IS GOD IN NOTRE-DAME’S REBIRTH?





     For the first time since a catastrophic blaze almost reduced it to ruin in 2019, the towering Gothic masterpiece that is Notre-Dame has reopened for worship, resplendent and renewed. Beneath its soaring arches, voices rose in song and prayer, celebrating a rebirth that seemed almost miraculous in its splendour. With three resounding knocks on its doors, Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich, wielding a specially designed crosier carved from fire-scorched beams, ceremonially called the monument back to life on Saturday evening. 

     French President Emmanuel Macron declared that Notre-Dame would be "even more beautiful than before." Whether Macron views the rebirth  as more glorious than before to silence his critics or as a form of liturgy symbolising a transition from the old to the new, one thing remains certain: his declaration operates within the realm of language steeped in visual and spatial rhetoric. Roland Barthes might remind us that architecture is often treated as a language, less for what it proves than for what it asserts.[1] This rebirth, too, speaks volumes—not in words, but through visual and spatial rhetoric, a declaration of faith and artistry that transcends the material.  

The second Sunday of Advent lends a poetic resonance to the moment, captured in the words of Baruch 5:1-9:

"Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and misery;

put on the splendour of glory from God forever...

For God will show all the earth your splendour:

you will be named by God forever

the peace of justice, the glory of God’s worship." 

    From the rubble of tragedy, the new Notre-Dame rises, not merely as stone and glass but as a symbol. It begs the question: does God whisper anew through its hallowed spaces, or does He roll His eyes at all this drama? Perhaps the answer lies not in the structure itself but in the souls that gather beneath its reborn arches. After all, if divine intervention can resurrect a cathedral, surely it can manage to fix the Wi-Fi in the sacristy! Hahahahahahha!!!

 


[1] Barthes, Roland. "Semiology and the Urban." Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. Ed. Neil Leach. New York: Routledge, 1997. 166-172. Print.


Hemen A. Emmanuel O.S.A

Colegio Mayor Mendel. C. del Rector Royo-Villanova, 6, Moncloa - Aravaca, 28040 Madrid

Madrid, España.

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