Here I Go A-Wandering: Paris Day 3 (and last night)

Last night some of the girls and I went on a "ghost" tour. I put it in quotations because it really wasn't really a discussion on ghosts, more of urban legends in Paris. It was entertaining, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Over priced too. Oh well. C'est la vie.

Today after another great class discussion (see if I keep saying positive things about the class maybe that will benefit my grade? no? okay) a few of us went up to Montmartre while a bigger group went to Versilles. Those of us that went to Montmartre had an awesome time. I saw stuff I didn't see last time, went into the Sacre Couer (by far the most beautiful church I have ever seen) and went to the Montmartre cemetery. It was a great day. Tonight we are going to dinner near the Eiffel Tower and then will view the Tower with all the lights. :-)

On to my assignment for the day! I was reading Lourdes by Ruth Harris today and an interesting quote stood out to me: "At the heart of pilgrimage lay the lure of the miraculous and the individual encounter with the supernatural, a vision of community and of selfhood entirely at odds with secular creeds" (pg. 11). I feel like Harris is channeling Turner in this sentence! The pilgrimage is an individual encounter and an individual experience (only Bernadette ever say the girl in the white dress even when others were around her looking for the apparition). The person that goes to Lourdes does it for PERSONAL reasons, not for others. This is opposite of people who go to the Our Lady of Charity shrine in Miami (which I read a book on during the Spring Semester). People went there for personal reasons as well as for Cuba (it is a Cuban shrine). Devotees pray to Our Lady of Charity for the "freedom" of Cuba. She reinforces the sense of community and is a national shrine in America.

However, the second part of the quote says there is a "vision of community". Bernadette stated that the apparition wanted a a chapel to be built at the site. This would bring people to the site, and thus, a community of believers. When the individual goes on a pilgrimage (which Turner argues that pilgrimages are individualistic), they are then a part of this community that has gone on the pilgrimage as well. Though the community of believers may be very large (millions over many years), in an individual town the number of people that have gone on that pilgrimage is very small (how many people in Atlanta--or even a specific church in Atlanta--have gone to Lourdes? Probably not millions).

The last part of the quote regarding a "selfhood entirely at odds with secular creeds" is very interesting to me. In the class discussion, we discussed how Turner argues that the people going on a pilgrimage take power away from the establishment (i.e. the church). This may seem odd because it is a religious pilgrimage to a religious site, but if you think about it Lourdes was NOT sanctioned by the Catholic church AND it was started by a teenage girl. She said the apparition told her to build a chapel there. She said the apparition wanted people to come to the spot. It was not the church deciding that there was a vision there and such it should become a holy place. And, if someone had to choose between going to Notre Dame (or even Vatican City) or Lourdes and decided to go to Lourdes, that took money away from the church (since they would not be contributing money to an offering and/or donating money to light candles in the "official" cathedrals. They would be spending money at and around Lourdes).

Oh and it has been decided that my pilgrimage name is Maria Christina. I like it. :-)

And now what you really want to see...the pictures!