Monday, September 15, 2025
Children's Rosary led the Rosary at the Eucharistic Procession in Dublin, Ireland
Sunday, September 14, 2025
A Perfect Time to Start this 40-day Retreat on Suffering
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Friday, September 12, 2025
Visit to Koekelberg Basilica in Belgium
Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. Asher has a love of history so his dispatches are often full of historical details.
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"On September 3, I went to Brussels to visit Guido Ossemann, someone who has been a longtime friend of the Children's Rosary and who helped to translate the Children's Rosary book into French and German. He had proposed the visit and offered to drive down to Brussels from Eupen to visit me. He was so kind so as to give a whole day to take me around and welcome me to Belgium. I took the train from Paris North station and arrived in the Belgian capital within an hour and a half.
A few things stood out to me about the city. First of all, the weather was a bit more severe than in Paris, with colder and windier conditions than I had been privy to in the French capital. Secondly, the bilingual nature of the city was quite evident, with some billboards and ads in French and some in Flemish. Signs and restaurant names were in both languages. One humorous observation is that Belgian car garages are not to be taken lightly. Guido and I got stuck in more than one before the day finished, and it is quite easy to end up driving in circles for fifteen to twenty minutes with no obvious way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth. We ran across some other motorists just leaving their vehicle, but when we stopped to ask the for the exit, they said they also had no idea how they had gotten in or how to get out. There were signs in Flemish and French marked "Sortie" and "Uitgang," but when we followed those, we finished by going in circles. Then Guido noticed some signs in English marked "Exit," and after following those for a while, they eventually led out. I always rather thought the design of a parking garage was rather simple, but not so in Belgium.
Once I arrived and after we had had some lunch, we walked through the Grand-Place, a beautiful square in the center of Brussels that is one of the most iconic features of the city. It was built over a period of six centuries, from the eleventh to the seventeenth. It was severely damaged during the Ninety Years War, and it had to rebuilt after. It includes mostly Baroque architecture, and I was particularly impressed by the large amount of gold there. It has been a hub for the market in Brussels for a long time, and it is clearly the center of the city.
As the guide explained to us in the church, the king wanted to build a pantheon to honor the great heroes of Belgian history, especially since it was the fiftieth anniversary of their independence. There was not much enthusiasm for this, though, so instead, after visiting the Basilique du Sacre Coeur at Montmartre in Paris, the king decided he would build his own basilica dedicated to the Sacred Heart. The plans originally drawn up were for a neo-Gothic basilica to be built.
The guide went on to say that in the years before the first world war construction of the basilica went on but rather slowly, so much so that by the beginning of the war, only the foundation had been finished. Cardinal Mercier, the archbishop of Mechelen and a great Thomist scholar, resolved publicly during the war to finish the Cathedral once the fighting stopped.
Nevertheless, times had changed and instead of the neo-Gothic basilica, the plans evolved to include a more modern Art Deco plan. The church was consecrated in the mid-1930s, while it was still being built, and work continued right until the end, only interrupted by the Second World War. 
The proportions of the building really are quite extraordinary, and you can ascend to an overlooking balcony to see just how majestic it is. There are at least four main altars, one behind the other leading to the back of the church. 
There is also perpetual adoration in a chapel off to the side of the church.
After spending some time at the church, Guido and I met with a very nice lady named Chantal Nzimbala, who is from the Congo. She is an adorer at the basilica and was interested in trying to spread the Children's Rosary at the basilica with the children that attend. We are grateful to her for her time and interest.
After this, we nearly got washed away in a furious rainstorm that came upon us all of a sudden. The rain was coming down so hard it was bouncing off the pavement, and I only had time to dash under the tiniest of outcroppings from the church. It was enough to protect my backpack but not my shoes, which ended up getting completely soaked. Ah well, it was a free shower, I suppose.
Guido took me to dinner afterwards, and then I caught a late train back to Paris for the night, I was so happy I had been able to meet Guido, and I found the visit to Brussels very interesting and refreshing."
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Visit to Chartres Cathedral
Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. Asher has a love of history so his dispatches are often full of historical details.
