There appears to be only one church in La Bourboule. There is a boarded up shop window in one of the side streets which contains some accoutrements suggesting a protestant provisional prayer room, but it looked rather dilapidated and unused. I guess if you want to be religiously organised in La Bourboule, it is Catholicism or nothing. This economic approach is typically Auvergnat in its sensibility – why shell out for half a dozen churches, like in the US Germany
Again the limitations of my little digital camera made themselves felt. If I use the flash colours look washed out, and if not the image is blurry or black or both. But some of the stained glass windows came out quite nicely, I think!
I have not attended any services there, since I don’t want to accidentally promise to do something I disagree with (that lack of French again), like praying for President Sarkozy - they pray for the Queen in England, so I guess it makes sense to pray for the President in France. I am up for most sins (within reason), but have to draw the line at lying to God in church. Anyway, that’s the reason why I can’t report here about religious practices, attendance, and fervour (or lack of) of the local worshippers. But there are many candles burning in front of the saints, so they can’t all be heathens.
The Lady & Child statue above is my favourite item in the church. It is a small carving, only about a foot high, and the proportions are a bit off. But I find it very dignified, expressing a simple faith. I don’t like religious images that are too perfect, just as I don’t like the music and choir to be too perfect during services. They distract from the main purpose on hand, which should be experiencing God.
The inside of the church, seen from the door.
The church has a great many stained glass windows, mainly similar to this one, so I am only posting one example here.
There are five statues of saints with candle-holders in front in this church. They don’t all have a name tag, but well I don’t practice favouritism when it comes to saints so I lit a candle in front of each of them. The one in this photo took the best picture and had the most candles. The patron saint of this church is Joseph, and he had only one very small candle burning in front of him, so I bought him two – it doesn’t seem right to be the underdog in your own church!
This last photo depicts a church window in Murat le Quaire which is up the hill from La Bourboule and much smaller (both town and church). I include it here because the style is so different.
Only two more days until it is time to go home!
