(#18) Notre Dame burns on Holy Week

In September, we were walking under these warm golden lights, talking about our present stresses, our future desires. We tread softly on the worn tiles of the plaza, pushing a stroller, comforted by the omnipresence of Notre Dame on either side of the bank. Recalling now, looking up, saying the Eiffel Tower is fine but…this. To me, one of the most beautiful buildings of the world, a symphonic iconography, a visual gospel, a rose of gothic architecture in an empty but infinite world. Above all, a place of worship, art, and prayer, a sanctuary- a living piece of art daily alive with visitors. An inspiration for great creativity and writing for centuries. Built over hundreds of years by laborers.

Once, before it was restored in the 1800s, in Victor Hugo’s novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” he wrote: “the church will, perhaps itself soon disappear from the face of the earth.” It survived Nazi occupation. Here we are today wondering if it can be saved from fire.

The next week is a high holy time for Catholics and Christians all over the world, in every hemisphere, on every continent. Whatever you think of that, this week has now been marked by a tragedy fitting of what we are celebrating: a complete loss of hope, the wind blowing in with a silencing, deafening helplessness. In a time personally where I have felt helpless and small in a heavy world, uncertain of what it will be like to raise a life in this world, today has felt like something broke in a part of my own strength. Today is genuinely too much for me to bear.

And yet — here we are, called to rejoice in our weakness. And to mourn with those who mourn.

From Daniel Burke/CNN: “During Holy Week, Notre Dame unveils relics…the Holy Crown, believed by many to be from the crown of thorns placed on the head of Jesus… also counts among its treasures two other relics connected to Holy Week: a fragment of the Wood of the Cross, believed by many to be a part of the ‘true cross’ on which Jesus was crucified; and one of the nails that the Romans used to crucify Jesus.”