"On August 23, I took the afternoon after my classes ended to visit the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres. This is a very important church about an hour outside of Paris in the town of Chartres. It is another medieval Gothic construction, somewhere between classic and high Gothic architecture. Saint Denis, which I spoke of in another post, is early Gothic architecture, while the Chartres Cathedral comes a bit later, built between 1194 and 1220. This was when Philip II sat on the throne of France.
Philip II is notable for breaking the Angevin Empire in the Battle of Bouvines. It was a dramatic success for the French, and he succeeded in pushing the Holy Roman Empire, the English, and the Flemish out of French lands. As a result, King John of England suffered from a weakened political standing, leading to his being forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, a very important development for the idea of limited monarchy in Britain.
However, to return to the Chartres Cathedral, the story of the church begins in the early eleventh century. At this point, a large fire destroyed most of the cathedral at that time standing in Chartres. St. Fulbert of Chartres (who is a well-known figure in his own right, having helped to create the feast day on September 8 honoring the Virgin Mary) began an effort to rebuild the cathedral. He received much help, including donations from nobility and royalty. This church was Romanesque and built over a long period of time, but it too was mostly destroyed by a fire in 1194. Thus, the Cathedral we see now dates from then, when the reconstruction started.
It was important to mention St. Fulbert because it was him that established the School of Chartres, a very important Scholastic school of theology that helped to spark the twelfth century renaissance, a movement that saw the rise of Gothic architecture, renewed interest in translation of ancient Greek texts, and increased trade with the Middle East. Geometry, natural science, and mathematics saw fresh enthusiasm.
In 1260, King Louis IX (or Saint Louis) was present for the consecration of the cathedral. Further, it was in Chartres Cathedral that Henry IV was crowned king of France in 1594. Typically, Reims Cathedral was used for that purpose, but Reims Cathedral was occupied by the Catholic league that I mentioned in an earlier post. Recall that Henry was at that time Protestant and that there was a league of nobles (and nations) allied against him for that reason.
Modern history has seen Chartres Cathedral dodge several serious dangers, often due to the heroism of those who risked much to save it.
During the French revolution, the Cathedral managed to escape without much damage. A statue on the north porch was attacked by a crowd, but the townspeople of Chartres turned out in greater numbers to defend their cathedral, and the mob was turned back. After, the revolutionary government moved ahead with a plan to destroy it. They consulted an architect on where to place the explosives to blow up the building. He managed to rescue the church after advising the government that due to the immensity of the structure, the damage caused by such a tactic would be so great, the rubble so copious, it would take years to clean the streets. The government backed off and left the cathedral untouched for the rest of the revolution until Napoleon restored Catholic worship there.
In 1836, the Cathedral suffered a serious fire, much like Notre Dame de Paris did in 2019. The roof was destroyed, but the main structure and the stained-glass windows were unharmed. 
During the Second World War, a division of American troops found themselves trapped behind German lines after the D-day invasion of Normandy. They were in Chartres and suffering a bloody defeat in their attempt to liberate Chartres. An American colonel in command, a West Point-educated Texan by the name of Welborn Griffith, searched the cathedral for German snipers on the night of August 15, 1944. The Germans were in the habit of placing snipers in church steeples when the Allied armies would attack, so this was a natural place to search. They found no snipers.
The next morning, the Americans recommenced their attack, and German snipers went up into the Church steeples and began firing on American forces. The American troops began firing back. As they inched closer to the church, the Germans fled their sniper posts. The Americans, however, unaware of this, prepared to target the church steeples with howitzers; these certainly would have caused severe damage not just to the steeple but to the whole church when the steeple collapsed.
It was at this moment that Colonel Griffith arrived. Seeing the impending assault on the church and having seen no snipers the night before, he ran up and ordered the troops to hold their fire. The soldiers protested, and there was a lively argument. Finally, Colonel Griffith agreed to go into the church again and search the building. This he did, and, finding no snipers, he waved his arms from the steeple, shouted "No snipers!", and rang the church bells. At this, the Americans held their fire, and Chartres Cathedral was saved. Later that day, Colonel Griffith was killed in action in Lèves, a town not far away. The townspeople dedicated a plaque to him, and he was posthumously given the Purple Heart and the Silver Star. The French government admitted him posthumously into the Legion of Honor, the highest recognition they give, military or civil.
