Prayers, Past Lives & Paris

Why I’m inexplicably in love with Cathédrale Notre-Dame

Photo from author’s personal collection (2009)

In 2009, I left North America for the first time, to visit a place I had longed to see my whole life: Paris. Unlike most people I know, I didn’t imagine walking the streets wearing a beret with a baguette tucked beneath my arm. I didn’t care about visiting the pâtisseries or buying expensive, designer clothing. I wasn’t particularly interested in the museums, either.

There was one thing there that I had to see, above all else: Notre-Dame.

I can’t really explain this. I could give you a million reasons, though none fully illuminate this deep connection I have to a building I had never seen before.

For instance, I love its architecture. The flying buttresses are so beautiful, just looking at them makes my chest hurt. Then there are the gargoyles, so fiery and pagan, a strange juxtaposition to such a dignified edifice of the Catholic tradition. Then there are the rib vaults of the nave, the elegant spire, the gallery of the kings on the west façade, and of course, the beatific rose window. Its grandeur is so overwhelming to me, this building that has been standing for 857 years.

Or maybe it is its placement, in the heart of this city that I love so much, on Île de la Cité, right on the river, in the very center of the essence of this beautiful place.

I love the way it illustrates the intersection between the old ways and the new religion. You can feel the influence of both in the building and that fascinates me. I long to understand how it came to be that we decided to subjugate the sacred feminine in favor of this “god of all gods.”

I even love that it is the setting of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, a story I oddly relate to — an ugly misfit looking to find belonging in the world, hiding away in a place of such beauty. Oh, how I understand that.

But really, my reasons for loving it are far less logical — and perhaps even downright crazy. I love it because I believe, somewhere in my blood and bones, that I have been there before. I am absolutely certain that this is true because I could tell you things about this church — palpable, tangible sensory memories — before I had ever experienced it.

I love this cathedral because somehow, I know it.

My boyfriend and I had broken up by the time I decided to go to Paris. We were still friends, so I asked him if he wanted to go with me. To my surprise, he said yes.

We met my Scottish cousins, Al and Chris, there. My grandmother had grown up in Ireland, the daughter of an Irish carpenter and a Scottish seamstress. My great-grandmother, a Sinclair, left Caithness and her huge family, first to settle in her new husband’s homeland, and then, nearly ten years later, to bring her five children to America, where she and her husband hoped to build a better life.

Luckily for me, our family had strong ties that continued throughout the next few generations, keeping us all connected across an ocean.

After we dropped off our bags at our respective hotels, Al asked me where I wanted to go for my first Parisian outing.

I answered before he’d even finished his question. “Notre-Dame.”

I’m sure everyone wondered why — there were museums to visit, stores to browse, monuments to see… But I was set on seeing my cathedral.

Our hotel was a little over two miles from Notre-Dame, but I didn’t want to take the Metro — I wanted to be outside, see other people, look at the buildings, and enjoy every second of Paris. So we walked. And walked. And walked.

As we approached the center of the city, Al kept consulting his map. “I think we’re going the wrong way,” he said.

“No,” I responded, even though I was not looking at a map. I felt so certain that we were heading in exactly the right direction.

“I think we’re a little turned around,” Al muttered, in his Scottish accent.

“Nope,” I said again, oddly cheerful.

A few minutes later, I grabbed my ex’s arm and pointed. I could see the flying buttresses in the distance. “There it is!”

“No,” Al said. “I don’t think so. It’s further down.”

I knew he was wrong. I knew without any doubt that the building ahead was Notre-Dame. My ex gave me a questioning look and I understood why. Al and Chris had been to Paris many times before. Wouldn’t they know Notre-Dame better than I — someone who had never seen it — did?

But I pressed my lips together and shook my head. I knew.

It wasn’t until we crossed the bridge onto Île de la Cité that Al finally conceded. “Oh yes. This is Notre-Dame.”

But I didn’t need his confirmation. I didn’t need a map. I didn’t need a sign. I didn’t need directions.

That building had pulled me right to it and even if I had been alone, sans map or other guidance, I would’ve ended up right there, underneath the flying buttresses, my face turned up, my eyes squinting in the sunlight.

