Sacrifice

to redeem or to amplify

Sacré Coeur, just as the service was about to start.

I am travelling for the next few weeks, which means an interruption to my current series on Tantric philosophy. I’ll get back to it when I have my books again - one post on Tantra and Buddhism and another on Tantra and science. For the next three weeks though, I plan to post some more personal philosophical reflections.

Two days ago I went to Catholic mass. As a former Protestant, I find the stylized rituals of Catholic services fascinating and, to be honest, quite moving.

Admittedly, I was in a spectacular location - the Sacré Coeur basilica in Paris. It was the dawn service. Only a handful of locals were gathered. I stayed in the back, behind the line that separates the onlookers from the adherents. But even from afar, what with the beautifully tall spaces, the white stone, the huge reverberation of the priest’s gentle voice, the enormous resurrected Christ with his sacred heart on his chest looming down from the Dome - it all seemed…