Pray for Paris

I’m not sure how it can feel simultaneously like it was years ago and just days between last semester and now. Studying in Paris was a life-changing experience. There were those dreamy moments everyone thinks of when they think of Paris- brunch in Montmartre with warm bread and bowls of hot chocolate, afternoons getting lost in the Louvre, buying Laudrée macarons on the Champs Elysée, and picnics in as many parks as possible. There were the unexpected moments of joy and garnered confidence- starring in a student film project, teaching weekly English classes to a ragtag group of preschoolers, and practicing yoga to find my inner peace in a chaotic city. It wasn’t always an easy city to live in. There were moments that challenged me every day. But in the end, I carved out a little bit of home for myself in Paris and Paris carved itself into a little bit of my heart.

It is easy to flit back over my memories and remember only the moments of confidence, maturity, and peace. But those memories would undermine the very serious emotions I felt my first weekend in Paris. I arrived in Paris for my semester abroad the very same week of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. As a person who is already particularly anxious, that week was terrifying and upsetting for me. I spent a long time processing the experience and eventually wrote about it in a blog post last January.

But that blog didn’t talk about what came after. It didn’t cover the way that for months I would wake up in the middle of the night at the slightest noise, unable to fall back to sleep, wondering if everything was safe. I would hear noises from outside in the hallway during classes and feel shivers of panic. I was always on edge, never feeling safe. Terror is not a single moment, but a nightmare, a scar. It may fade over time, but you’re never the same.

On Friday, as I sat in my dorm room at Notre Dame, I switched between CNN and TVMonde5 as I watched unimaginable horror cover my screen. My thoughts went to my friends in Paris. Were they safe? Were they okay? The attacks had taken place in the 10^th and 11^th arrondisments, areas full of hang out spots for young people. During my semester abroad, I had spent many evenings out with my friends in this area. One of the restaurants attacked was a block away from one of my favorite bars. I had walked down those streets. Who was to say it wouldn’t have been me there? My friends in France expressed the feeling that nothing was safe, no one knew where the next attack would be. I remembered the horror I went through last January and I knew this would be monumentally worse.

I made Facebook statuses, snap chat stories, tweets and tumblr posts reading, “Pray for Paris.” Everywhere around me, my friends- in America, in France, and everywhere in between- made statuses echoing the same sentiments, “Pray for Paris.” But I wasn’t sure how. How do I pray for a city so dear to me that has been so marred? How do I find God, or even begin to speak to God, amidst this tragedy?

I went to mass on Saturday. The priest spoke of the attacks, of the way it was a sign of the brokenness of our world, of the way it reminded us to never take a day of our life for granted. The world did feel broken. It felt like there was pain everywhere- not just in Paris- but in Beirut and in Baghdad where bombings took place, in Japan and Mexico where earthquakes rattled, and in our own Notre Dame community, where even amidst the safety and certainty we feel here, death managed to touch us. How do we begin to pray when we feel so broken?

I went to the prayer service for Paris at the grotto on Saturday night, my mind wheeling. I felt bad,as if not finding the words to pray meant I was failure. Paris had given me so much. Paris had changed my life. And now my city was hurt and I had nothing to give back. It was a city, not a person, after all. I couldn’t bake it cookies or hold it’s hand. I could only pray. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t find the words, the peace, to articulate all I wanted for my precious city.

So I started with the people. As we made our way through the rosary, I dedicated one bead to a different person in Paris. Beads for my friends from the student film. Beads for my favorite yoga instructors. Beads for my treasured preschoolers. Beads for the lady who ran the bakery by my dorm who laughed as I struggled for the right change. Beads for the friends who sat beside me in class. Beads for the smiling cashier at the Monoprix by our university. Beads for each person who touched my life in Paris. When the rosary was over, I still had people to list, so I knelt and continued to pray- my words and thoughts finally coming out. Maybe I didn’t have the words to pray for a whole city, but I would pray for the people who made the city real for me. And in finding those words, I began to touch the ones written deeply in my heart, in our faith- for a love that is greater than all of us, a love that heals in the deepest places.

Weeks will pass and we will change our current profile pictures from photos adorned with French flags to our usual dome pictures. We will slowly stop thinking of Paris as a place where horrors happened and remember the sound of the accordion player on the street, the view from the metro line 6 where it crosses the Seine, and the taste of a still warm pain au chocolat. But even then, let’s not stop finding these words to pray. Let’s not stop praying for those who wake up in the middle of the night, never feeling safe again. Let’s not stop praying for those who always carry scars, physical or emotional, from Friday’s events. Let’s not stop praying for those whose hearts will always miss a loved one who will never come back. Let’s not stop praying. Not now, not ever.