Chartres Cathedral is home to the Sancta Camisa, the tunic of Mary which has made Chartres an important pilgrimage site since the Middle Ages. I spent a long time in front of this tunic, praying and just sitting in awe of the relic.
After visiting the cathedral, I decided to walk down to St. Pierre Church, which I had heard from one of my classmates was quite beautiful as well.
St. Pierre (shown directly above) was built between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries in Gothic style. It was the church of the Abbey of Saint-Père-en-Vallée. During the French Revolution, the abbey was closed and the church used for the production of potassium nitrate. In 1803, the church was reopened as a parish church. It housed for a long time a plaque with images of the twelve apostles from the time of Francis I, but these are now in Chartres's museum of art.
I said a rosary in one of the side chapels and really came to quite like this church. The first thing that struck me about it was the silence one perceived upon entering. It was palpable, like a heavy blanket that envelops you and smooths over any rough spots underneath. There was, quite literally, no one here for much of the time I was inside. This was in stark contrast to the Chartres Cathedral or other famous churches like Notre Dame de Paris, where there is always a low buzz of people talking and the murmur of tour guides.
Not so at St. Pierre. The general appearance was quite charming; there was no recent restoration, no shining interior; on the contrary, the place had the feel of a long-neglected mansion, with plants growing up on the majestic flying buttresses and moisture seeping into the rib vaulted roof. I must say, I highly recommend visiting St. Pierre's if one goes to Chartres because it reminded me of what a monastery must have felt like in the Middle Ages; I could almost feel the years of prayer emanating from the stone walls from the monks who must have prayed, meditated, lived, and died in that church. I almost think I would not have been entirely surprised had I seen a medieval Benedictine monk turn the corner, praying his breviary, the Latin invocations drifting down the nave...
Next, I stopped at St. Aignan. This is another parish church of Chartres whose story dates back to the ninth century, but most of the current structure dates to the sixteenth century, and it was built in Renaissance style. It served as a hospital during the revolution. It has a simpler interior with very nice stained-glass windows. The chapel behind the High Altar has been closed to the public due to the danger posed by falling rock; the church has seen extensive work to stabilize the structure, and more work is on the way for the chapel. 
For a few years now, the church has been administered by the Fraternity of St. Peter, a traditional Catholic order dedicated to celebrating the Latin Mass. I spoke with the priest who was just stationed there. He seemed very interested in the Children's Rosary, and I gave him a Children's Rosary book.
I attended the evening Latin Mass there, and afterwards I had dinner near the Cathedral. 
I walked down to the train station to catch my train back to Paris. All in all, it was a lovely afternoon in Chartres. 
To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE
Tuesday, September 9, 2025
Visit to the Louvre
Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. Asher has a love of history so his dispatches are often full of historical details.
"On August 20, I visited the Louvre Museum for the first time. This is, as many know, one of the most anticipated and one of the most feared places in all of Paris. For many tourists coming to Paris for the first time (or the second or the third time), visiting the Louvre is a necessity, and yet there is something rather intimidating about setting foot inside the great structure. Whether it's the copious crowds, thick with over 20,000 visitors a day, or the idea of examining the nearly 35,000 pieces of art on display, or the idea of traversing the nearly 800,000 square feet that comprise the grounds, there is a feeling of dread that accompanies the average visitor as he approaches the imposing walls and transparent pyramid, like the gladiator approaching the Colosseum or the student approaching the test hall or the triathlon competitor approaching the start line. The Louvre is not for the faint of heart (or the short of breath), and it certainly is not a leisurely stroll through the Jardins de Luxembourg. Most will emerge on the other end dazed, exhausted, aching, and overwhelmed by the sheer quantity and majesty of what they have had the privilege to behold, nothing less than many of the most beautiful and most valuable treasures of Western art and culture.
