Rapping on the Door

Choose the Light

Five years ago, I saw the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral as a symbol of what was to come. It meant destruction, but not a total one. It was an injury that created sorrow on the streets of Paris and around the world.

Soon after that day, the world was shut down. Church was closed. People isolated. The trickster, the master of lies, had a field day with perversion, degradation, censorship, war, and disaster - good was bad and bad was good.

On Saturday, December 7th, 2024, Notre Dame opened, and the brave firefighters who miraculously saved the structure along with planners, architects, builders, world leaders, invited guests, and the choir all awaited the knock on the door. The Archbishop of Paris stood outside with the priests who were to follow him into the Cathedral. He rapped on the door with his crosier, the hooked staff. After his final strike, the monumental doors opened and there was the greatest reveal for the world to see, the reveal of light!

What I saw took my breath away. The grandeur was beyond anything I could have imagined. I visited the Cathedral years ago, and it was striking how the light streamed into the dark, medieval holy place through the rose window. Now, the Cathedral is blonde with the colors of the stained-glass rose window woven into the priests’ vestments designed by pop artist fashion designer, Jean Charles de Castlebajac. The combination of modern and medieval conveyed how the old and the new can work together to create beauty. This was France at its best.

As I watched the ceremony and the following day’s Mass, I was captivated by the coherence, the execution, the artistry and design. The consecration of the simple, bronze altar and the blessing of the ornate tabernacle were performed with great precision as the choir filled the nave and the organ billowed demanding attention.

Yes, this was France at its best, unlike the frenetic, dark display I witnessed during the opening ceremony of the Olympics. This event was so progressive that it made avant-garde resemble a dusty relic of the past.

The Olympics opening featured, paganism, and mockery. I was hoping to see all the remarkable contributions of the French in one concentrated space where I could consume and consider. The organizers touched on some of history, art, and design as the masked aerialist leaped through the Louvre, passed by a Louis Vuitton trunk, and spotted Marie Antoinette holding her head in the window. Where was a symphony of haute couture featuring Chanel, Dior, Givenchy, Saint Laurent, and Gaultier? What happened to the great writer, Marcel Proust? Why not mention Charlemagne and Jean of Arc? Why overlook the huge contributions of major discoveries by Marie Curie and Louis Pasteur? What about the wine districts of Beaujolais, Bordeaux, Sancerre, and Champagne? Perhaps the ones I mentioned were included, but I may have overlooked them amid the confusion. Didn’t the revered artists Monet, Matisse, Degas, Cezanne, Renoir, Duchamp, Rodin, Miro, Seurat, and Basquiat deserve recognition and yes, some of them did, but didn’t they deserve more time?

I would have accepted dancing croissants in lieu of those snippets of rainy, slippery tableaux along the Seine - like the one where Lady Gaga did a very cautious Can-Can dance for fear that she would fall into the river. Let me not forget the runway that looked like a Fellini film where a parade of freakish creatures trotted their way along a warped, mockery of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The organizer, Thomas Jolly, said it was not the Last Supper, instead it was Dionysus at the table who is the god of celebration of Greek mythology, the god of wine.

Jolly is quoted as saying, “we wanted to include everyone, as simple as that. In France, we have freedom of creation, artistic freedom. We are lucky to live in a free country. I didn’t have any specific messages that I wanted to deliver. In France, we are a republic, we have the right to love whom we want, we have the right not to be worshippers, we have a lot of rights in France, and this is what I wanted to convey.”

Sorry, Mr. Jolly, it didn’t work. You didn’t include everyone. This was your narcissistic worldview without the divine spark. Fortunately, I am free to reject it, and you are free to fail. Just as non-worshippers exist in the republic, so do the believers.

The world has always struggled with opposing forces and I have the freedom to choose the light or reject the darkness. I choose light.

When I contemplate the world through my spiritual eyes, I see that there is hope now that the holy place of Our Lady has been restored. We may go through dark times, but we will not be destroyed and there will be those who want to rebuild with God on their side. Mary is the new Eve who through her obedience to God, brought forth her son, the Savior, Jesus Christ, the true light of the world.

I hope the world leaders remember the echo of the rapping on the door and embrace the light.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

To see an absolute depiction of beauty, youtube has the replay of the Notre Dame opening ceremony and the Mass.