100 Churches in Paris and elsewhere

  This is a cathedral I walked past every school day from 1976 to 1979, but never went in because I was busy being a Catholic (long story). But much later I got to like it and regularly go in when I am visiting my mother who lives just up the road in Oswaldtwistle. They do bellringing classes and have a cool café. Very elegant pulpit and lectern in light wood. Unusual modern statue of Mary giving Jesus his bath when he was a small child, impressive stained glass. And modernist paintings for the Stations of the Cross. There are also a few fifteenth century praying seats. The official name of the cathedral is Cathedral Church of Saint Mary the Virgin with Saint Paul. It was built in 1826, and much enlarged in the 1950s and 1960s.   The lantern     tower is very distinctive.

  The Holy Spirit doesn’t have that many churches dedicated to it/him/her/them. Generally disguised as a dove or a tongue of flame, the Holy Spirit is the third bit of the Trinity. It is rather less well-defined than the other two bits : God the Father, creating universes quickly before having a day off, and God the Son, gurgling in the straw when he’s not bleeding out on the cross or giving moral guidance, bread and fish to large crowds. But there are people working hard to define the Holy Spirit more carefully. In Christian theology, pneumatology is the study of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Half of   you think I am making this up, but I’m not. Anyway, Saint Peter and a bunch of others have more churches than him/her/it/them. This church is a twentieth century one in Paris, not far from the bookshop La Brèche ( https://la-breche.com/ ) It has kind of sepia frescoes on some of the walls, a colourful fresco of Saint Peter in his fave position, and a very original Stations of the