In many ways, this kind of ordeal, this overwhelming experience is exactly what the museum was designed to provide. It was originally a fortress built by King Philip II in 1191 to defend Paris against English attack while he went off to fight in the Crusades. In the 1300s, Charles V (the French king, not Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, of course) had it renovated to make it into a palace for the king; it was not needed as a fortification anymore as the city had expanded and the walls were moved farther out. In the mid sixteenth century, King Francis I initiated some of the most important changes to the Louvre, redoing much of it in French Renaissance style. The building continued to be a residence for the monarch until King Louis XIV decided in 1682 to move to Versailles, leaving Louvre to house works of art. It was under Louis XV that the royal art gallery was opened for public viewing, and it was during the French Revolution that the museum became truly a public museum. Both during the Revolution and the Napoleonic era, French armies were able to strike deep into foreign territory, snagging valuable pieces of art such as the Apollo Belvedere from the Vatican. This piece of art has since returned to the Vatican. Nevertheless, not all the art captured during the Napoleonic era was given back; Paolo Veronese's Venetian Wedding at Cana was kept after Louis XVIII negotiated for it with the Austrian government. This is an extraordinary work, rich with detail and very ornate that depicts the wedding at Cana as if it were a typical Venetian wedding. Despite Louis XVIII's efforts with the Austrians, relatively few people pay much attention to this painting because it happens to share a room with the Mona Lisa. It was during the Napoleonic era that work continued on the museum and the idea of making it a formidable experience was pursued; it was meant to mount the glory of France, the loot of the Imperial army, the national heritage, and a fittingly imposing building was in order. Thus, the aura I mentioned at the beginning of the post.
I had heard that the lines were very long and that the museum was consistently overcrowded and understaffed, dealing with crowds far beyond what it was designed to handle and fielding a staff that was increasingly burned out and exhausted dealing with the hordes of foreign tourists that flock to the Louvre year after year in ever-increasing numbers. So it didn't help that I got there late or that I found myself walking with everyone else right towards the biggest and most packed entrance, which is of course the big glass pyramid. Once I went through security and had my ticket validated, I decided to start with the most ancient pieces of art and work my way up to the more modern paintings.
I am not going to attempt to profile all of the art in the Louvre of course or give an overview of each floor or each wing or anything like that. One can find much more authoritative and better written texts online that explain all of that in detail. I am certainly not qualified to know anything meaningful about half of what I saw, so I will content myself with highlighting some of the pieces that stood out to me in an attempt to capture some of the amazing artwork on display.
The Louvre boasts an impressive collection of Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities, including a piece that dates from 7,000 BC. This happens to be the statue of Ain Gazal discovered in Jordan in 1985. It is from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period in the Fertile Crescent. It is a figure of a man, and for me it is amazing to look at this figure, obviously a human and to know that it was created so many thousands of years ago. I have included a picture of this figure.
To move along to a little more recently, in addition to sculptures and figures, the Louvre has many tablets with ancient Egyptian inscriptions, such as the ones I have photographed from the Middle Empire (which lasted from roughly 2033 to 1786 BC). If one takes a few moments just to examine the intricacies of the inscriptions, it is really quite astonishing.
After this, I have included an image of the Seated Scribe, a very well known piece of Egyptian art. It dates from 2620 to 2500 BC. The detail and coloring of the scribe is remarkable, and it makes it one of the most recognizable ancient Egyptian artifacts in the world.
Another breathtaking stop in the Louvre is that of the room that houses the crown jewels of the French monarchy. These are the ancient crowns and jewelry of the French monarchs and emperors. The room is itself a sight to behold, and in the center the great artifacts are held in glass cases around which people gather to press their noses against the glass, not much unlike little children first beholding a fish tank at the dentist's office.
