“Hold high the cross, so I may see it through the flames.”—St. Joan of Arc, before being burned at the stake.

***

A holocaust of love

Burns boldly through the dusk.

Cruciform, a candle gleams,

In a city’s heart, consumed.

A thorny crown surrounds that heart,

Drawing blood in Paris streets.

A crimson tide flows through the years

To the roll of tumbrel wheels

and the song upon the scaffold.

Here the Savior’s Body hangs,

Slain anew each waking hour

Through the altar’s sacrament

Or the sting of sin and death.

Christ is all in all undone,

Heart melting in His chest

Like the Paschal candle’s wax,

Or the glass of Notre Dame,

Or the Virgin Mary’s tears,

Hot with loss.

A spire singes the sky

Like the dying robber’s cry,

“Save yourself and us

If You be of God!”

And the spire, anguished, cracks,

While the world, dumbstruck, plummets.

A pillar of cloud turned pillar of flame

Guides us, but we know not where.

For how could God be smitten

In His holiest of homes?

God is dead; they shake their heads.

Yes, He is dead, that Man upon the tree,

Lungs submitting to suffocation

Like the cathedral’s smoke-stained walls.

Could not this place of sanctuary

Claim sanctuary for herself?

Could not He who healed the crippled

Free His pinioned arms and fly?

Mysterium Fidei, chant the saints,

Gazing down among gargoyle heads.

This is the Mystery of the Faith.

The bells their riddles weave:

“What is truly monstrous,

And what truly sublime?”

Is the glow caressing night

More of Heaven than of Hell?

When dawn kisses the rose window,

The cross of gold stands defiant,

And the Maid of Orleans cries out,

Down through the blaze of history,

“Hold it high, through the flames!”

We are watchers of the night,

And heralds of the morning.

We are pilgrims of the riddle

And the hymn of Notre Dame.

We will form a human chain,

Like a string of rosary beads,

Stretching from earth to sky,

Salvation within reach.

We will sing our last Aves,

As did the martyred sisters,

And share the Mother’s sorrow

Going forth to the Third Day.

We are the Easter people;

Hallelujah is our song.