My Spiritual and Transpersonal Reflections On Notre Dame

If you have ever entered Notre Dame, perhaps you came away with something very personal to you.  Notre Dame has always been more than a magnificent cathedral to me.

Like many other suffering souls, I would bring my broken heart for the solace and comfort I found there attending Vespers and Mass.

Yet, in the flower filled garden behind it, there were moments of bliss and joy: laying eyes upon and timid first kisses to a beloved alongside the luscious pink roses, and just meditating and praying on a warm sunny day.

Besides being a consecrated church and cathedral, it embodied a sacred space and tremendous sacred energy that always enveloped me in ways that are difficult to describe with words.

Many spiritual experiences and feelings associated with Notre Dame are transpersonal and transcendental.  By transpersonal I mean that being in Notre Dame carried me beyond my own sense of self towards that which is beyond in the spiritual realm and the cosmos.

This transcendental experience is a rather mysterious transcendence that ordinary human reasoning can not explain.  Seeking God can also be inferred as transcendental because God can not be understood with human reasoning and logic but with faith.

I do not think it was usual to have found an apartment on Rue Jussieu when I first arrived in Paris to settle in December of 1999.  Frankly,  I attributed this to the help and graces of  Our Lady(Notre Dame).

Long before I left the states to return to live here, I often would sit in my therapist chair in my office with Le Plan de Paris.  I loved to visualize where I would like to live in Paris, and my focus always centered on the very same arrondissement that I ended up, the 5th.

I was near both  Notre Dame cathedral and Saint Etienne du Mont, where the relics of the patron saint of Paris, Saint Genevieve is kept.

I loved that I could walk to Notre Dame in about 17 minutes.  My favourite time to go to Mass was in the evening.  Vespers started at 5:45 pm with Mass following.

The loud bells would start about 5 minutes before.  If arrived early I usually could find a seat on the first row, where the sweetest of incense swirled in clouds towards me from the ancient wrought iron incensier somewhat bent with age, placed in front of the main altar.

It was a time to sink into the canned straw seats, close my eyes and breath in the rich perfume of burning incense.  It is very easy for me to meditate and there even easier as the sacred energy enveloped and transport my beingness to higher lofts of consciousness.

Suddenly the massive grand organ began vibrating the whole cathedral with deep rich base notes before the clear tinkling of bells called the faithful to stand for the procession of the clergy.

The choir members filed with their bright cerulean blue robes and angelic voices filled the air around me, singing the hymns and prayers.  After the end of Vespers, I stayed put for the Mass at 6:30.

Afterwards,  they dimmed the lights and I would purposefully linger in front of the statue of Notre Dame de Paris until the last minute, waiting to be shooed out by the guards.  By that time the crowd had left and the cathedral took on a  hushed silence I could never enjoy at other times.

It was in those few precious minutes of silence I felt I could soak up like a sponge the ethereal beauty and sacred energy of Notre Dame in Her fullness.

I would always make it a point to touch the base of the pillars as I left.  After over 850 years they are left smoothed by the many other faithful who touched them too.

The old stone pillars felt cool to my fingers as I gently would leave my hand to absorb the sacred prayers and healing energies leaching from them from so many said Masses.

The black and white checkered marble floors had cracks and chips here and there but the edges had worn smooth by the many of suffering others who trod hundreds of years before me.

Most of the pillars were adorned with a Templar’s cross in red paint a little above eye level.  I am sorry that I do have any photos to show you.  Honestly, I never thought about taking a photo of them.

Certainly, they are still there, perhaps blackened by some soot though.   The stone pillars survived the fire as did the vast majority of the Gothic arches, vaults and ribs that made up part of the roof underneath the myriad of huge wooden beams, that made up the roof.

This mass of ancient oak trunks made into massive single beams was affectionately called the “forest” and most of it was consumed by the flames.  They came from trees cut around 1160, with some varieties no longer existing.

