Every Saturday late afternoon and Sunday morning, the bells in our village start ringing for ten minutes as a call to celebrate Mass. They also ring again at the end of Mass. The bells are somber when calling mourners to the church before a funeral and joyful when ringing for a wedding.
The Angelus is an ancient pattern of bell-ringing that occurs at seven in the morning and seven in the evening as a call to prayer and ten minutes before noon every day—the bells in our village ring every hour. For instance, if it is midday, they ring twelve times and then another twelve times a minute later. They also ring twice every half hour throughout the twenty-four-hour day.
The bells can elicit a range of emotions, depending on the occasion. As for me, I always experience a sense of tranquility and solace when I hear them ringing, be it for a wedding, a funeral, or Mass. As I live in the heart of the village, very close to the church, I feel fortunate to hear the bells all day long, reminding me of our community's rich history and traditions dating back to the 1100s.
In 2013, I posted about the bells in Notre Dame:
"Nine newly cast bells have been displayed at Notre Dame, the Paris cathedral, weeks before being hoisted into the two great towers for Easter.
The new bells, weighing 23 tons and named after saints and prominent Catholics, have been cast to mark the 850th anniversary of the Cathedral's founding in 1163. They replaced bells that had become discordant and will first be heard as they peal out on March 23, in time for Palm Sunday and Easter week.
"Eight of the nine new bells were cast in a foundry in the Normandy town of Villedieu-les-Poeles. The ninth – a "bourdon," or Great Bell, named Marie – was cast in the Netherlands and then sent to Normandy to join the others.
Recently, they were sent by a slow-moving convoy of flatbed trucks to the French capital.
The old bells, dated from different periods throughout Notre Dame's history, were out of tune with each other, and the one surviving Great Bell, Emmanuel, has hung in the cathedral since the 17th century. It will remain." Via The Telegraph.
"The South Tower is home to Notre Dame’s largest bell, the Emmanuel Bell.
It is sounded for major holidays like Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, or All Saint’s Day, or significant events, for example, the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of his successor, Benedict XVI.
The Emmanuel Bell was cast over three hundred years ago and was named after its godfather, Louis XIV. It weighs 13 tons, and its tongue, the inner part of the bell that strikes its walls to make sounds, weighs 500 kilos." Via Notre Dame News
The new bells are beautiful.
The rim I could not hold in my hand.
Each one is named.
"The North Tower is home to four bells rung daily to indicate the cathedral’s services and the time. They each weigh between 2,000 and 3,000 kilograms.
These bells rhythm believers’ daily lives, calling them to prayer and indicating a solemn call to services. They were once used to inform people of the time. Everyone has a watch today, but the bells continue to ring the hour, showing that the cathedral is a Living place." Via Notre Dame News
French Husband and I went to Mass last night at Notre Dame. The bells were lined up from the smallest to the largest down the center aisle. The church chairs had been removed to make room. I had never seen so many people inside Notre Dame; I could barely move.
But I had a mission and would see to it no matter what. I managed with calm determination to lay my hands on each bell and say the names of those I love, those in need of prayer, those I have promised to pray for, for you who read my blog and have prayed for me and my family, for our friend who you have been praying for, for my Godchild Daisy, for Heather, for Alisa, for Shelley… it took several minutes at each bell. But I did it.
I prayed that when these bells go up into the tower, and when they ring, whenever they ring, they will echo the prayers said, the prayers heard … that when the bells ring, those of us might also sing with full generous hearts: Life! Healing! Hope!
My view is that our prayers will be heard for years to come.
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Since then, due to the fire in 2019
The news of the cathedral fire was devastating; it was feared that the whole church would be destroyed if the towers fell. Thankfully, the fantastic firefighters could extinguish the fire that had spread to the north tower bells. Unfortunately, the six smaller bells over the crossing were destroyed. The small bells were made in France in 1879 and, weighing over 30 tons each, were a significant part of the cathedral's history.
The reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is announced on the 8th of December, 2024. A Te Deum is planned for 15 April 2024, five years after the fire. The supervision of the restoration is entrusted to the architect Philippe Villeneuve.
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