I awoke quite early this morning to news that the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was burning. I had to rub my eyes before taking a second look at the news feed on my phone, supposing that it might be a joke or some lesser Notre Dame that was immolating. After all, churches called Our Lady are many in the Catholic faith.

Unfortunately, the most famous Notre Dame on the lle de la Cite on the Seine was indeed ablaze and likely to be severely damaged if not entirely destroyed. Turning to the BBC on the television, I watched with rising sadness as the conflagration took hold. Yet, it does seem that the church towers and the stone walls will remain intact and that the Cathedral can be rebuilt, so there is hope amid the gloom.

Another hope resides in the human spirit and its capacity to turn misfortune into a shining moment. As Notre Dame burned, large numbers of Parisians gathered in a nearby park to sing hymns. They sang as the spire tottered and the roof fell in. They sang as firefighters worked hard to douse the flames. They sang as the media gathered and the French President spoke. Those moments are minor miracles, started amongst a few and spreading outwards and inwards like invisible coils. They rescue us in the moment.

The last time I was at Notre Dame was almost twenty years ago. If I go to Paris, it's one of the first places I want to visit. It is dark inside, filled usually by banks of small votive candles in trays spilling over onto already extinguished candles. There is a constant replenishing of these, for our prayers are endless and the candles, whose collective light spills onto walls and statuary and ancient carvings, sum up materially our unvoiced yearnings.

In Church Going, the poet, though himself claiming to have no interest in Christianity, stands in an old church,


Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for which was
built This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;



It often pleases me too. For those mourning the loss of much of Notre Dame, take heart, it will rise again. And even if that proves too difficult, there is still the memory of standing in silence there amid the centuries of voices and prayers.