On Good Friday, I was meeting Matt to then go and visit some museums, and Doreen was meeting Abbie and Laurie to go to a different set of museums. We choose the front of Notre Dame to meet, and we all arrived at the same time (Around 10:00 AM) It turned out that The Adoration of the Crown of Thorns was also set for 10:00 AM, and there was a line of people going into the cathedral for that purpose. We decided that we should join the procession and the Adoration as well.

The line to get into the church itself was no longer that it has been on any other Friday that we have been here. It moved quickly, so we all believed that we would be able to walk in, keep moving, and spend a brief, but meaningful time in the cathedral. It turned out that the adoration itself was in the choir of the church.

The regular tourists were sent around the aisles and then through the croseé to the north side of the church and down. For The Adoration, there was a large group of people waiting in the south transept to be let into a line that was about to form to see the relics.

To this point, it was all relatively organized and solemn. When the group stopped, however, some of the poorer aspects of human nature took hold, and many people started pushing, moving forward, and trying to get to the head of the line through various ruses. You need to picture a gate at the end of a three aisle church (Don’t think of the nave – where people sit, think of the aisle on the south side of that part) and about 400 people pressing into that (large) gate. To this point in the process there was no real crown control, and we were all left to our own devices to get to the entry.

Being as tall as I am, I was able to keep my eye on Abbie and Doreen (in front of me) and Matt and Laurie (behind me). The priests were letting in about 20 people at a time to the line that WAS orderly, which was in the choir end of the church, not really quite to the asp. The gates would swing open (Away from the crowd) the crowd would push in until the priest would have to PHYSICALLY force himself into the opening and force the gate shut. Each time he would be shutting the gate, you would see some people saying that they were cut off from family, and they were let in as well.

When we finally got into the calm part of the process, Matt and Laurie were indeed cut off from the rest of us. They were able to get into the line and we all moved forward.

At this point, we could still not see exactly how the adoration would take place. There was a wall separating our line from the adoration itself. There were a line of priests and deacons asking for donations and providing prayer cards as well. During this whole time we could hear a priest speaking in German – Doreen said that he was reading The Passion. As we turned the corner, we could see that the line of people led to the alter where the people were stepping up two steps and leaning down to kiss three reliquaries – I could not see what was in each one.

Abbie was the first to get to the alter, then Doreen and then me. We would genuflect at the altar at then walk up to it. The first box contained a nail from The True Cross, which was set in a gold box with a glass top. The second was the Crown of Thorns, which was in a glass torus (like a donut) with gold and jeweled designs around the outside. Inside you could see what looked like brown reeds. In the third box was a piece of the True Cross, which was a large 3"x5" piece of very dark wood.

As we reached this area, the German Priest left and an English-speaking priest started repeating the provenance of the Crown of Thorns. He started by saying that there is no doubt that it IS the real Crown of Thorns. St Louis (King Louis IX) brought the Crown of Thorns, the Nail, and the Piece of the True Cross from Constantinople in the 13^th century, and we are sure that it is that same group of relics that he arrived with in France. Ste Chappelle was built originally to house these three relics (They was since been moved to Notre Dame) and he paid less to build that church that he did for the three relics.

It was indeed a moving experience to see and kiss these three physical manifestations of the crucifixion of Jesus.