Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Notre Dame, A Symbol of our Collective Western Civilization

My husband and I visited Paris for ten days around Christmas and New Year seventeen years ago. It was blustery and drizzling the whole time and we eventually got used to the bone-chilling cold. It did not stop our adventurous streak at all and we took the metro everywhere.

I had visited Paris twice before but only for a couple of days each time with my youngest daughter - the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Notre Dame cathedral, and Versailles.

With my daughter, March 2001


Photo: Ileana Johnson, Christmas 2002
Notre Dame spire

This time we had more time and we went inside Notre Dame and lit up a candle for my dad. We prayed and walked around in amazement at the beautiful stained glass windows. The paintings, the floor mosaics, and the solid columns gave us a feeling of eternity as if this church has been there forever, almost nine centuries of civilization.

Photo: Ileana, Xmas 2002

We tried to imagine how many millions have stepped on those floors before us in the last nine centuries and how many prayers have been lifted to Heaven and to God.

How many sacrifices poor and rich Christians alike have made to contribute financially through tithes and donations to the construction of so much beauty that generations have admired and enjoyed in silent prayer and people from around the world have visited?

There was a meager nativity scene to one side and I remember commenting that it was rather simple compared to the awe-inspiring beauty sorrounding us. But then there was not much indication around the secular Paris that Christmas was an important holiday to the Parisians. They had partied heavily on New Year's, trashing the famous steps of the Basilica in Montmartre.


Nanook of the North admiring a gorgyle
Photo: My husband David, Christmas 2002

We then stayed in line in blistering rainy winter wind for almost an hour in order to climb to the top to see the famous Notre Dame gargoyles up close and to admire a breathtaking view of Paris.

I was dressed like Nanook of the North and the frigid cold still reached to my bones but it was worth every icycle hanging from my frozen face - I felt the winds of history touching my being.

I never believed that in my lifetime this 860 year-old jewel of Christian art and prayer, a symbol of our collective western civilization will be partially turned to ashes, a victim of “accidental” fire.

8 comments:

  1. I feel the pain as a Sikh. Hope we shall soon know what caused this catastrophe.

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  2. Thank you for sharing your memories.

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  4. Thank you Ileana, this recollection of your visits is like one of the remembrance candles. What a special Christmas!

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  5. Comment from my friend, Dr. David L. Sponseller from Ann Arbor, Michigan: "Surely Europe was the vanguard of Christianity in the world. How remarkable that men of faith could create such a magnificent structure without the benefit of power tools, steel beams, massive cranes, etc., thus constructing massive wooden roof trusses that withstood wind, rain, and rot for over 800 years. Hopefully the stone walls will continue to stand, without the trusses on the inside that balanced the force of the flying buttresses on the outside!
    Notre Dame stood proud against physical attacks by Godless people during the French Revolution, and survived two world wars. But it's hard to evade the symbolism of the flames yesterday, perhaps signifying, sadly, the toll taken by secularism on Christianity throughout Europe during recent decades. A burned out roof matters much less to an empty church today than it would have to a packed church in medieval times.
    Hopefully the fire that ravaged Notre Dame will stir feelings of nationalism in France that might draw in veins of the religious fervor present in earlier generations; Might not this intertwining of nationalism and faith mark a rebirth of religion in France and all of Europe, the one-time vanguard of the faith!
    President Macron inspiring words today give us all hope:
    "Notre Dame is our history, our literature, part of our psyche, the place of all our great events, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations, the epicenter of our lives ... So I solemnly say tonight: we will rebuild it together."

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