Some say that it is a miracle that the structure of Notre Dame remains intact, but not to me.   Why? Because each stone that was masterfully cut and securely put in place to construct this magnificent jewel of Gothic architecture was imbued with the reverence and love of the mother of Christ, the Holy Mary Theotokos.

The early Christians gave tremendous devotion and honour to Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was deemed as the mother of the church and therefore many churches and cathedrals were dedicated to Her.

Many great churches built in the first 500 years after the crucifixion of Christ had monumental frescos of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Theotokos centered over the main dome which overlooked the main altar.

As the devotion to Mary was likewise very popular in the Latin church and growing, Archbishop Sully wanted to dedicate the cathedral to the Holy Blessed Virgin Mary.

Master masons chiselled, along with their apprentices each and every stone by hand.   Each mason had to assure that his finished his stones all conformed to his own proper measurement, that did have slight variations from other masons, as there weren’t any universal measurements at that time, except the pied de Roi.

These expert masons were quite aware of sacred geometry and belonged to guilds that upheld strict adherence to the highest of standards of their craft.

The guilds were spiritually directed and each mason was dedicated that his work reflected the immense glory of God as the builder of the universe and his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

So is it surprising that these ancient stones are still standing holding the intricate huge rose stained glass windows in place after being ravaged by fire on April 15 2019?  I think not.

Certainly, the courageous and masterful firemen of Paris undeniably helped preserve them, but I also believe that the sacred energy imbued within each upheld the structure of Notre Dame de Paris as a testimony to a faith that cannot be destroyed.

During the French revolution, the cathedral was ransacked by church and clergy hating revolutionaries.  Almost all statues were decapitated and the cathedral became a “temple of reason”.

At my prayer group led by a monk in the nearby Franciscan monastery, we recited Luke 19:39- 40, where the Pharisees in the crowd told Jesus “to rebuke and quieten his disciples”.  Jesus replied, “I tell you, if these remain silent, then even the very stones would cry out”.

I  explained that this passage reminded me of the fire of Notre Dame.  Though gutted by the flames, and where prayers and sung Masses will not be heard for a long period of time, the stones still cry out to the faithful and even to unbelievers.

Notre Dame and the Christian faithful cannot be silenced.  Devotion to this Gothic jewel of medieval architecture was more to Parisians and the world than just a magnificent structure.

I went on to say that this fire could be used as a wake-up call in France where many children born into Christian families are struggling with their identity.   A renewal of their faith, sadly lacking here, I hoped could be brought about.

France, known historically as the daughter of Christianity, has very unfortunately strayed from that lofty plateau.   Even a little over half a century ago, 90% of French children were baptised.

The French Revolution besides doing away with French royalty was a prelude to the “age of reason” that swept the 19th-century breeding distrust and opposition to the church.

The early 20 century in France gave in to glorifying the philosophical ideas of Camus and Sartre that both promoted an intellectualism devoid of any spirituality as the goal of true enlightenment.

Church pews became bare as many deserted their faith.  Atheistic thought took off like a fad.  I find many who proclaim being an atheist do so with a sense of narcissistic pride and mockery to believers as if to proclaim themselves intellectually superior.

A spiritual vacuum has been created that threatens to be filled with north Africans who flooded in from former French colonies, the majority who embrace Islam.

Pockets of radicalization exist fueled not only by some fanatical indoctrinated Muslims but those full of hatred and anger towards the French.   Churches and Jewish cemeteries are being regularly vandalised here and antisemitism is on the rise.

Christians in the Middle East and across the globe are being increasingly persecuted as magnified by the Holy Week massacre in Sri Lanka.

Perhaps the fire damaged Notre Dame is a symbol of the weeping Blessed Virgin Mary over this loss of faith amongst those who have lapsed from their Christian origins, the increase in Christian persecution and in antisemitism.

True followers of Christ embrace the Judeo Christians teachings of religious tolerance and the peaceful coexistence with our Jewish brothers and sisters and others having diverse religious traditions.

Notre Dame will be restored and I hope that the tragedy of this great spiritual, historical and artistic masterpiece will bring about a reunification of those faithful souls for which she was built.