After this, I went to visit what might be considered the queen of the Louvre. Yes, every social institution has its hierarchy, and a museum of French art is certainly no exception to such a principle. Considering just how much art there is at the museum, I suppose it is no surprise that a few pieces should emerge as a kind of aristocracy among the milieu. Among this number, one could probably count the crown jewels, Delacroix's Liberte Guidant le Peuple, The Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, among others. However, even these are not at the top of the social ladder of the Louvre, just as the aristocracy was not at the top of the societal ladder in its time. The veritable monarch of the collection is, of course, the Mona Lisa. Before one even gets to the gallery with the famous painting, one is given a map of the museum with the Mona Lisa's location prominently labeled, and one sees at least five or six signs scattered about the halls pointing visitors in the direction of the Mona Lisa's gallery. The French crown jewels, great triumphs of Greek humanist sculpture, intriguing texts from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, masterpieces of Rembrandt and Caravaggio, these must all play second fiddle to the rather small painting of Leonardo da Vinci's.
Well, in any case, I saw the Mona Lisa, and I will include a picture of the piece replete with the adoring fans (the painting receives about 20,000 visitors a day).
After this, I spent quite a bit of time with the late Renaissance and early Modern paintings of the likes of Caravaggio and Carracci.
I include a picture of two Caravaggio's (The Death of the Virgin and Portrait of Alof of Wignancourt) next to a painting by Giovanni Serodine (Christ among the Doctors).
Another painting I took a liking to was Alessandro Tiarini's The Repentance of St. Joseph. It depicts St. Joseph begging for the Virgin Mary's pardon after doubting her word that she was with child by the Holy Spirit. It was the first time that I had seen an artist paint this particular scene, and I found St. Joseph's expression to be very touching. It is worth noting that though it is most commonly assumed today that Joseph sought to divorce Mary because of suspicion of infidelity, that was at one point the subject of vigorous debate among the Church Fathers. To be sure, many, like St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and St. John Chrysostom take the position of suspicion of infidelity. However, St. Jerome, for instance, wrote that St. Joseph sought to distance himself from the Virgin Mary out of incomprehension of what had happened. Others, like Origen, thought he wished to divorce her out of a feeling of reverence for her holiness and the great responsibility of raising the Messiah.
To continue, Bernardino Gatti's The Virgin Crying over the Dead Christ was another painting I quite liked as the scene was so strikingly sad and the illustration of Mary's anguish so touching.
After the gallery with the Italian paintings, I nearly walked right by some of the greatest French masterpieces of the whole museum in my haste to cover more ground. Of these almost forgotten canvasses, I first mention Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eyleau by Antoine-Jean Gros. This of course refers to Napoleon's campaign into Russia, a catastrophic disaster for his military endeavors, as most invasions of Russia are. This is physically quite a large painting, and I find that the depictions of the soldiers frozen to death are quite striking; I almost get a little chilled just looking at them. This presents Napoleon in a very human light, as the kind, caring emperor who concerns himself with the welfare of his freezing troops. It contrasts nicely with David's also giant depiction, The Coronation of Napoleon which I also include. It is very majestic, showing Napoleon in all his glory at his moment of triumph, quite unlike the Russian calamity.
Next, I present the Oath of the Horatii by David. If you grew up with a classical education like me, you likely recognize that painting immediately. It depicts a scene from early Roman history where three brothers who are champions of the Roman army (the Horatii) vow to defend Rome against the three champions of the Alba Longan army (incidentally also three brothers, this time named the Curiatii). The Curiatii kill two of the Horatii before the last remaining one manages against all odds to kill the three Alba Longa soldiers and win the day for Rome. If the story ended there, it would likely be quite a nice little tale, perhaps even worthy of a Disney film. However, as you might notice, there are some women in the right-hand corner of the image. Among them, there is a lady who is in tears; this is Camilla, the sister of the Horatii who happens to be in love with one of the Curiatii; she cries because the impending fight will be a loss for her whichever way it goes. Because of such disloyalty, she is killed by the surviving brother, Publius.
Moving briskly along, we come to another rather gruesome painting of David's, namely The Death of Marat. Now, this is a painting that most people are familiar with, and it needs little explanation. One can see quite clearly that this is Jean-Paul Marat, the French revolutionary, stabbed in a bathtub. Marat was a prominent voice among the Jacobins, the progressive group in French politics in the early 1790s who supported the French revolution and caused the death of the king and thousands of his supporters. After the massacre of over a thousand mostly royalist prisoners in September 1792 that occurred at Marat's instigation, he went into hiding in the sewers.
