Montreal's Catholic Past

These are a couple of photographs from Cathedrale Marie-Reine Du Monde - a Catholic Church on Rene Levesque Street just a fifteen minute walk from the residence hall. Walking around downtown Montreal you may have noticed the enormous green dome atop a building lined with rows of saints. This is just one of many beautiful churches in Montreal - the likes of which you normally would not see in the US (definitely not in small town New England with their little white churches). What's more popular is the Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal, whose beauty I have yet to witness because there is a five dollar admission charge, which is something I have never experienced in entering religious institutions, but I suppose it's a reasonable amount when you consider how much is needed to preserve the artworks inside. Keep in mind that these are more than just churches, they are art galleries. They're preserving culture. But opposite to Notre Dame, Marie-Reine is free to visit and to my surprise, it's a quiet and empty sanctuary compared to the tourist trap at the Basilica.

I wish I could have taken more pictures - the ones above capture only a fragment of beauty in this massive work of art. I would have taken more, but I was asked to leave because apparently "photography is not allowed in the House of God." But upon my first visit to Marie-Reine with my father, I recall a middle aged woman approaching us claiming she was a Bosnian refugee without support from social services. She wanted help of the financial sort. I immediately gave her all the money I had in my pockets, which being a poor college student was only two dollars and thirty one cents (a great help I was). But my father refused to give anything, and coming from a traditional Catholic perspective, that's understandable - begging in the House of God comes off as sacrilegious. But this poor Bosnian woman was not the only one begging in the church. In fact there were a few people roaming about holding Tim Hortons coffee cups filled with change. And I'm okay with that, but I could not understand the reasoning behind letting people beg in the House of God and yet prohibiting photography in the House of God. I was there simply to appreciate the wonders of architecture.

It astounds me how such rich and intricate architecture - years of work from centuries past - can all be summed up in the digital world by this simple website here, not much more complex than this blog. In fact, both websites were probably created by only a few people (in my case, a single person - that's me), whereas this church was built by dozens of skilled architects, painters, laborers, and engravers. The internet is information-rich and there's much to gain if you read the right sources, but there's just no awe in it. But if you go out and see the physical manifestations of history, politics, religion, culture, war, etc. - this church as an example - that's where you find awe. That's when your brain shouts AHA! in epiphany and pieces together all these bits of information into a coherent story to make sense of the world around you. If you distance yourself from the world and learn only from books and the internet and lectures and formal education, then it all devolves into babble. You cannot retain information and learn without that element of awe.

There's the logic to study abroad. "The experience" is a vague phrase that's often thrown around when students cite their reasons for studying abroad, but what they're really looking for is awe.

And awe is most certainly the reason why us Montrealers are going to see Cirque Du Soleil on the last day of the semester.