Of all the magical moments of that trip, almost all that stand out to me involved Notre-Dame. We took photographs beneath the flying buttresses, in the little, shaded eastside courtyard that is my favorite part of the grounds.

Then we walked around it slowly, watching the pigeons on the grass, the eyes of the gargoyles following us mysteriously as we made our way to the west façade and the paved courtyard beyond.

I tried to get a good look at the rooster on top of the spire, said to house three religious relics including a thorn from the crown Jesus wore when he was crucified, but I couldn’t get a good look at it.

I was dismayed to find that the line to enter stretched all the way out to the end of the courtyard, but Al insisted we try, even though they were due to close soon.

I stared at the gallery of kings as we talked and suddenly, the line surged forward, taking in every last one of us.

I hate to sound melodramatic, but I really did almost swoon once we went inside. It was so overwhelming — the ceilings, the light, the temperature, the scents.

I knew this place.

Mass had just started, so we walked quietly around the edges of the building when suddenly, the organ began playing and the congregation lifted their voices in a hymn. I had to stop walking and close my eyes because I was so overcome with emotion. It is hard to explain exactly why, particularly in light of the fact that I do not really identify with any branch of Christianity. There is just something about the meeting of Christianity with the pre-Christian world that feels staggering to me.

In places like Notre-Dame, I see the face of the Goddess everywhere, so determined not to be forgotten. As a woman, I feel this deeply.

Hearing that music was like a portkey, taking me back to another time, long, long ago. I could feel the devotion of every person who had knelt in that place over the last nearly thousand years. I could sense the longing of the human soul to remember its maker. And more than anything, I could hear Her voice, which sounded like the echo of prayer, an open vessel carrying the spiritual potential of every human being.

We visited the cathedral every single day we were in Paris. I didn’t intend to — it just seemed to happen that I wandered in that direction during our treks around the city and inevitably, we would end up back in that courtyard, eating crepes or resting our legs.

From there, we watched the light change. We observed storm clouds move in and out. We watched teenagers taking photos of one another while jumping, hoping to get a shot of themselves in midair. Pigeons sauntered by. We stared at the gargoyles. We listened to people speaking dozens of different languages.

Notre-Dame was the nucleus of that trip, drawing me back to it like a magnet again and again.

We walked around it the night we left, in the dark, entranced, as if we’d never seen it before.

“I never want to leave here,” I whispered to my ex, holding his arm.

After we returned home, I felt myself lost in a fog, wishing for a reconciliation with my ex that seemed impossible but also feeling like I’d lost hold of an important thread of my identity — something attached to my attraction to France and its history.

“I wish I was French,” I lamented to my cousin when we caught up via phone a few weeks later. I felt something strangely like homesickness since I’d left there. “I feel so strongly that I have French in my ancestry. I just haven’t been able to prove it yet.”

Al laughed. “We are French.”

“What?” I was sure I hadn’t heard him right, with that thick Scottish accent.

“The Sinclairs. Historians believe our people were originally from Saint-Clair in Normandy. They say we came to England — and later Scotland — with William the Conquerer. Sinclair is just an anglicization of Saint-Clair.”

I about dropped the phone, I was so excited.

“And you know, our clan’s crest is a rooster, just like the one on top of Notre-Dame.”

Then I did drop the phone.

I watched, horrified and entranced, when Notre-Dame caught on fire in April 2019. It was almost ten years to the day since I had been there.

Somehow, it felt as though I had lost something precious that I might never get back. And simultaneously, I felt overwhelmed with grace and good fortune that I had seen my beloved cathedral before the fire.

I know how ridiculous it sounds, but I’m still convinced that I know that place — that I saw it before 2009, before, I guess I’m saying, I was in this body. Something in me is oriented to it, like spiritual GPS. I knew its feel and sound and scent before I had ever stepped inside its doors.

Or maybe it was more than that. Maybe it is the energy of the Mother Goddess that I connect with so strongly — an energy that I felt permeated that structure. Mother Mary is just another one of her faces, the only one acceptable to the patriarchal system that tries so hard to erase the sacred feminine.

Maybe, as a woman, that is what I know so well. Maybe I am just responding to the call of the sacred within myself.

Regardless, Notre-Dame will always be in my heart. I know her so well. And I’m certain she knows me, too.