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Notre Dame Re-Opens

To touch this holiness we have no right,
Nor did we earn the privilege to restore
Its grandeur. Bringing anguished hearts to soar,
We purge remembrance of one fiery night.
No lives were lost—these living aisles of light
May shock our visitors as we adore
God’s glory visible more than before,
Surrounded by a scintillating white.
Our Lady, Notre Dame, conservatory
Of faith, an otherworldly oratory
Stands open to the world. We leave no trace
Of passage proud and joyous toward Noel,
When as at first we hear Emmanuel
Bongg deeply to reveal His earthly face.

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“Noel” means “Christmas” and “good news.”

“Emmanuel” (meaning “God with us”) is a name for Jesus Christ, and the name of the sole oversized bell in Notre Dame’s south tower. It was cast and consecrated in 1683, and undamaged in the 2019 fire.

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Margaret Coats lives in California.  She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University.  She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable wrk in homeschooling for her own family and others.

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28 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    I was hoping to see a poem on the reopening of Notre Dame and your transcendent poem beautifully commemorates the occasion concluding with the bell representing the earthly sound of our savior.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Roy! As the enormous Emmanuel bell bears a name of Our Savior, its sound is certainly meant to call Him to mind after the mode of earthly music. In the poem I say the bell “reveals His earthly face” because the Church (in whatever way we look at her) is said to be Christ’s face–the thing that now visibly represents His infant face first seen on the first Christmas. Today that means especially the church of Notre-Dame de Paris newly restored. May the sight and sound bring viewers and hearers to recognize the Savior!

      Reply
  2. Laura

    It’s somewhat of a silver lining that the fiery tragedy and subsequent restoration has likely opened the eyes of the secular world to the beauty and traditions of our beautiful Faith.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks for your comment, Laura. The beauty of the Faith and of the cathedral certainly can appear more visible to the world as we reflect on what might have been lost. The magnificent restoration took faith, and as I’ve watched many persons speak of it for five years and more, their words testify beautifully of spiritual renewal.

      Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Russel! Many who saw the spire collapsing into the sanctuary had anguished hearts, and when the fire was finally out, could only be relieved that the towers were still standing. Today, though, hearts are soaring.

      Reply
  4. Brian A. Yapko

    A joyously spiritual sonnet, Margaret, celebrating a truly joyous event. Your poem makes it clear that it is God doing the work and that those who worked to restore her were instruments. It is well that you speak of “purging” rather than “forgetting” and as this distinction comes up I thought it meet to link to your original poem from 2019 to bring the story full circle:

    https://classicalpoets.org/2019/04/16/three-poems-on-the-fire-at-notre-dame-cathedral-paris/

    It is especially gratifying, as you infer in your poem, to see Notre Dame restored shortly before Christmas and, in some ways, more glorious for the ordeal. It is also gratifying to know that the Emmanuel bell survived the fire unscathed.

    I am hopeful that the restoration of Notre Dame foreshadows a revival of Christian faith, respect for Judeo-Christian ideals and regard for Western Culture in Europe and beyond.

    One little query: Is “Bongg” with two g’s intentional? If so, it’s a usage I’ve never seen.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      I too was surprised by that gg — but then I surmised that Margaret was trying to capture orthographically the resonating vibration that the bong of a huge bell sends forth.

      It’s a wonderful poem to read on this opening day of the restored cathedral.

      Reply
      • Margaret Coats

        Thanks for your appreciation, Joe! You’re right about my “bongg” trying to surpass the usual “bong” for any lower-pitched bell. I also found the double “g” appropriate in a poem where there are several word echoes and double meanings.

    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Brian, for your response on this day of great joy. It’s a new Church year starting the Christmas cycle within this very week. Every part of the cathedral (even where the fire did not reach) has been cleaned of ash and soot. Over and over again I hear or read the opinion that the new whiteness of the walls is “shocking.” They were peeled by latex to get out the tiniest dirt particles lodged in textured surfaces.
      Decoration too has been cleaned and restored, from wall paintings to floor marquetry. I can’t find full information yet, but it seems there has been an effort to make a clearer Judeo-Christian program in the numerous chapels, with Old Testament figures (especially prophets) who are regarded as saints honored along one side of the building, and saints of the Catholic centuries along the other. Christ Himself (life, death, and resurrection) holds the central place in the chapels radiating from sanctuary and apse.

