Holy Week on Fire

Like many, I spent Monday afternoon watching fire ravage Notre Dame Cathedral. It captured the world’s attention. We felt attached to this old building over in France, even those of us who had no personal connection to it. Since when had we cared about Paris’s cathedral? Why did we care? And, yet, we did. We watched the fire spread and the smoke rise and the spire fall, and we mourned with the French at such a loss, even if we couldn’t quite explain why it hurt so much.

This was the beginning of Holy Week: an image of fire consuming a cathedral. What a dark way to start a dark week. Where will Paris celebrate its Chrism Mass, I wondered. Where will the cathedral parish celebrate Easter? Was the Eucharist saved? Was the Crown of Thorns? Was the art? It all seemed so hopeless.

Yet in the morning, the damage was assessed. The building survived, also with the Sacrament and the relics and the art. It will be a long time before Mass is said there again, but it will.

It’s a perfect start to Holy Week, because in the daylight, things aren’t so dark. Not all is lost. Jesus is captured and tortured and dies. It's scary and unjust, and we can't explain why it hurts so much. But in Easter morning we learn not all is lost. There is confusion and heartbreak, but once is disaster is over, there is hope.