Since April 2019 and the fire which struck it, the cathedral has been closed.
Nine months before the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris, scheduled for December 7, the Archbishop of Paris Monseigneur Laurent Ulrich communicated in a pastoral letter a draft program for this highly anticipated event.
Firstly, Mgr Laurent Ulrich announces that the return of the statue of Notre-Dame, which is today in Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, will take place at the end of November and will be accompanied by a "large popular procession in the streets ".
On December 7, the reopening will logically be accompanied by an inauguration, namely the “handing over of Notre-Dame by the owner State to the assignee which is the Catholic Church”, indicates the archbishop.
He specifies that the event will be accompanied by “the awakening of the organ, a liturgical celebration with blessing, a Magnificat or a Te Deum, then vespers”.
First mass on December 8
The first mass will take place on December 8, the day after the reopening.
It is at this time that the consecration of the altar will take place.
The immaculate conception will be celebrated the following day.
“This celebration of the reopening of Notre-Dame deserves an octave: from December 8 to 15, every day, we will have a solemn celebration with a particular theme,” explains Monsignor Laurent Ulrich.
The Archbishop of Paris indicates that this reopening period will last until June 8, 2025, the day of Pentecost.
“There will be many who will be able to say:
I was at the reopening
,” he specifies, recalling however that the capacity of the building remains limited.
Read alsoNotre-Dame de Paris: immersed in the “construction site of a lifetime”, one year before the reopening of the cathedral
“In these days, there will be room for public figures, the state owner, the donors, the teams who have worked with so much joy for five years, the firefighters who rescued the building on April 15, 2019, the French bishops, foreign bishops, representatives of French dioceses… But above all I want the people of Paris to be present at these reopening celebrations,” underlines the man of faith.
In preparation for the event, work continues.
The rooster also found its place at the top of the building last December, the previous one having been too damaged.
It will contain relics saved from the fire, precious to Catholics.
In this case, it is a fragment of Christ's crown of thorns, the bones of Saint-Denys, first bishop of Paris in the 3rd century, and the bones of Sainte-Geneviève, patron saint of the city of Paris died around the year 500. Another sealed tube will be placed in the rooster, containing the names of all the people who took part in the reconstruction, almost 2,000.