My dear Friends
I have been home from France exactly a month, and I still have a deep impression in my heart. For some years now I have been praying the psalms in French, as well as in Hebrew, and this, combined with a few lines every day of a novel, keeps my French alive. I was brought up to believe that you best learn a language, including a spoken one, by reading first-of course it is not a real substitute for talking to people, but it does give you an insight into the culture.
And there is the food! Been buying French cheeeses, jam and I brought some wonderful peppermint tea with pepper (actually tastes much lighter than the stuff over here) from Provence to make what the French call a Tissane. I didn't watch the rugby match recently, but I found someone else who supported France!
So I have become a real Francophile (devotee of everything French). To carry on this process and in order to visit Alexia and her family again, I found the cheapest rate on the new Eurostar from St Pancras (just a hop from Kings Cross where the Cambridge train gets in) and am going from December 13th to the 19th. One of my favourite times of the year, it was the time in 1989 I first went to Amsterdam and celebrated my first Christmas there as a new Christian in the Church.
Je vous embrasse (big hugs)
Sister Gila
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
Sacre Coeur
My dear Friends
In all my years of visiting Paris, I had never seen Sacre Coeur until this last visit. In my mind I had built up an image of it which was touristy, noisy and full of steps! Well the last was certainly ture, but, claiming a sore foot-from all the pilgrimaging!-I persuaded Alexia to come with me on the 'cable car' which still leaves quite a few steps to climb, so you feel you are doing the real thing.
At the foot was a carousel, at the top a breathtaking view over Paris. We sat on the steps and pondered and watched the tourists and non-tourists having a good time on the lawn below, picknicking and listening to the harpist, who was officially busking above. You could see all of Paris except for the Eiffel tower-to see it you had to go round a corner and peer quite closely into the sky. It was a fine day, no clouds and you could almost feel you were in heaven.
Inside, no cameras were allowed, which made a huge difference to Notre Dame. Prayer was going on all the time, and we found great solace in sitting in one of the Lady Chapels, where Our Mother poured out her grace on us, which very comforting. Unlike in Notre Dame there was a tribute to Cardinal Lustiger, who died recently. I had the privilege of meeting him, when The Little Sisters of Joy had just begun, in Jan 1999, and he was the Archbishop of Paris and a Jewish convert like me. It was a poignant meeting and I was delighted to see that the notice in Sacre Coeur read:'Notre Cardinal est mort'- our Cardinal is dead, making it very personal.
Afterwards we wandered down to Montmartre, the artist quarter and had a meal in a restaurant with red and white checked tablecloths. Then we had a tea in 'The Rose House,' a lovely cafe, which had been a meeting place for artists in former times. There we met a couple of charming English ladies from Manchester, who seemed to love Paris as much as I do.
It was very hard to leave Paris, and France, the next day. Fortunately I have found a cheap ticket on the Eurostar, and I am going back to Paris for 6 days on 13th December.
A bientot!
Sister Gila xxxx
In all my years of visiting Paris, I had never seen Sacre Coeur until this last visit. In my mind I had built up an image of it which was touristy, noisy and full of steps! Well the last was certainly ture, but, claiming a sore foot-from all the pilgrimaging!-I persuaded Alexia to come with me on the 'cable car' which still leaves quite a few steps to climb, so you feel you are doing the real thing.
At the foot was a carousel, at the top a breathtaking view over Paris. We sat on the steps and pondered and watched the tourists and non-tourists having a good time on the lawn below, picknicking and listening to the harpist, who was officially busking above. You could see all of Paris except for the Eiffel tower-to see it you had to go round a corner and peer quite closely into the sky. It was a fine day, no clouds and you could almost feel you were in heaven.
Inside, no cameras were allowed, which made a huge difference to Notre Dame. Prayer was going on all the time, and we found great solace in sitting in one of the Lady Chapels, where Our Mother poured out her grace on us, which very comforting. Unlike in Notre Dame there was a tribute to Cardinal Lustiger, who died recently. I had the privilege of meeting him, when The Little Sisters of Joy had just begun, in Jan 1999, and he was the Archbishop of Paris and a Jewish convert like me. It was a poignant meeting and I was delighted to see that the notice in Sacre Coeur read:'Notre Cardinal est mort'- our Cardinal is dead, making it very personal.
Afterwards we wandered down to Montmartre, the artist quarter and had a meal in a restaurant with red and white checked tablecloths. Then we had a tea in 'The Rose House,' a lovely cafe, which had been a meeting place for artists in former times. There we met a couple of charming English ladies from Manchester, who seemed to love Paris as much as I do.
It was very hard to leave Paris, and France, the next day. Fortunately I have found a cheap ticket on the Eurostar, and I am going back to Paris for 6 days on 13th December.
A bientot!
Sister Gila xxxx
Thursday, 4 October 2007
In the JOY of the Lord is your stronghold
My dear Friends
The title of this piece is taken from the book of Nehemiah, in the Old Testament, Chapter 8, verse 10. It is a fitting motto for The Little Sisters of Joy, at whose heart is Jewish-Christian reconciliation. In this passage the Torah has been reconstituted by Ezra, the scribe and Nehemiah, who began the rebuilding of the !st Temple after its destruction in 587BC and the exile of the Jewish people into Babylon. They were not to return for 400 years, and many beautiful and haunting Psalms are said to date from this timne, lamenting their exile:
'By the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept. We were asked to sing a Song of Zion by our captors-how can we do this in an alien land?'
'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be cut off!'
Today is also the Feast of Tabernacles, commemorating the journey through the desert to the Promised Land. It is a time when the Jewish people remember they were homeless and nomadic. The same theme is picked up in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews:
'There is no abiding city in this life.'
Strangely enough I find this quite comforting. We are all on a journey to our common Promised Land, where there will be no fighting, where we will be in our right relation to each other in a world of harmony and love.In a period of great unsettlement for me personally, I am beginning, with some difficutly, to see the wisdom of this teaching about the inconstancy of our lives here on earth. To use a French phrase: 'Plus ca change, plus ca reste...the more things change, the more they they stay the same.'
JOY!
Happy Feast!
Sister Gila
The title of this piece is taken from the book of Nehemiah, in the Old Testament, Chapter 8, verse 10. It is a fitting motto for The Little Sisters of Joy, at whose heart is Jewish-Christian reconciliation. In this passage the Torah has been reconstituted by Ezra, the scribe and Nehemiah, who began the rebuilding of the !st Temple after its destruction in 587BC and the exile of the Jewish people into Babylon. They were not to return for 400 years, and many beautiful and haunting Psalms are said to date from this timne, lamenting their exile:
'By the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept. We were asked to sing a Song of Zion by our captors-how can we do this in an alien land?'
'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be cut off!'
Today is also the Feast of Tabernacles, commemorating the journey through the desert to the Promised Land. It is a time when the Jewish people remember they were homeless and nomadic. The same theme is picked up in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews:
'There is no abiding city in this life.'
Strangely enough I find this quite comforting. We are all on a journey to our common Promised Land, where there will be no fighting, where we will be in our right relation to each other in a world of harmony and love.In a period of great unsettlement for me personally, I am beginning, with some difficutly, to see the wisdom of this teaching about the inconstancy of our lives here on earth. To use a French phrase: 'Plus ca change, plus ca reste...the more things change, the more they they stay the same.'
JOY!
Happy Feast!
Sister Gila
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