PARIS (OSV News): “The fire gave us all a boost,” Father Henry de Villefranche a chaplain of the iconic Notre Dame de Paris cathedral, said, speaking of a “renewed vitality” encouraged by the Notre Dame worksite. “The Church was asleep. Some people were behaving badly. In that respect, the fire was providential. It pushed us all to move forward and give our best.”
Few know it better than the chaplains of the cathedral A few yards from Notre Dame, in an old medieval street, on Ile de la Cité, Father Villefranche works on ensuring continuity of Notre Dame’s heritage with the new team, responsible for the liturgical life of the renovated cathedral.
Hundreds of shocked Parisians watched as flames consumed the cathedral’s medieval roof 15 April 2019, the first day of Holy Week, praying that Notre Dame would be saved as the spire collapsed around 8.00pm. Two-thirds of the roof was destroyed.
Noémie Teyssier d’Orfeuil, a young teacher, was there and since then, she has coordinated the “pilgrimage of living stones” through the streets of Paris every year on Holy Monday.
“The idea is that we are all the ‘living stones’ of the Church,” Teyssier d’Orfeuil expalined. “Every stone is important, and the Church is incomplete if one is missing.” The youth teams who work with her strive to bring together Catholics from a wide variety of Paris parishes, those affluent and busy and those poorer and more isolated. The diocesan solidarity unit helps them involve members of Catholic charities, so that street people and disadvantaged populations have a privileged place during the event, as well as people with disabilities.
The Church was asleep. Some people were behaving badly. In that respect, the fire was providential. It pushed us all to move forward and give our best
Father Villefranche
Teyssier d’Orfeuil also works with hundreds of young volunteers to organise seven major pilgrimage routes to Notre Dame, across France, from July 28 to September 14, in preparation for the December 8 reopening.
The cathedral welcomed between 12 million and 14 million visitors every year before the fire. The influx is expected to increase after the reopening. With this in mind, Father de Villefranche and his team are setting up a didactic trail, designed to enable visitors to explore the essentials of Christian history and faith as they stroll around the cathedral. It’s for those searching for their faith and for those wanting to deepen it.
“Notre Dame is a holy place, just like Jerusalem,” Father de Villefranche pointed out. He speaks Hebrew and knows the Holy Land like the back of his hand. “Notre Dame, too, is a place that leaves no one indifferent, a place where God can be encountered,” he said.
The chaplains of Notre Dame designed a new itinerary and renamed the side chapels. The visitors’ route will begin on the left as they enter. The aisle running along the left-hand side will be named the “Alley of Promise,” and will take visitors through seven chapels dedicated to the great witnesses of the Old Testament.
“Until now, those chapels were black with grime,” Father de Villefranche explained. Now they are cleaned up and are “superb,” he said, “but they need to be outfitted. There is nothing inside, and their white stained-glass windows tell no story.”
Every stone is important, and the Church is incomplete if one is missing
Noémie Teyssier d’Orfeuil
Visitors then will continue to the choir, and see the 14th-century statue of the Virgin and Child, evoking the incarnation of Christ, and the new reliquary for the crown of thorns, a reminder of the redemption.
They will then walk to the other side of the nave through the “Pentecost Alley,” which chapels will be dedicated to the church after Christ’s resurrection, including evocation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the saints.
“Furnishing these newly named chapels will take about 10 years,” Father de Villefranche said. “The looting and ransacking of the French Revolution in 1789 and the July Revolution in 1830 left us with few objects at our disposal. We will have to order new statues, tapestries and stained-glass windows, particularly to represent Pentecost.”
The chaplains also are working on new rituals for liturgical moments specific to the cathedral. The morning daily Mass logistics will be improved. “In the past, people entered through one of the side doors,” Father de Villefranche said. “From now on, they will enter through the large old central portal of the Last Judgment. The priest will be waiting for them at the entrance, as the door opens. They will pass through the baptistery and pray the Angelus, before proceeding to the altar for Mass.”
In Notre Dame, Masses and other services are celebrated while tourists continue to stroll around. “It is much better for the visitors,” Father de Villefranche pointed out. “A church is interesting when there is something going on! Many are touched. This visit does not leave anyone unmoved.”
For Father de Villefranche, “culture and worship should not be separated, but rather linked. Worship is expressed in a culture, and culture enables us to understand the signs of worship. We hope that visitors who enter as tourists leave as pilgrims,” he explained.
The CASA Notre Dame association trains teams of guides to explain to tourists the elements of the Christian faith needed to understand the iconic cathedral.
Father de Villefranche said that personally, he is “not very interested in the official ceremonies to reopen the cathedral…,” adding with a smile that for his part, he is “signing up to celebrate the first ordinary Mass of the week that follows. That is when everything will really begin.”
