Last week, strangely enough, I wrote about how it is possible to go to a cathedral as beautiful as Nôtre Dame in Paris to drink in all the religious feel of the place but to miss God, to allow the frame to obscure the painting, as it were. Having written that just a few days ago, I couldn’t have imagined that within a week such a beautiful “frame” as Nôtre Dame would be destroyed by fire, a devastating fire that, while it could have been worse, wreaked havoc upon the finest and most famous example of Gothic architecture in France.
It would merely be to repeat what everyone else has said already to say that this is more than simply France’s or Paris’ loss, it is the world’s loss. Likewise, expressing my own or American solidarity with Parisians and all France in this time of sorrow is merely to repeat what others have said more eloquently. And even to say that the cathedral was much more than merely a religious building, is not enough. That structure was, and its remnant remains, the principal symbol of French culture, the center of Paris, the richness of a combination of religious inspiration, two hundred years of devoted labor in its building, loving care of the edifice, and sustained cultural preservation. What took so long to build, and what stood proudly for so many years ended so quickly at the beginning of the holiest of weeks on the Christian calendar.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, spoke about the care of New York Catholics for all Parisians, saying that they can “count on our love, prayers, support and solidarity.” He went on to make the connection between the destruction of the cathedral and the death of Christ: “This Holy Week teaches us that, like Jesus, death brings life. Today’s dying, we trust, will bring rising.” It is striking that this occurred just now, just before Christians celebrate the death of Christ.
Peniarth 482D manuscript. The Crucifixion. Christ dead on the Cross, with the Virgin Mary, John and the Three Maries mourning. circa 1503 -4. (Peniarth 482D is a manuscript written by one scribe, on parchment, probably in London, either in the late 15th century, or at the beginning of the 16th. As in the case of Peniarth MS 481D (The Battles of Alexander the Great), it is one of the most elaborately decorated medieval manuscripts in the Library, and a rare survival in its original binding. Its importance also lies in its connection to the Royal households of Henry VII and Henry VIII. )
Yes, celebrate is theologically the right word
here. You see, Christians celebrate Jesus’ death because they know not simply
that we can bring Him back, keeping His memory alive—I am glad to say that Nôtre Dame will be rebuilt, as millions of Euros have already been pledged for
that purpose—but He was
resurrected. Christians celebrate his
death for what it did for them: dying, He took the penalty for their sins away
forever. And then, to everyone’s
astonishment, He rose from the dead, which was and remains the proof that He
did by dying precisely what He had said that he would do. And that’s why Christians celebrate his
death, not just his resurrection.
Thus, while there are some similarities and,
given the season, striking parallels between the burning of the finest French
cathedral and the death of Jesus, as Father Dolan correctly points out, there
is at least one fundamental difference: while we already know that Nôtre Dame will be rebuilt, the expectation
of which in no way diminishes out grief over the tragic loss that has just
occurred, the first-century disciples had no such anticipation about Jesus,
even though he had repeatedly told them it would happen. And, I guess, that’s why, in this time of
great grief for Nôtre Dame,
we can still find solace: not just in the hope of rebuilding, but in the hope
of all of us sinful human beings being forgiven freely by quite another death,
that of an innocent man a long time ago. And we can add to that the hope of our
own resurrection based on that of that same man, the Son of Man, the son of
Mary, the son of nôtre dame.
Vive la France, revivra Nôtre Dame. Le Christ était mort mais vit. Joyeuses Pâques!
… Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy:
when I fall, I shall arise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord shall be a light unto me.
—Micah 7:8
This week’s blog was to be about gratefulness and thanksgiving for seeing an old friend in Rome and making a new one in Paris. But that will have to wait. Now Paris has come under attack, and those of us who care, which I hope are most of us, are caught in a swirl of thoughts and emotions about a city that most have never visited.
Nevertheless, I have a feeling that somehow we know Paris, even if we have never had an occasion to be there. Those of us old enough to have grown up after World War II recall pictures, mostly black and white (e.g., in Look magazine), when we were kids, as Paris, like London and other cities that sought to recover from the Second World War, was being rebuilt and restructured. We think of the liberation of Paris in late August of 1944, when the Germans surrendered the city and retreated.
If we should happen to be a bit younger, we might know Paris through film. Perhaps we’ve watched Singing in the Rain or been to a production of “An American in Paris” (or seen the movie) and can easily recognize Gershwin’s familiar tune. Paris is, and for most of us always has been, a place that represents something much more important than most big cities. It symbolizes and brings together style, frivolity, the power of art, history, romance, and beauty—in essence, all of Europe’s splendor and charm—in a single place. It is the place that by its very nature betokens a free society, where art and literature can flourish, where stamp collectors can wander through vendor booths along the banks of the Seine, where the name of a gothic cathedral can serve as a declaration not only for the most important female figure in Christendom, but also for the city, serving as a maternal figure for its country and perhaps the world: Notre Dame, Our Lady.
