Imagine being able to stand in the same place for a very long time, just observing what is going on around you.
Imagine standing so still that days turn to years, years to decades and decades to centuries.
Imagine, being there at a time when books were all handwritten, and then suddenly you witness the advent of printing machines. Or imagine, one day you look at the river next to you and boats are not rowed but powered by steam. And one day darkness is not lit up by candles but first by gas lanterns and then by this new thing called light bulb. Imagine seeing people on horses, then on bicycles, then behind a wheel in this thing called car.
Imagine being used to seeing painters capture your beauty, then after many centuries, people start lugging along huge contraptions to stare at you and take a photograph, and then over the decades, this contraption becomes tinier and tinier until everyone looks up at you with a pocket-sized one in their hands.
Imagine being so static that the only thing you can do is be a witness to the changes of humanity.
This is what the Cathedral of Notre-Dame is about. It is a building. But it is more than that, because it’s a building which has stood silent, observant, on that little River Seine island in Paris, a reference point for humanity for the last 800 years.
Even when it was brand new, in the mid-12th century, Notre-Dame was colossal. It was wider, and taller and ‘gothicier’, if there is such a word, than other churches of its time. The French had been quite experimental with its construction technology, and succeeded.
If an alien were to come down to earth and I had to explain what humanity is about, I would get them to watch this footage
No wonder, then, that everyone who’s anyone in France somehow leaves their mark there. It’s seen countless popes, countless kings and queens and countless memorial services for French presidents. It’s been ravaged by the French revolutionaries, and restored to its glory when Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor in 1804. It was then already 500 years old. In 1920, Joan of Arc was beatified, and 24 years later, having survived two world wars, Notre-Dame rang its tenor bell to mark the end of Nazi occupation of France.
It’s been an inspiration for artists, novelists, journalists, clerics for generations. When Victor Hugo immortalised it in his 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame he forever etched it into our imagination (with a little bit of help, two centuries later, from Disney). The hunchback, the gargoyles peering out from the top of cathedral, the spire, all of it came to life and Notre-Dame no longer belonged to the French but to all of us citizens of the world.
And then came last Monday.
The cathedral was engulfed in a ferocious inferno. At home, we were transfixed, switching from channel to channel, watching live as the flames ate up the cathedral. However, the most heartbreaking image of the Notre-Dame on fire was not the magnificent gothic spire crashing down in a sole thumping grunt. It was not the courage of the firemen who gave their all to save art and architecture. It was the crowd. The French people who gathered close to the cathedral, stunned, shocked, speechless, and then in their grief, sang Ave Maria.
If an alien were to come down to earth and I had to explain what humanity is about in 30 seconds, I would get them to watch this footage.
It encapsulates the best of human nature – the ability to get together and express strong emotions as one. Communal communication.
Yes, Notre-Dame is a building with a history, but it’s not just that. It’s a true reflection of the beauty of humanity because it is a building with a soul.
It is an architectural feat, it is a historical opus, but above all it is a religious site. And that terribly moving scene, of onlookers spontaneously singing Ave Maria, was simply a reminder of that which is virtuous about religion.
Religions get a lot of bashing, but I fear that sometimes we miss the whole point about them – pomp, zealousness and politics tend to darkly take over. But religions are essentially the gathering together of people to share in the energy released in a collective activity. And the sense of belonging to a community is a basic need of any human being.
It is nothing but a sign of the beauty of the human soul that we can truly be moved to reach out to strangers and connect with them through the language of music.
The burning of Notre-Dame was a breaking news like no other, for in a moment of great distress, our spirit was lifted.
Happy Easter.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @krischetcuti
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece