My Visit at the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal.
The Notre-Dame Basilica is in the historic district of Montreal Quebec, better know as Vieux Montreal. Built in Gothic Style, we can see that the church is highly decorated. It was dedicated in 1829 to the worship of Mary, mother of Jesus Christ. This church was also the first Cathedral of the diocese of Montreal from 1821 to 1822 before this dedication and the reconstruction of the previously small sized building. This predominantly gothic building that is used today for both worship and tourist visits with the presence of a gift shop at the back of the temple. In this essay, we will be following my visit to space during and after Sunday mass while engaging with the visual and sacral dimensions of the space.
The First thing that you see as someone raised in a Christian Catholic background is the large clam-shaped stone where the holy water is. It is only after I performed the entrance ritual of touching my bowed forehead with the holy water that I lifted my head to see an extravagantly decorated space. The body and nave of the church are flooded with both artificial and natural light and surprisingly, it is not cold.
The front of the church, shown just above, has an altar that is made of varnished wood and lined with gold. Behind the altar, there are throne-like seats for the priests and wooden chairs for the choir children. The first row of characters is placed above the ground and more importantly above the congregation on the walls behind the altar. This first level has at the center of it, the scene of Christ’s crucifixion with St John and the Virgin Mary on either side of him and Mary Magdalene weeping at his feet. On the outer sides of this multi sculpture piece, Jesus’ most loyal apostles and writers of the gospel (from left to right) Mark, John, Peter, Paul, Matthew, and Luke are shown.
On the left side, under a separate arch, we can see the bread and wine offering of Melchisedech. On the right side, there is the scene of Abraham sacrifice of his son Isaac. At upper left, Moses (his brows adorned with two rays of light) is seen establishing the commandments concerning ritual animal sacrifice at the altar. He places an urn full of manna inside the Ark of the Covenant. At upper right, Aaron, the high priest, sacrifices a lamb according to tradition. This space and the rest of the church are blue, red, purple, gold and emerald. These are colors that, to this day, considered to be royal or noble colors. It seems that because of their status they have been used here to visually represent a sacrality of the space.
After a good five to ten minutes of standing around and staring in awe, I went to sit down as service began but I couldn’t stop looking around and trying to take in the details of the space. The next thing that I noticed, was that along with the usual paintings of the stations of the cross were portrayed, in stained glass, the history of Montreal at the time of it still being Ville-Marie. These were completed in 1929 by Quebecois artist Jean-Baptiste Lagacé for the priest Olivier Maurault during the 100th anniversary of the basilica. These images convey scenes from the construction of the church to the period that they were created in.
During the service, both the priest and the congregation engage with the visual representation of sacrality and religion. Because we are inside of the temple everything that happens in here seems to be sacred. The message that is being taught is to show “God’s light” which is described as a light that is felt rather than seen. I think that faith is often explained in religious movements as some sort of invisible light. This made me start to question why this church was so highly decorated if we don’t even need to see this light to feel its presence. My question was answered from a Christian point of view, shortly after it was asked. We had to take care of and “better” our surroundings for them to reflect this light.
The time of communion is yet another moment where both the congregation and the priests visually/sensually engage with their environment. Before the whole attendance stands to receive the body of Christ, the priest performs the ritual of burning incense and waving its smoke around the altar and cross with Jesus on it. This reminded of our discussion in class about incense being the food of the gods and how God, in this case, is “fed” before us symbolically.
After this, there is a moment of silent meditation in which it is encouraged from a young age to close your eyes to facilitate introspection. During these times, if one is meditating, it becomes easy to forget where you are and rediscover the basilica once your eyes open again. This ending moment of the service combines sound with what is seen because the organist plays music as the pastoral leaders exit the altar space with the cross and candles. They walk down the middle aisle and back up the one on the right to present the cross to the statue of Mary before disappearing into their lounges. It is only after this that people are considered ok to leave. However, people do not get up and go immediately, we all turn around to watch as the current organist, Pierre Grandmaison, plays the end of the ceremony.
The HUGE pipe organ, placed on the second floor of the basilica is also adorned with colors of purple, blue and gold. It was the Casavant Frères firm of Saint-Hyacinthe who constructed the organ of the basilica in 1891. It carries small bronze crosses on almost every pipe ending that vary in size. As soon as the music stopped, it was like the sacrality of the space also toned down. Folks (including me) took out their cameras, stopped whispering, babies started crying etc. Things that happened in the profane world started to take place in the sacred space. I was able to walk around more freely and take a closer look at the space.
There was a clear mixture of Quebecois and Roman Catholic tradition that was visually present in the architecture of the space. This crossover was easy to integrate since the symbol of Quebec is the royal or golden lily which is also used in the religious movement to represent a sacred space. Saints were also represented in every nook and cranny of the church whether it be sculptures, paintings or small altars of their own.
Three other areas, not photographed by respect, were what seemed to be the most sacred areas of the basilica. The first one was the small glass room in the back of the nave that was strictly dedicated to silent prayer. The second area was another worship area that was devoted to the Virgin Mary. The third and final space is the Notre-Dame du Sacré-Cœur chapel that is located behind the main altar. These three areas had almost a mini-church structure in each of them with pews, altars, crosses, and decoration.
My experience at the Sunday mass in the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal was mostly enhanced because of the visual components of the space. However, I was also able to engage with my other senses during and after the service. In my opinion, the church has very different “auras” during the week as opposed to Sundays. During the week, it is required that people pay and enter to experience the light show in the basilica. It is more of an artistic rather than a faith-based experience. The Basilica overall depends or operates heavily on its visual and aesthetic components to interact with the visitors in various ways.