      I share your hopes for a renewal of faith and culture. There is frequent mention of personal faith by many of those making public statements about the restoration. And there is already a thing called “the Notre Dame effect” among younger persons. Since restoration has all been done in traditional ways, there has been a huge surge of interest in artisanship among the young. No more leaving handicrafts of any kind to the aging or elderly. There are plenty of eager apprentices all over France and in some neighboring lands. It’s unexpected that so many children who grew up with touchscreen computers want to do skilled work with their hands!

      Thanks for giving the link to the Society’s first responses to the Notre Dame fire on the day after it happened. To fill in further, I’m adding the link to my post on restoration efforts a year and a half ago.

      https://classicalpoets.org/2023/04/14/restoration-of-notre-dame-a-poem-by-margaret-coats/

      Reply
  5. Warren Bonham

    I really enjoyed this one. It’s amazing that the 2019 fire didn’t do more damage (perhaps spiritual forces were at work?). It is a great metaphor for what I hope is a sign that the tide is turning in a much broader battle to avoid eternal fire damage.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Spiritual forces must have been at work, Warren. And I too hope for the tide turning in that broader battle to avoid eternal fire damage, which is the more important one. Still, no life lost during the Notre Dame fire is a miracle. President Macron was warned that if he ordered firefighters to work through the night to save the cathedral, it might cost 20 or 30 lives, with no guarantee the building would survive. He could not give the order, and the firefighters decided among themselves to make their utmost effort. I heard one describe how he climbed into one of the towers and felt the wooden stairs he had used deteriorate beneath him. Surely, a moment to place one’s confidence in Jesus and his Blessed Mother! Thank you for reading and commenting.

      Reply
  6. Maria

    Thank you, I really enjoyed reading this beautifully crafted poem.
    A joyous Noel to you dear Margaret and to all here on this site.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Maria, and joyeux Noel to you and yours. “Joyous” is in the poem to echo that French Christmas greeting. Highly skilled restorers may be considered the “we” speakers here. They have said they are “fiers et bienheureux” or “proud and very happy” to leave “no trace of our passage” in returning the cathedral to its original beauty. The expression of humility is a wonderful contradiction of the word “fiers” or “proud” that easily carries a “haughty” connotation in French.

      Reply
  7. Robert Nachtegall

    Margaret,
    A lovely sonnet of adoration and gratitude for the Work of God, both today and beyond.
    Our own diocese and many others marked the occasion by pealing cathedral bells at 2:00 while the Rite of Opening Doors took place in Paris.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Robert, thank you for appreciating my poem, and for noting the observance of the Notre Dame re-opening by other dioceses. This really is an event of global significance for many reasons. Since it was acknowledged by pealing of cathedral bells elsewhere, I’m glad to have been inspired to give the Emmanuel bell in Paris an important role in my poem.

      Reply
  8. Paul A. Freeman

    I’ve been following the cathedral’s restoration on the ‘France 24’ channel for years and watched the celebrations yesterday.

    Your poem’s the icing on the cake, Margaret.

    And if I may:

    The mighty cathedral’s now well,
    Restored from a smoldering shell.
    And up in the belfry,
    With many a selfie,
    The Hunchback tries out every bell.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Paul, thank you so much for this impish limerick letting us know the Hunchback is alive and well and celebrating with supreme joy. Naturally, Our Lady’s motherly care would not forget to preserve the fictive spirit just as she protected the firefighters.

      Reply
      • Paul A. Freeman

        On ‘France 24’ I learned that just as Dickens wrote ‘A Christmas Carol’ to reinvigorate interest in Christmas, Victor Hugo wrote ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’, to get people interested in preserving the cathedral’s medieval architecture, which was being replaced with modern architecture.

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        The problem was the architect Eugene Viollet-le-duc, who had a lot of half-assed ideas about what medieval churches should look like.

