The reaction of people to the burning of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris has taken everyone by surprise, not for the shock effect it has on the human psyche, but for the positive response of people, worldwide, to what has happened.

It seems that this fire has become a blessing in disguise.

It has taken a fire to wake people up, to make them aware of the treasure before their very eyes, to enable them to appreciate what they might have been missing, and to motivate many to contribute hundreds of millions in dollars to the rebuilding and renovation of this great symbol of Western Civilization.

God, it seems, works in strange ways.

The great Cathedral of Notre Dame is a monument, in stone, to the age of faith, and to the great scholastic synthesis of faith and reason, of mankind’s relationship with God during the High Middle Ages. It was built from a teleological perspective, relating everything to God from which all things flow and towards which all things are ordered. It was built to last for the ages. My hope is that this monument to faith will still continue to endure throughout time.

Notre Dame has an extraordinary history, having survived the worst effects of the French Revolution, the occupation of Nazi Germany, and the natural corrosion of centuries of decay. Every detail of this extraordinary edifice is interconnected and fits, perfectly, as part of the whole, showing the connection between mankind and the Creator in all its many aspects. As a place of worship and artistic creation, Notre Dame possesses the ingredients of St. Thomas Aquinas’s theory of aesthetics: clarity, integrity, and beauty.

When I was in France, as a student priest, back in the late 1960s, I was dismayed to see the great Cathedrals of France in a state of disrepair and uncleanliness. I’ve celebrated mass in several of them. This state of disrepair arose because the Cathedrals were properties of the State which did not take adequate care of them. The same, it seems, was happening to Notre Dame. It was going through some sort of renovation when the fire broke out.

It is amazing, if not providential, that this fire has taken place during Holy Week when we are called to journey through Christ’s Passion into the new life of the Resurrection.

Notre Dame in Paris is now experiencing the passion of dying to its former self. But, there is hope! There is the hope of a glorious, new beginning or Resurrection of this great Cathedral. Notre Dame, it seems, has become a symbol of the dying and rising to new life of all people of faith.

With God’s help and the generosity of His people, it will rise again like a phoenix from the ashes.

—Fr. Hugh Duffy