Originally published at National Catholic Register
COMMENTARY: Having faced death, the rebuilt cathedral strikes a divine chord in the human heart.
The reopening of the grand cathedral of Notre Dame-de-Paris at the start of the Advent season was marked by a grand expression of enthusiasm across the West. International personages like President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Prince William and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — all neither French nor Catholic — rushed to the banks of the Seine to pay tribute to the world’s most famous monument to Our Lady.
The fervor surrounding Notre Dame’s resurrection exceeds any relatively small strands of Francophilia or appreciation for Gothic architecture in our culture. Something far bigger is afoot because Notre Dame is and always has been more than a building.
At its construction, Notre Dame was a testament to Christendom and the French people’s aspiration to love and serve God. Yet the cathedral soon took hold in the popular imagination more than any average church.
Stories like Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame expanded the structure’s symbolism to include an openness to every benighted character in the human family. The French revolutionaries attempted to convert Notre Dame into a “temple of reason,” recognizing the symbolic
