivating scene set before us. Hundreds of faces facing towards the direction of the altar sang in unison with the choir’s music that diverted from traditional, solemn hymns of Catholicism. The music was jovial and lively, slightly resonating a hybrid of Caribbean and African nuances. Babies were hushed and cameras were clicking frantically as I observed the contents of the choir box, a rectangular space, situated at the back of the cathedral, that engulfed those singing voices and musical instruments in a location that allowed their talents to be heard at the best possible acoustic level. The sounds reverberated off the stained-glass windows and despite their strictly religious purposes, displayed a beautiful showcase of performance entertainment for all in attendance.  When the music faded, a man in green robes crossed the platform while all eyes watched. He then began speaking in short, fluid blurbs of French that the crowds immediately repeated while he paused. This continued, in repetition, an ebbing and flowing of unrecognizable words. The unison of the voices was sobering and transfixing and many of those around me began recording the interaction between one man and a cathedral of hundreds.  Peering back out into the daylight of the Parisian streets, the hum of the voices echoed behind me as I stepped out of this particularly famous church, feeling unexpectedly moved, more so, by the service occurring within its walls, than the inside of the walls themselves. This religious practice embodied an example of the crossing over of ritualistic events and theatrical performances. The service, however a form of worship and prayer for many of those in attendance, served as a spectacle to see and be entertained by, by the other half of the people contained by the walls of the cathedral. This suggests that the audience is just as significant as the content being viewed, giving any action the potential identity as a theatrical performance.