Even while she is immaculate in her holiness, the Church often seems deformed by the soot and blot of her sinful sons and daughters (as too many news stories over this past year have shown). Quasimodo and his Mother Church also rightly represent Catholics and our Mother Church. May Notre Dame Cathedral rise to new life out of the ashes “like a newborn infant” in all its purity and vigor! For, like the hunchback, whose name is ever associated with this majestic structure, today, Notre Dame lies in smoking ruins, disfigured-though (like Quasimodo) perhaps not beyond repair. Its history of faithfulness and inspiring architecture epitomize in many ways the True Temple of which you and I and all the baptized are living stones.īy God’s grace there was no loss of life resulting from this accident nonetheless, much of the Western world is heartsore to see how Notre Dame Cathedral’s actual stones, timbers, and windows have suffered by this ordeal. Notre Dame Cathedral signifies beauty, culture, history, identity, and for Catholics everywhere, it symbolizes Jesus, perhaps like no other Catholic church in Europe. Catholics, Parisians, Frenchmen, and anyone appreciative of Western civilization are rightly saddened by how extensively the fire had damaged this marvelous building. Hugo’s grotesque yet noble Quasimodo seems an especially fitting figure to consider after the April 15 fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. In the novel, the luckless Quasimodo, deformed at birth, is despised by the people of Paris and yet the archdeacon who discovers the hideous child on the morning of that Second Sunday of Easter provides this foundling a new name-and a new life-as the bell ringer at the heart of Our Lady’s Cathedral where he demonstrates that honor and nobility can reside within even the most disturbing appearances. It was on this Second Sunday of Easter, Quasimodo Sunday, that Notre Dame’s most famous-and tragic-child of French fiction first made his appearance at the cathedral’s doorstep as the main character of Victor Hugo’s early 19th century masterpiece The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Many faithful are familiar with Laetare Sunday, so named for the Entrance Antiphon, or Introit, at Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Lent: Lætare Jerusalem: et conventum facite omnes qui diligitis eam…, “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her….” Advent has the similarly well-known Guadete Sunday from its proper Entrance Antiphon, Gaudete in Domino semper, “Rejoice in the Lord always” sung (sic!) at the beginning of the Third Sunday of Advent.īut fewer Catholics may be aware that the Second Sunday of Easter also bears a proper name from its Introit: “Like newborn infants, you must long for the pure, spiritual milk, that in him you may grow to salvation, alleluia,” Quasi modo geniti infantes…. Their antics include breaching, lob tailing, spy hopping, and flipper waving.Bringing abundant life to ourselves and our children demands liturgical celebrations that, like a tree, rest upon organic and strong roots sunk into “the soil of tradition.” Humpbacks are the most acrobatic of whales and are commonly seen on local whale watch trips. Their populations have recovered slowly since they received protection in 1966 and again in 1985. Because they are slow swimmers, humpback whales were an easy target for whalers. Their feeding and mating grounds are close to shore. Most populations of humpbacks follow a regular migration route summering in polar waters for feeding, and wintering in tropical waters for mating and calving. ![]() When born, the calf is about 14 feet long and weighs between 1 and 2 tons. Interesting Detailsįemale humpbacks give birth to a single calf every 2-3 years. Quasi has been moved and reposed three times as the layout of the Museum has changed. After three years the bones were assembled and displayed. Once the bones were cleaned, they were placed on the roof of the Museum for drying and bleaching by the sun. To check on the progress of this cleaning process, the bones were unburied and reburied twice. ![]() Quasimodo was towed ashore in Westport, MA, stripped and buried in the sand as a way to clean the bones. He originally hung next to the Lagoda in the Bourne Building and then was moved into the Jacobs Family Gallery when it opened in 2000. He died in 1932 and has been hanging in the Museum since 1936. Quasimodo is the skeleton of a 37-foot (11.3m), male humpback, who was approximately 3 years old at the time of his death.
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