by Madison Carr
“Notre Dame Cathedral is Burning” – the blurb flickered across my social media and a quick Google search proved it to be true. There were billows of smoke as flames chewed away at the cathedral. As I looked at images of Notre Dame on fire, I couldn’t help but feel like the building was in pain. A crowd of Parisians had formed across the Seine River; they watched in shock and horror as the emblem of the city burned and felt the tickle of ash floating onto their hands and faces.
When I was in school, I took a French class and quickly fell in love with the language. I loved the complexity of the grammar and the unique ways that you can express yourself in a different language. One of my favorite was the simple phrase for “I miss you”: Tu me manques. If you translate it literally, it means “You are missing from me.” To me this feels more visceral, the idea that missing is not an action I do directly, but an action that is done to me, like you are a piece that is taken out of me.
I eventually majored in French and was lucky enough to spend an academic year in Paris. The city welcomed me as its guest and for that year I walked everywhere I could, attended college classes and ate as much bread as possible. I remember having lunch in a park overlooking Notre Dame, seeing its outline in the evening, and touring the interior with friends and family. Notre Dame has been staple in Paris for over 800 years. The cathedral is located on an island in the middle of the Seine River which ebbs and flows around it, creating the pattern of the city. Similarly, revolutions, grand ceremonies, plagues and world wars flowed by and the cathedral remained. And then one day, inexplicably, it lit up like a matchstick. Time is not armor.
The French national motto is “Liberty, Egality, Fraternity” and for many, this motto is at the heart of what it means to be French. I continued to follow the story as night fell on the other side of the globe. The crowd grew to watch the cathedral burn; together they prayed, cried and sang, all the while cheering on the hundreds of firefighters desperately trying to save Notre Dame. As an emblem of French culture was disintegrating, the French concept of fraternity was never more apparent. Fraternity brings people together, compelling them to mourn with one another, encourage one another, and eventually help each other rebuild.
Though there has been major damage to the cathedral, many of the precious artifacts and artwork have miraculously survived. Still, the burning of Notre Dame is a painful reminder of how fragile we are.This cathedral is loved the world over and while there are considerable pieces of the cathedral that are missing from us, pieces that manquent us, we can mourn it, reflect on it, and help rebuild it.
Author Bio: Madison Carr holds a Bachelors of Arts in French from the University of Texas. She writes on topics related to international relations, faith, and productivity. A Texas native, Madison currently resides in Chicago, Illinois and after 3 years is still adapting to the cold.
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