Once the political winds blew back the other way and the Jacobins were back in the public's good graces, Marat was elected to the Legislative Assembly. He urged the killing of not just the royalists but also the Girondins a faction of moderate revolutionaries who believed in the aristocracy but also in more popular representation. Horrified by such a proposition and the prospect of even deeper and more devastating civil war, a woman named Charlotte Corday killed Marat in his bathtub (where he had become accustomed to spend large amounts of time to soothe a nasty skin infection he had picked up in the sewers) by plunging a knife into his chest. His friend, Jacques-Louis David, painted his famous painting afterward.
The other area in which I spent considerable time was in that of the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age and the Northern Renaissance. I find that the Dutch painters have a real talent for detail, especially in nature, and I quite enjoyed perusing the calm, deliberate pieces on the second floor from that time period.
For instance, Jan van Huysum's A Vase with Putti is remarkable for its attention to detail and the delicate beauty of the flowers it depicts. 
Additionally, I was fascinated by the Portrait of a Woman with a Headscarf by Balthasar Denner. The detail of the woman's face is so fine, I think it almost looks like a picture if you look closely enough.
I conclude with two last pictures, one of which is of one of the large galleries of sculptures and the other of which is from the apartments of Napoleon III, several very opulent rooms in which the real furniture of the mid-nineteenth century emperor is shown.
Well, voilà, as the French say. Those are my ruminations about the Louvre, truly a captivating place and worth every second I spent there. It is one of the great treasures Paris has to offer the world, in my opinion."
Monday, September 8, 2025
Sunday, September 7, 2025
Saturday, September 6, 2025
Visit to Notre Dame de Paris
Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. Asher has a love of history so his dispatches are often full of historical details.
Notre Dame de Paris, as almost everyone knows, is probably the most important and emblematic church in France, and it is probably one of the most well-known churches in the world. For many Frenchmen (not just the Catholics), Notre Dame is not just a Church but an institution, forming an essential part of the national patrimony. No episode of French history, no invasion, no revolution, no development passes without somehow involving Notre Dame. It is as important as the Capitol building is to the Americans, as Buckingham Palace is to the British, as the Kremlin is to the Russians, and yet it is more than all of those, a veritable emblem of France itself.
Notre Dame cathedral is the seat of the archdiocese of Paris, and it is located on an island in the middle of the Seine river, called the Ile de la Cite. It is built in the Gothic style of architecture, having been begun in the late twelfth century and finished in the late thirteenth century.
Construction started under the reign of Louis VII. I briefly mentioned him during our discussions of the French monarchy yesterday. He was the husband of Eleanor of Aquitane, whose name might ring a few more bells in modern heads than her husband's. Theirs is a well-known story, with Eleanor becoming displeased at Louis's participation in the Second Crusade; their marriage was annulled, and she then married Henry, king of England, thereby transmitting Aquitane to him. Everyone knows the story of the three sons of Henry who rebelled against their father. Meanwhile, it was Louis who helped Abbot Suger in his work on Saint Denis that I spoke of in the last post.
The Third Crusade, which succeeded in capturing Acre and Jaffa but not Jerusalem, was convoked by the Patriarch of Jerusalem in Notre Dame in 1185.
It was during the reign of Louis IX, a saint in his own right and a very holy man, that the relics of the Crown of Thorns and the relics from the Passion and the True Cross were purchased at great expense from the Byzantines and temporarily housed in the Cathedral pending the completion of Notre Dame.
Moving along to the period of history known to all familiar with Shakespeare, we come to the Hundred Years War. As recounted in Henry V, the English defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt, thus rendering the kingdom of France to the English king, Henry V. His son, Henry VI, was crowned king of France in Notre Dame when just a boy. Of course, it would be Joan of Arc who would be instrumental in pushing the English out of France and removing Henry VI as king of France.
