As many of you know I am an iconophile, a lover of icons. (Bliss when we discovered, through the nudge of some new friends, a wonderful collection of Greek and Russian icons in the Petit Palace – another of Paris’ amazing museums and one that seems to be primarily visited by locals.) One of the things I love about the Orthodox icon tradition is the tangible sense of the communion of saints. Walking into an orthodox church you see the saints – or their icons, which are intended to evoke their presence.
For most Protestants “the communion of saints” is a line in the creed. Indeed, growing up in a primarily Protestant environment saints were pretty suspect – they were the things Catholics had, and we didn’t. When I studied French culture in early high school I remember being impressed, and envious, that French children had a name day as well as a birthday, celebrated in conjunction with the saint corresponding to your given name. In the daily mass reading booklet that I’ve been using here there is still a “Bonne fête!” for those whose first names are listed each day. The correlation between saints' names and contemporary French first names has thinned however and the lists seem rather random!
Toussaint, All Saints Day, is big here in France, as it is in much of Europe. It’s a public holiday (France is definitely a serious rival to Australia as a “land of the long weekend”) and the florist shops are full of autumn flowering chrysanthemums destined for the graves of loved ones – our everyday saints. It seems such a helpful, healthy custom – to have a day, when we all, together, remember our dead. Permission to grieve, give thanks, remember, ponder, whatever is necessary this year . . . In the park next to Notre Dame I saw a woman turned toward the river weeping. A friend travelled to a cemetery with her step children to place flowers on the grave of their mother. The cemeteries are filled with the living and the dead, and with flowers.
Notre Dame was, of course, awash with special services. At Vespers the choir was filled with banners of the saints of France, most of whom really existed, flesh and blood like us in this perplexing and complex world. At the end of the service they were processed out – a strangely moving sight. The saints didn’t seem so distant really, homey even, embroidered simply on white satin cloth. In Australia we can now officially process with our one national saint, Mary MacKillop. Indicative, really, of our national differences. Here the pavements are thick with layer after layer of human history. In Australia our soils are scraped bare with age, subtly inhabited by our ancient indigenous people and then, yesterday, the rest of us arrived. For all the wonder of the cultural deposits of Europe, though, I am missing that sense of bare space, and especially its gift of silence.
On Toussaint at Notre Dame the great Emmanuel bell was rung. This only happens now on high feast days or to mark significant events – its vibrations are a threat to the fabric of the towers! Installed in the 17th century (how?) the Emmanuel bell weighs over 13 tons. The clapper itself weighs 500 kilos. Hearing this bell sound has been one of the most extraordinary experiences of our time here. The first time was on the Feast of the Assumption in August – and it was then a random encounter. This time we sought it out, checking the Toussaint timetable on the Notre Dame website for the “Sonnerie du grand Bourdon de Notre-Dame de Paris”.
Three times during the day, for fifteen minutes, the deep, resonant tolling of Emmanuel could be heard – joined by those of the bells of the north tower in a veritable symphony. We loitered as close as one’s ears would allow, John preferring the stereo effect from the Western portal, me turning up the bass at the corner of the southern tower.
Three times during the day, for fifteen minutes, the deep, resonant tolling of Emmanuel could be heard – joined by those of the bells of the north tower in a veritable symphony. We loitered as close as one’s ears would allow, John preferring the stereo effect from the Western portal, me turning up the bass at the corner of the southern tower.
The words “de profundis” must have been invented for this tone. I found myself searching for the sound's depths and heights. And wondering, on that crisp, autumn All Saints Day, is this the sound that reaches heaven? I could, suddenly, absolutely appreciate Karl Barth’s insistence that “one cannot speak of God simply by speaking of man in a loud voice." This was a very loud voice indeed. But in the end human, and if this is the best we can do, well, the scale of God is unimaginable. Which is why I love the silence, the particular silence that comes, uninvited, into being when the bell begins to slow, singing its final, gentle beats and comes finally to rest. You can hear then, just for a moment, the silence that touches the otherness that is God, Divine Mystery. Standing in front of Notre Dame, like Elijah on Mount Horeb, you find, as have all the saints, that God is not in the wind, or the fire, or the bells, but in the silence.
So, belatedly, Bonne Toussaint!
P.S. November 11th, another public holiday, has also come and gone, marking the 92nd anniversary of the signing of the armistice in 1918, the main day here for remembering all the war dead. The Emmanuel bell holds a special place in French consciousness and history. Its tolling announced on the night of 24 August 1944, that the liberation of Paris was underway. After all the time that has passed since two world wars were fought on this soil its impact is still close. A small village in the north had to be evacuated this week whilst some unspent munitions were exploded. The landscape there is scarred with the workings of war in a similar, though deadlier, way to the goldfields of Victoria. This Thursday, November 11th, the Emmanuel bell tolled at 11 am, along with all the church bells of France.
