Another Sacred Space and the Real Purpose of the Trip

Sometime in 1968, when we'd been married for not quite a year, were very poor, and living in Navy enlisted housing that had been built around 1940, Himself showed me a picture in an architecture magazine. It was a picture of a church (this is when it all started, I guess) that he liked, by an architect that he admired. He thought I would like to see it; he thought I might like it, too. He was right on both counts. I liked it. A lot. It was different from other churches. I remember our mentioning right then and there that we thought we might like to go visit that church one day.

One day came. About forty-eight years later.

Swiss architect Le Corbusier's masterpiece, Notre-Dame du Haut, located in Ronchamps, France, was completed in 1954. Located adjacent to a Poor Clares convent, it was created to replace a chapel that had been destroyed during the Second World War. Joe discovered it fourteen years later. And forty-eight years after that, we visited.

This chapel is a world-renowned architectural masterpiece. It is a pilgrimage place for both the faithful (August 15 and September 8 are the feast days) and for architects from all over. In a few months UNESCO will announce the decision about whether it is to become a World Heritage Site. Notre-Dame du Haut is visited by thousands of people every years.

And yet the day we visited, we were alone for almost the duration of our stay. A small group of young elementary school students was finishing their visit as we arrived and a larger group of older students came as we were leaving. But, incredibly, for about an hour, we were alone in and around the church. Forty-eight years. Is anything ever worth that kind of a wait?

Yes. Oh, yes.