Notre Dame represents a deeper reality beyond the blur of our lives

I heard what sounded like a murmur of maternal lamentation deep inside of me the moment the Notre Dame Cathedral spire collapsed in a huge blaze on Monday evening. The plaintive sound grew like an elegy as the TV cameras captured the devastating images of a red dragon of fire raging high in the air.

Thick flames, smoke and sounds of sorrow were not a figment of my imagination - they were bellowing into the Paris sky, providing a collective place for disbelief, confusion, melancholy, dark thoughts, and reflection.

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Built over the site of a Gallo-Roman temple to Jupiter, the construction of the iconic gothic Roman Catholic church began in 1163 and it was modified over the centuries.

The spire that fell was called La Flèche (the Arrow), a 350-foot-high structure in oak covered with lead that didn't have the same pedigree. It was gothic revival opus by Violett-le-Duc who led a 19th century restoration.

But symbols remain unaltered.

Located on the Ile de la Cite, on the island in the heart of Paris, this shrine was dedicated to Our Lady, in a century - the 12th - that saw extraordinary growth in the cult of the Virgin Mary in Europe, inspired in part by the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. The historical shrine has been one of the grandest expressions of Marian devotion in France and one of the oldest places of pilgrimage in Europe. But even the smallest chapel dedicated to the veneration of Our Lady personifies the Church, the Christian community. Mary 'Mater purissima' has been the model for faith, charity and perfect union with Christ in the two millennia of the Roman Catholic Church's history.

Entering a Catholic church is entering the dogmas of the Church of which Mary is the perfect image, the guarantor of God's love in the face of hatred, intolerance and selfishness.

Mother Church is comprehensive. She is a body of inclusion, as suggested by the etymology of the word catholic, which is derived from the Greek 'katholikos', meaning 'universal'.

For that reason, the Western and the Eastern world cried out together for Notre Dame. Beyond its artistic value, it represents a deeper reality beyond the blur of our chaotic lives, a place used as channel of grace that helps men and women to focus their experience on the divine.

The first time I entered Notre Dame, my eyes fell on the plaque commemorating Paul Claudel's conversion to Catholicism: 'Ici se convertit Paul Claudel'. Here, that poet of oceanic force experienced a sudden conversion on Christmas Day 1886. He was 18. He went in for Vespers, and while children were singing the Magnificat, the unexpected happened. His account ("In an instant, my heart was touched, and I believed") struck me as an adolescent.

When last Monday I saw the fire, soon proven to be a tragic accident, I felt that Mary's womb was about to be violated and devoured, and with Her, the Church, in the wilderness of the world.

I imagined Our Lady crying tears amid the ruins. She was weeping over the death of her Son, at the beginning of Holy Week.

However, Notre Dame not only is the focal point for Christianity in France, it is also the heart of secular France and a symbol of European civilisation.

Here, Napoleon was crowned as emperor of France in 1804. With him, the three values of the secular state expressed in Robespierre's motto Liberte, Égalite, Fraternite were forged into a noble ideal for all of Europe to take embrace. "I wish to find a European system, a European code of laws, a European judiciary: there would be but one people in Europe," he declared anticipating the EU.

At Notre Dame Cathedral square, a bronze star embedded in the paving stones marks the 'Point Zero', the reference marker from where all road distances from Paris to the other French cities are measured.

The Cathedral has been badly damaged before. It was nearly destroyed by the iconoclastic violence of French Revolution. Angry mobs decapitated stone statues of kings on the façade. In 1793 it was transformed into a "Temple of Reason".

It was Victor Hugo, author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, who began advocating its preservation.

Solidarity throughout the world offers consolation, showing that Notre Dame is not the symbol of a collapsing Occident that has lost its identity.

Those stones are indestructible, like Claudel's books, a poetical statement of faith. And these new wounds remind us that Christianity is in the history of Europe.

The statue of St. Joan of Arc in Notre Dame towers fierce above the east door. The Maid of Orleans was canonised here in 1920. The spiritual visionary was taken to the stake in 1431.

Notre Dame's most sacred relics remained whole as well: The Crown of Thorns revered as the one worn by Jesus and the tunic of St. Louis.

The Cross is safe: It was the first luminous sign the firefighters saw when, after hours of exhausting battle with the fire, they managed to open the rear door.

Stat Crux volvitur orbis - While the world changes, the cross stands firm, says the motto of the Carthusian order.

And as told in the Old Testament, there will be always a temple, an 'Ohel mo'ed", the 'tent of meeting' with God but also among men.

Mariella Radaelli is editor at www.luminosityitalia.com