That big church on top of the hill

A few weekends ago, we spent another Friday (two in a row!) in Marseille. We only had a few hours downtown, so we decided to go up and see that big church (technically a basilica) at the top of the hill-- Notre Dame de la Garde. In case you've failed to notice, every single church in France is called Notre Dame. "Our lady" is, of course, Mary, the mother of Jesus. It's interesting to be surrounded by a culture  and beliefs so different from my own. Yes, I spent a year and a half in a similar culture while in New Caledonia, and it did always strike me how different our views are from some of the older Christian beliefs, but maybe it's something about the fact that I'm able to actually go to these other churches that is making me think about it so much. This is definitely one of those things, but I am sure grateful that these beautiful buildings exist and that they've lasted so long!

 A view of the church from the train station:

A cute little store in Marseille:

The water is seriously that color! The harbor in Marseille is under construction, but the water is still as pretty.

A view from the top of the hill:

I just loved how they labeled this sign. Those are some quite impressive figures. I especially love that they give the circumference of baby Jesus' wrist. Random. 

Okay, you probably can't read this little plaque, but it says something about missionaries and we liked it. So we took a picture. 

Those same islands that we visited the week before:

Inside the basilica. This was the "crypt" part... obviously. 

 The prayer roll! En fin, there really are similarities.

 A copy of the same statue that's on the top:

"Go to Jesus with Mary." This is just one of many examples of how our religions differ. While we have a great deal of respect and admiration and love for the mother of our Savior, we don't believe it necessary to go through the mother to access the Son. Par contre, it is necessary to go through the Son to access the Father, in a manner of speaking. This scripture has been on my mind quite a bit lately: "And this is life eternal, that they may know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3). Christ is our intercessor to our Heavenly Father. To know Christ is to know the Father, because they are indeed one. I just love that doctrine!

Up on the main level of the basilica: Check out all those colors!! It was so elaborate and beautiful, I was very impressed. 

They had a lot of maritime memorabilia and stuff on the walls. It was very charming. 

I hope that one day I will have a wall of boat pictures on a wall in my house, just like this. 

I found some Caledonians! In these churches, a lot of the wall spaces is taken up by messages of gratitude to Mary for having blessed people with this or that. It's very sweet. 

They had all these little boats hanging from the ceiling. So appropriate for such a sea-side located church.

Jacqueline noticed how they had little scenes from the Bible on the ceiling. I couldn't get very good pictures of all of them, but here's Noah's ark:

And (what I'm assuming is) the Tree of Life:

Guess we're not the only ones who put gold statues on top of important buildings. Dis donc!

Jacqueline found some Japanese speakers and had a cute little conversation with them, so of course she had to take the classic picture:

You can take the girl out of the mission...

Where the building was damaged during the war:

This adorable little Marseillaise man took this picture for us. He said something about being almost blind, but he sure did a good job with this picture! One of the things that we enjoy the most are just these little moments that we share with the locals--we can joke around with them and they tell us that we are charming and beautiful. It's so great. 

Back on the bus! Don't we look excited to be there? Way too excited to be on a bus. 

Through the window of the bus:

So, yeah. It was a great start to a wonderful weekend. Even though we don't have the same beliefs, I'm finding myself more and more impressed by the faith that I see here, manifested in different ways from me, but very sweet and sincere nonetheless.