Here Are Some Of Your Favorite Memories Of Notre Dame

Published April 17, 2019 at 1:37 PM EDT

The Cathedral of Notre Dame, one of the world's most beloved churches, was devastated by fire in Paris on Monday.

We asked you to share your most powerful recollections and impressions of this majestic landmark.

Here are just a few from among the hundreds of responses we received:

Chrissy Flores @ha_bibti

The Notre Dame will always be one of my favorite memories while visiting Paris. The architecture, art and history was a marvelous experience to take in. The peace one felt walking in a crowded cathedral filled with tourist is unexplainable! This needed to be seen in person. – at Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

Michael Scherotter @synergist

Watercolors sketches from a month ago visiting #NotreDame on a cold day.

Anne Rice @AnneRiceAuthor

It was like stepping into a great forest -- of soaring columns and arches -- a vast shadowy magnificence embracing all of us, the silent ones moving humbly, reverently within. Too beautiful to have been made by human beings. And yet it was made by them -- for all time.
— Anne Rice (@AnneRiceAuthor) April 15, 2019

Kevin Thompson @kevinross

I worked in Paris for six months after college and visited Notre Dame at least once a week. It was a place of refuge and beauty for me, one that I will never forget.

Erika Cadena @Eri_Ka12

I was there only two months ago at Sunday Mass and later went up to the bell tower where I saw the gargoyles that sat guarding the cathedral as well as the spire that collapsed today. Part of my heart will forever be with #NotreDame.

Stephanie Joyce @StephyJoyce

My dad and I saw Notre Dame for the first time last year. Just being able to go on vacation with my parents while they're still healthy and able to travel is a memory I'll forever cherish.

Meg Waite Clayton @MegWClayton

The bells. I listened to them so many times, imagining how they must have sounded when Paris was liberated in August of 1944 when I was writing The Race for Paris.

We listened to Gregorian chants there on our anniversary one year — only a few monks but it sounded like so many. pic.twitter.com/lImrH8nXEt
— Novelist Meg Waite Clayton (@MegWClayton) April 15, 2019

Susan Gambino @susan_gambino

Once inside, her majesty took my breath away, and a deep peace came over me. I was in awe at everything I looked at, but the roof – that stunning, unimaginably high roof – built by hand, to be as close to the heavens as humanly possible. I'm so sad.