It doesn’t make any sense why, but the burning of Notre Dame has made me extremely emotional. As it is a symbol, its destruction cannot help but feel symbolic, and therefore loaded with significance. I read somewhere that someone described it as an image of “the end of the world,” an emblem of how close we are as a species—and a planet—to extinction and decimation. I can’t help but agree. I am as heartbroken as if it were my own church, which of course, it is not. Still I feel compelled to share a memory of it as some kind of tribute.
I was there over five years ago, at a 9AM Mass with my friends. I have found it painful to go to Mass or church or any religious service for the past seven years. I avoid it, because I always cry. Uncontrollably, hysterically, with an abiding sense of loss. This once was mine, and now it feels alien. My friends wanted to go to Mass, they are good Catholics, so I went with them. There is something to be said about attending religious services in the cathedrals of Europe, even if you are a secular person or of a different faith tradition. For one thing, on a practical level, you bypass the sightseeing charge. For another, you experience the structure as it was meant to be experienced: the organ ringing out, the shy chorus of voices rising and echoing, the prayers that have resounded iambically across Europe, almost unaltered, for centuries. Silence, suspended in the air like so many flecks of dust. Gentle grasping of hands for the Lord’s Prayer. Flashes of gold as the sacred Host is lifted in the air, the sudden catch in the priest’s throat when he seems to remember just who he is summoning here. Even if you don’t believe a jot of it, it’s like watching a very earnest play, where the stage is built to emphasize its beauty and sacred repetition. On this particular day, I was not doing well with being in a church service. We were at one that was very hymn-heavy, it was longer than the typical Mass I was used to, and I was getting antsy. But in the pew behind us was an old man, singing along to every hymn in a beautiful, clear, powerful baritone. Because I speak some French, I could understand him most of the time. It was just an extraordinary experience. He was totally giving himself over to the music and you could hear the pain and the hope and the love in his voice. There was so much depth to his voice and his song that it touched the beyond. It was mystical. Today I feel so grateful to have experienced this moment, so much more so now that Notre Dame has been damaged.
We spend so much time profoundly disconnected from each other. We spend so much time avoiding each other’s eyes. I know for many, the Church is not a welcoming place—it stopped feeling welcoming to me a long time ago. The “church” in Christian tradition refers to a type of building, but most of the time it refers to the body of people who gather within. The “church” is supposed to be a place of belonging and connection. That’s what they tell you in the Instagram ads. For many of us, it is not. However, moments like the ones I had listening to the old man—I believe they are all around us. It was significant to me that it happened in Notre Dame, such close intimacy in this grand cathedral. But we can experience belonging and connection in so many places. Even if they are fleeting, it’s worth it to look for these moments. The older I get, the more I see, and the more I grieve, the more I know that these moments are all that really matter, and nothing else even grazes the surface.