With the scaffolding removed from the newly installed spire of Notre Dame Cathedral and reconstruction works going full speed inside France’s most iconic church, the home of precious relics and tourist site visited by millions of people yearly will be ready to reopen on 8th December.
“We will be doing everything in a hurry over those last few months,” the cathedral’s rector-archpriest, Father Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, told OSV News on 10th April, in the wake of the last anniversary of the April 15, 2019 fire before the reopening.
“Today, I am not interested in commemorating five years since the fire. What I am really looking forward to is getting everything in place that will allow us to celebrate Masses after the reopening,” he said. “For the moment, the large scaffolding structure is still occupying the place of the ‘liturgical stage,’ on which the altar, the ‘cathedra’, the bishop’s seat, and the ambo will be placed. And this bronze ‘furniture’ is just coming out of the foundry,” he said. “I would like this reopening to be the occasion of a spiritual awakening for France,”
Father Ribadeau Dumas noted Notre-Dame “is a place of worship that welcomes 15 million people every year. As a priest, I seek above all to enable these people to encounter Christ.”
Picture: Notre Dame is scheduled to reopen on 8th December, to be followed by six months of celebrations, Masses, pilgrimages, prayers and exhibitions. (OSV News photo/Charlene Yves)