  9. Yael

    Thank you for this beautiful poem which commemorates the finish of restoration work and re-opening of this grandest of cathedrals. Even though I’ve had the privilege of visiting Notre Dame de Paris, I didn’t know that there was a bell named Emmanuel there. I am so happy that God can turn into a blessing the destruction which emanates from the enemy of all souls. The pipe organ in that cathedral is amazing!

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you for reading and replying, Yael. I’ve also made several visits, and learned still more about this beautiful sacred place during the last five years, watching remotely while work went on stage by stage. I hope to go again and meditate longer and more deeply as I move from chapel to chapel.

      Reply
  10. Cynthia Erlandson

    A wonderful celebratory poem. I absolutely love the reference to the bell with its name Emmanuel, and that you’ve rhymed it with Noel to emphasize the significant timing of this event.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Cynthia. The timing is truly significant, re-opening on Saturday, Our Lady’s day of the week, with the next day being one of the most important Marian feast days–and all working up toward seeing the fresh face of Jesus again at Christmas.

      Reply
  11. Margaret Coats

    This reply about architectural history is meant for Paul Freeman and Joseph Salemi, but placed here to have more room. Notre Dame the building, like the sacredness of the space, suffered grievously during the Revolution called French. Its deplorable condition first received attention when Napoleon decided to be crowned emperor there (rather than at Rheims, where French kings had been crowned). Napoleon spared no expense for the sumptuous ceremony in 1802, but to disguise the building’s brokenness he did no more than drape disfigured portions with cloth-of-gold.

    Paul, you’re right that Victor Hugo focused so much on the cathedral as to make it a character in his 1831 novel, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” This raised public interest considerably. Joseph is right that architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc did not rebuild a medieval cathedral in his 19th-century restoration. The abject condition of the building gave him scope to re-shape and re-decorate it. A BIG question in the just completed restoration process was whether to restore Viollet-le-Duc. The answer was “Yes, he’s a part of history.” Turned out that many especially wanted his spire (replacement for a medieval bell tower), which crashed dramatically during the fire, to rise again as a symbol of renewal. It’s there, slightly modified and now containing relics of two saints and the names of 2000+ restorers who did the recent work.

    Reply
  12. Tom Rimer

    Margaret, a lovely poem to commemorate a remarkable rebirth. Having visited Notre Dame with my family several times over the years, I am especially grateful that you mentioned the new fresh light that pours in from the newly cleaned walls of the sanctuary. We knew the interior as grey and black.

    I seem to have some confusion with the opening line, ” to touch this holiness we have no right.” Does “this holiness” refer to the physical building itself? I am not quite sure how to interpret this, since it was an act of love and faith to rebuild the structure. I am somehow missing the point here, my fault no doubt!

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Good question, Tom, and now that you’ve asked it, I’m surprised no one else wondered about these words. They come from Philippe Villeneuve, Chief Architect of Historical Monuments, the man in charge of the building before and during the restoration. And he always speaks French, even in reply to interview questions in English, so language may have something to do with his meaning. I take “we have no right to touch this holiness” to mean principally, “we must respect its sacredness in everything we touch while restoring.” But I see too the deeper idea that there is no right to restore history, even material history. The obligation is to preserve. A need, not a right, presents itself on an occasion such as the fire. Villeneuve goes on to say “we only restore and leave no trace of passage.” My poem quotes these words too, interpreting them as referring to a duty rather than a privilege–a duty to remain humbly focused on what has been inherited.

      There are a few traces of the contemporary in the restored Notre Dame. The most obvious is the minimalist baptismal font, new cast in bronze with no decoration. That’s the responsibility of the archbishop, who has charge of furnishings. One thing done to the structure (still the cause of much outcry and a lawsuit) is that President Macron took out stained glass windows in a few side chapels and replaced them with modernist glass. He has been accused of acting like a prince.

      I’m now inspired to visit again, if an opportunity comes. Like you, I remember the darkness of the walls. It would be great to see them shine as they did even before “the white mantle of churches” spread over Europe following the year 1000.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        It had to be an idiot like Macron, and a Novus Ordo archbishop, to order two unnecessary changes of that nature.

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