History, Faith, and Culture on Fire

 Isn't it incredible that a cathedral on fire can bring millions together in sorrow, in a country famous for its secular stance?

. Photograph: François Guillot/AFP/Getty Images

Aleteia has an article on the effect the burning of Notre Dame has on the French people, and Catholics, and the world.  I have never been to Notre Dame Cathedral and I felt a plethora of emotions watching the news clips of the fire.  I could feel my voice cry as we discussed what we saw:

People in the streets of Paris kneeling and singing Ave Maria. 
Firemen making a chain of hands to pass precious art, relics, vessels, sacred objects out to safety.
I could hear familiar Catholic hymns being sung in the background by the people.

The president of France, tweeted:  

Emmanuel Macron

✔@EmmanuelMacron

Notre-Dame de Paris en proie aux flammes. Émotion de toute une nation. Pensée pour tous les catholiques et pour tous les Français. Comme tous nos compatriotes, je suis triste ce soir de voir brûler cette part de nous.

expressing heartfelt sorrow.  Even this worldly man understood the history and cultural significance of Notre Dame de Paris, if not what it meant to Catholic faithful worldwide.

But fear not!  The path to Easter has a cross.  And I've read the last chapter of the book of life.  God wins.

Understanding with Love

Image: Vasily Ivanovich Surikov, Boyarina Morozova
 The image above represents the arrest of Morozova, an influential member of the Russian Orthodox sect, the Old Believers, who broke off from mainline Orthodoxy in the seventeenth century over certain small points of popular and liturgical piety, most notably making the sign of the cross with two fingers rather than three. The still-extant Old Believer schism points to the need to understand cultural incarnations of faith, in all their power and complexity.

May God preserve us from counting the number of angels on a pin.  I mean making mountains out of molehills, losing sight of what's important, due to the peripheral exuberance.  Lord have mercy.

The above image captivated my attention.  I "googled" it and read about the dispute that caused split between the Old Believers and the accepted Russian Orthodox Church.

What a shame that Christians can't practice what Christ taught them.  I guess they could if they could agree on what Christ taught.  The devil is alive and well, isn't he?  

St. Michael the Archangel help us.