The church of Notre-Dame of Paris is without doubt, even today, a sublime and majestic building ... a vast symphony in stone, as it were; the colossal handiwork of a man and a people.
-- Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris (1831)
Notre-Dame de Paris (or, The Hunchback of Notre Dame for those of us who grew up reading the Anglicized story) was probably among the first handful of grown-up books I read as a child. It engendered within me a love for all things European. Later, as a student, I took a course on cathedrals with Dean Lytle at Sewannee. We read through Otto von Simpson's The Gothic Cathedral and its material on the cathedral was breathtaking. At the time, I could tell you all about the Rose Windows and the flying buttresses.
But that's not what anyone wants to hear about today.
The last news I've heard is that the building is not a total loss as was originally thought. Tragically, unimaginably, the spire and the roof are gone, the interior is surely going to have to be rebuilt. But the outer structure still exists and the towers have been saved, for now, as far as I know. That much is hopeful.
People keep telling me that the windows and interior aren't original anyway; they had to be replaced in the 19th century, after the French Revolution. Somehow, that doesn't console me as much as it should.
I'm hearing news that the Crown of Thorns and other relics were somehow saved, as was the artwork, and I hope it turns out to be true.
I hear that one fire fighter has been seriously injured, and I pray for her or his healing. I pray for the healing of France from this national trauma.
I don't know the cause of the fire just yet. Certain persons have already decided it's terrorism and are speculating about which terrorists are to blame, which makes me ill. We don't know that it wasn't an accident yet. It could turn out either way. If it turns out to be a white supremacist terrorist attack, white people like me won't suffer because of that person's bad deed, but if it turns out to be the work of an Islamist extremist, peaceable Muslims will suffer horribly -- not to mention the refugees who are already subjected to so much discrimination. So I think we'd all be much better off not speculating about who set the fire.
Using the fire to prop up your pet issues is not only in bad form -- it's anti-Christian. It's only a matter of time before religious conservatives in the United States start claiming that this act was a judgment on secular France. If you're inclined to view this as a direct chastisement from a vengeful God, for example -- well, I don't know what religion you profess, but it had better not be Catholicism because Catholicism doesn't profess a God so petty or so clumsy. A petty God would just smite the local bishop or the bishop's house, or members of the congregation one by one, if that was who He wanted to punish. A clumsy and petty God might smite the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris by accident, when aiming for the congregation, and end up killing nobody but making such an obscene mess. Our God is neither. Our God is Mercy and Love.
If you want to mourn about this being a metaphor for the Church in Europe or in the world -- I can empathize with your frustrations, but we'd better stop it. If you feel that the Church, the Body of Christ, is on fire, remember that you are a member of the Body of Christ and start putting out that fire and healing the damage through personal repentance. That's all any of us can ever do. Repent of our own sins and return to doing the Father's will, personally, without looking over our shoulder to see if anyone is imitating us. That's not only the most expedient way to heal the Church, it's the only way she has ever been healed. That's the real point of all this Lent stuff, anyhow.
If you want to make some comment about how this is a loss of an alabaster Western "civilization", stop it. There's no dignified way to respond to your comments amidst a disaster that involves a living, breathing congregation of faithful whose prayers have, over 800-plus years, sanctified this space. The Cathedral isn't a product of "Western civilization" (whatever that might be!). It's a living, breathing home for the Body of Christ in the world.
If you want to gloat over people you viewed to be "worldly" or "modernist" or "bad Catholics" somehow getting what they deserved in this, you are beneath contempt.
This is a tragedy for a bishop and his people -- people who, as the fire broke out, were at prayer inside the cathedral.
Let it be that tragedy.
Mourn the nightmare, without adding to it.
It's quite enough of a nightmare, after all.
Je vous salue, Marie pleine de grâce ; le Seigneur est avec vous. Vous êtes bénie entre toutes les femmes et Jésus, le fruit de vos entrailles, est béni. Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu, priez pour nous pauvres pécheurs, maintenant et à l’heure de notre mort. Amen.
May God have mercy on our world, at this time in the church's year when we most need that mercy to bring us out of the ashes and death and into life.