Beauty is God's messenger and this church has wonderful harmony on all counts. Notre-Dame has a lot of crowds. A visit here is soul touching. It is a wonderful quiet corner of the city, just a brisk walk from the Louvre. The dome over the transept speaks of Heaven.
The exuberant "new" Italian Baroque facade harkens to Rome and the Jesuit influence of the Counter-Reformation. The lower register displays Doric columns while the upper displays Corinthian columns, a nice touch and a little different from Roman Baroque. There are also beautifully placed statues on the facade.
The church was built over a period of nearly 100 years, between 1653-1740. In 1653 King Louis XIV laid the first stone with his Spanish-born mother, Anne of Austria. The first architect was Jacques Lemercier, the king's architect. Another notable work from him was the domed chapel of the Sorbonne. As time progressed other architects also came on, all with inventive styles, including Jules Hardouin-Mansart.
The design was inspired by the first Baroque churches in Paris, like Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais. All along there is the influence of the Gesu in Rome, the first truly Baroque church in Rome that influenced new church construction all over the world for hundreds of years. Indeed, the new style in Paris at that time was to integrate the new Baroque churches into the city's civic and residential architecture.
One change: Saint-Roch was built on a north-south axis, rather tan the customary east-west alignment. That being said, the layout of the sanctuary is an act of spacial genius and has thankfully been preserved from the destruction of the sixties wrecking balls.
One of the most delightful features of the interior is that it follows a Gothic floor plan, with its kind of double ambulatory, aisles for walking around the two apses.The interior is packed with eighteenth century chapels decorated with immense creativity with many interesting altars, lovely murals, epic statues, and beautiful stone and woodwork.
Napoleon himself stood in front of this church in 1795, during the end of the French Revolution, when as a young artillery officer with the Revolutionary forces he fired a battery of canons to break up a force of Royalist forces that stood in the way of the new revolutionary government, hoping to restore the monarchy. Napoleon tragically supported the Revolution.
Like every other church in France, the church was closed and looted during the Revolution. Anything of value was stripped from the interior and stolen. Some items were later returned, while most was not. It is a compounded travesty because some of the most important artists in Paris had decorated the interior, artists and sculptors. Some of their works remain. The church was not reopened until 1801.
The sacristy of Saint-Roch has an incredible collection of sacred vestments and very unique liturgical appurtenances. The treasury includes a relic of the true cross. There is also to be found an incredible set of vestments in red that were donated in 1838 by King Louis Philippe, who reigned under the July monarchy from 1830-1848.
Hopefully all readers can visit here and pray. It is a busy parish with five Sunday Masses. The rector and sacristan are very nice and friendly. Daily Mass is offered in Latin, the perfect solution for visiting pilgrims from other countries.
Lastly, in his autobiography, Bishop Sheen tells a story of praying his daily Holy Hour here. He writes:
"The Holy Hour. Is it difficult? Sometimes it seemed to be hard; it might mean having to forgo a social engagement, or rise an hour earlier, but on the whole it has never been a burden, only a joy. I do not mean to say that all the Holy Hours have been edifying, as for example, the one in the church of St. Roch in Paris. I entered the church about three o'clock in the afternoon, knowing that I had to catch a train for Lourdes two hours later. There are only about ten days a year in which I can sleep in the daytime; and this was one. I knelt down and said a prayer of adoration, and then sat down to meditate and immediately went to sleep. I woke up exactly at the end of one hour. I said to the Good Lord: Have I made a Holy Hour?" I thought His angel said: "Well, that's the way the Apostles made their first Holy Hour in the Garden, but don't do it again." (Source: Treasure in Clay, p. 189).
