The Notre Dame in Paris met with a rather fiery end as its roof burnt down just four years ago. But it’s exact replica built over seven hundred years later lives on in the once French occupied territories of Quebec in the city of Montréal, though without the picturesque Seine running by its side. Instead perched on the Place de Armes this building is yet furnished with the famous rose windows and the gothic arches that it’s predecessor was famous for. Today a beautiful show in stunning light, sound and visuals is presented with the insides of the Notre Dame as the backdrop. When light is accompanied by sound the effect is multifold. As Jesus is born the world hears his heart beat, the seasons change, fire is replaced by water, the winds blow out the fall leaves and finally the heavens descend. The sight is one to behold. As the candles are lit and the ominous stage set, one is welcomed to experience the part of Christianity that seeks to elevate the soul. A tremendous feat in the 1100s, but one that was again repeated across the Atlantic in the 1800s and that is the beauty of faith, the faith in Notre Dame.
The Notre Dame was to house 8000 worshippers and be the most beautiful church in North America, it sure still is. And in a location covered in snow for half the year, the construction of the church was completed in a record 35 months! And interestingly the architect chosen was a Protestant who converted to Catholicism by the end of the church’s construction. The entire space is the gothic cathedral, exactly like the one that shot up in flames in Paris, but captures its essence extremely well. The beautiful cathedral is all goth in a time that is not goth at all. And though it’s bearings are from a dark time of the past, its present is very much alive and real, much like the beauty of today, wearing it’s past very very lightly. The interiors are guilded and remind one of the renaissance, while the light and sound show with winning lasers on the murals and the Christ orchestrated along with the music transport one into the heavens and back. The candles are lit, we still pay and pray or rather pay to pray, yet sitting in front of the enactments from the Bible are gorgeous never the less.
Vedasri Siddamsetty 