Later, to advance to the French revolution, the revolutionaries rendered Notre Dame into a "Temple of Reason," with the "Cult of the Reason." This cult, rather paradoxical in essence, was a kind of Enlightenment atheism. It was disorganized and worshipped variously man, reason, or nothing at all. The inherent atheism of it disgusted Maximilien Robespierre, who proposed instead a "Cult of the Supreme Being," a sort of civic religion that sought to move beyond simple deism to a worship system that focused on the state and civil responsibilities. Both of these cults were instituted at Notre Dame, with statues of the Virgin Mary replaced with statues of "Lady Reason." Additionally, the statues of the ancient Israelite kings I mentioned in my post about the Cluny museum were destroyed.
This debauched abuse of the beloved church was put to a halt by Napoleon in 1801. He did not give the cathedral back to the Catholic Church but merely allowed the Catholic cult to be practiced there, a situation that continues to this day. Like most Catholic churches in France, it is owned by the government and merely given to the Church to use.
On December 2, 1804, the coronation of Napoleon was held in Notre Dame Cathedral. This was a very important moment for the Napoleonic empire. Napoleon sought to achieve a kind of legitimacy with his new nobility and imperial status. He had a coronation ceremony that was distinct from the coronations of the French kings of the ancien regime, which were held at Reims Cathedral and presided over by the archbishop of Reims. At Napoleon's coronation ceremony, it was Pope Pius VII who was present.
The Pope was made to agree to various changes in the typical rite of coronation made by Napoleon to render it unique and to reduce the amount of time he spent kneeling. Perhaps most notably, the Pope did not crown Napoleon; Napoleon himself placed the crown on his head, a stunning (and if one is being honest, humiliating) reversal of the previous tradition. A particularly nice depiction of this event can be found in Jacques-Louis David's The Coronation of Napoleon.
A few decades later, Notre Dame was falling into severe disrepair when a young Romantic writer named Victor Hugo became indignant at the slow decline of this great church. He published The Hunchback of Notre Dame to bring attention to it, and the book saw instant success. As a result, Louis Philippe assigned architects to begin a large restoration project.
A few decades after that, France suffered a disastrous defeat in the Franco-Prussian War which greatly shook the foundations of the country's confidence and led to the Paris Commune of 1871, a violent uprising in Paris that saw a small group of liberal radicals attempt to erect a new government. As their short-lived revolt was about to be snuffed out by the republic, they prepared to burn Notre Dame to the ground but stopped short of doing so because of the possibility of the fire destroying a hospital next door.
During the Second World War, a Mass of thanksgiving was celebrated to mark the Allied liberation of Paris, with Charles de Gaulle present. His requiem Mass was also celebrated there.
Well, voila, as the French would say. There is a far from comprehensive overview of the story of Notre Dame de Paris. One can see, then, why so many were so horrified when the news broke, on April 15, 2019, that a devastating fire was ripping through the hallowed edifice. The church sustained serious damage, but thankfully the most precious relics were evacuated, and the structure managed to stave off some of the worst eventualities. For example, the stone ceiling was strong enough to prevent the burning roof from crashing through into the nave and severely destroying the interior. Additionally, the firefighters focused on saving the two front towers and not letting them become enveloped by the flames. This was important because the legendary bells of Notre Dame, thirteen in number and considerable in weight, were housed inside, and if the wooden structure of the towers had been compromised, as it very nearly was, then they would likely have collapsed under the weight of the bells and brought down the whole building in a flaming heap.
After the fire, the restoration effort lasted five years and cost quite a considerable amount of money. There was a generous share of controversy, such as over the idea of installing contemporary stained glass windows and over the modern-style altar.
But I think in the end, most Catholics, Frenchmen, and Francophiles are content just to have the church open again, to be able to assist at Mass within the hallowed walls, to hear the chant of vespers again, and to worship God as generations of their countrymen have in the same space.
One thing I quite liked about the church was that, despite the high volume of tourists who come there, the staff and volunteers work hard to ensure that during the liturgical ceremonies, all phones are put away, no pictures are taken, and silence is observed. This, I find, is easier said than done in a space like this, but I very much appreciate the continual effort to maintain an atmosphere of prayer and reverence.
After the end of Mass, I took a few more pictures and then was ushered out before the Cathedral closed for the night. I am very grateful to have been able to visit this legendary and blessed church."
To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE
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