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Throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games, a bell was rung not in a bell tower, but inside the Stade de France, for every French victory. The bell was made especially for Paris 2024. Now it will find its place inside the cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris, where it will ring during liturgies once the landmark house of worship reopens in December 2024.
“We were contacted a few months ago by the Paris Organizing Committee, to see if we would be interested in this bell for Notre Dame,” Mgr. Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector of the cathedral, told OSV News, explaining that he had “accepted this proposal.”
Weighing 1,103 pounds, the bronze bell, marked with the inscription “Paris 2024,” was cast by the Cornille Havard foundry in Villedieu-les-Poëles (Manche). This is where the bells of the Notre-Dame de Paris north belfry were restored, notably Gabriel, Marcel, and Étienne (yes, the bells have names!), which were damaged by flames during the fire of 2019.
“The Paris Games organizing committee went to Villedieu to order a bell from the foundry specifically for the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Véronique Creissels, Notre Dame's communications director, told Aleteia. “They contacted us in the spring, asking if we'd like the bell after the Games are over. We were surprised, but we accepted this offer with delight. There are many values in common between Olympism and the Catholic faith."
The bell will ring during the consecration
The bell will be installed not in the belfries but in the nave of the cathedral, to ring during Masses. More specifically, it will sound at the moment of the consecration of the Eucharist, the central moment when the bread and wine, through the words of Christ pronounced by the priest and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, truly and substantially become the Body and Blood of Christ. A moment, then, when Christ becomes victorious over death through his death and resurrection.
“We'll need to make two more similar two-foot bells to create a set to replace those destroyed in the fire. Their exact location in the cathedral is not yet certain, but they should be partly visible,” says Véronique Creissels.