I took the picture you see here just a week ago when I was in Paris. I was there to meet a friend of a friend who was to help me with a large project I was working on in French. Maria and I struck up an immediate friendship, one that I hope and imagine will last for some years to come. And that is why I wrote to her immediately when I saw the news about Paris yesterday. My heart went out to her and to all Parisians for their immediate dire circumstance. I am glad to say that Maria was unharmed and is safely out of Paris now. But the fact remains, she could have been killed, and I, perhaps the most recent of her friends, would have been heartbroken; if I, how much more her parents and longer-term friends, teachers, colleagues?
And our heart goes out to all those whom we have not known, too, and it must. For the lives affected there are real lives. Real families are devastated. Even as I write this, in Paris some mother is lying on her bed sobbing (or a father on his knees crying out to God) because her only child was killed in a theater or a restaurant, simply because he or she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if we have a child, we can feel with that person, we can sympathize and we pray that our heartfelt sympathy will pneumatically comfort that mother or father across the miles, by some miracle of the wind blowing wherever it pleases. May it please that Wind to bring comfort now to those in need.
Someone might say the decadence of the West has brought this upon itself. And they would be wrong. I am not here saying that the West does not have its fair share of decadence. But no one in that restaurant was especially decadent. They were just people eating dinner. The problem with any argument that blames the victims is that it is patently facile. I can recall in the early 1980s certain Christians, some of them friends of mine, saying that the AIDS epidemic was God’s punishment upon those who engaged in dangerous sexual liaisons. But little hemophiliac children who needed blood transfusions were also dying of AIDS. The only way such an argument could work is to say that God is inaccurate in doling out his punishment; He cares less about collateral damage than might a general in the armed forces. But generals do care very much about collateral damage, and if a human being cares, how much more the Divine.
Rather than blame the West for its excess, I propose that we look for a moment at the human heart and ask ourselves a more relevant question: why do we hate anyone? By “we” I don’t mean we in the general detached sense of “mankind” but in the particular sense of you and me. I mean, in fact, why do I hate anyone. So I will start with me, and I will put the blame on the Paris attacks where it really belongs, on me as a human being, not necessarily me alone.
What is it about me that makes me hate my neighbor? I have spent the last 35 or so years trying very hard not to hate. Anyone who happens to have read the Curious Autobiographyknows why. If you’ve read Augustine’s Confessions, you know what happens to Augustine in the eighth book. If you’ve read the Curious Autobiography, you can find in the tenth chapter an account of something similar. With all due respect to Daniel Burke, I believe—rather I know—that there can come a point in some people’s lives where they (decide to?) turn in another direction. Or perhaps they are turned, but I leave that subject aside; I can only say that, after chapter 10, I now want to try not to hate any longer.
Yet I admit that I have not been entirely successful. It is difficult to look in the face of evil on September 11, 2001 or November 13, 2015 or October 26, 2015 (if that is the correct date), or countless other dates these days, when innocents die in any number. We live in a cruel world, becoming crueler by the second. Fewer and fewer folks are going to church, though world religions in general are not shrinking. In the east and now in much of the west, religion is thriving, but it is not Christianity. To quote a recent article, “Muslims … in the second half of this century, will likely surpass Christians as the world’s largest religious group.”[1] While that article attributes the principal reason for Islam’s expected growth to “simple demographics” (i.e., Muslims will have significantly more children than other folks), it seems to me that there may be another reason, one derived from doctrine, that might speak to the growth of that religion: that, in Islam, works count toward salvation. But, though that can explain a lot and even give us, perhaps, some insight into the motivations of the suicide bombers in Paris, I leave that aside.
And I do so because we need to look into our own hearts, not those of others, to come to grips with what has happened in Paris. If we are capable of hating—even retributively—we must realize that others are, as well. We must understand that the blame for what happened in Paris falls on us all. It certainly falls on me. I have indulged in hatred, for whatever reason, many times since chapter 10. I am therefore as much a part of the problem as anyone else, including the terrorist himself.
I close with this thought, one for myself, but perhaps for us all. I shall not hate the terrorists. Yet that does not imply a lack of resolve. I shall not indulge in execration. Rather, I shall pity them in my thoughts and lavish mercy on them in my prayers. Will that make a difference? Will it make God any “happier” with me? To the former, I hope yes; to the latter, I can only say that I think Milton is right when he says, “God doth not need man’s work or his own gifts.”[2] As for me, I hope to hold mercy in my heart even as I pray for stark justice in this world. That is my hope, my recipe for this week: Seek justice, love mercy.[3] Bon courage, mes amis à Paris. Be safe, Maria …
Recipe for 13 November 2015: Hope for Paris, and us all
Ingredients (serves one [at a time]):
One part mercy, one part justice, and a cup water from the well alluded to below. Mix with a Welsh love spoon thoroughly, and live. Failure to blend ingredients will produce less than desirable results. Failure to care about your neighbor at all will produce death; probably has already. As with another recipe, bake at 365 days a year; eat while still warm, and walk humbly.
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
