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A graceful renewal of Notre-Dame Cathedral

The workers who restored the Gothic icon in Paris after a devastating fire celebrate eternal qualities in their skill and artistry. That speaks to real worship.

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Reuters
People attend a Nov. 15 ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

More than five years after a fire destroyed its upper structure, Notre-Dame in Paris will reopen with grand ceremonies Dec. 7-8. The cathedral’s new bells have already been rung. A new, phoenixlike golden rooster now sits atop a rebuilt spire.

Oak trees have been hewed by hand to re-create the 300-foot-long timber roof first built by medieval craftspeople eight centuries ago. And modern artists have designed new stained-glass windows.

Yet for the thousands of people from many countries involved in the restoration of the world’s most famous Gothic church, it is not the material structure that they want visitors to notice most.

Rather, many speak of the qualities that went into their work – such as truth, joy, and humility. “For me it’s ... like nursing the injured,” worker Paul Poulet told Agnès Poirier, author of the book “Notre-Dame: The Soul of France.”

Others note how any place of worship is meant to evoke transcendent and eternal qualities. The specifications for the new windows, for example, call for evoking joy, hope, and peace. The working of the timbers and stone was done by hand because “truth comes through the genuine materials ... [and] respect for the monument as we knew it,” Philippe Jost, director of the reconstruction, told GQ magazine.

The public wants to rediscover this “refuge of beauty, tenderness, and consolation,” said Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris. The project also had a healing purpose. “It shows that in this period of doubt and of questioning, if we remain united around a common goal, we can achieve the impossible,” said Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas, Notre-Dame’s rector.

The cathedral’s redone interior is a triumph “of truth and grace,” said Ms. Poirier after being allowed to step inside. Yet the ultimate grace in a cathedral revived from the ashes is the spirit of those who took a broken building and restored it. Their work was a worship of love and spiritual renewal.

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