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Where light meets heaven: Pope Leo XIV at Notre-Dame
In the iconic Parisian Cathedral flooded with light, Pope Leo XIV celebrates Vespers with the French Church calling it, like Notre Dame, to be reborn, to bring light out of the darkness of ashes.
By Isabella H. de Carvalho – Paris
Light inundated Notre-Dame as Pope Leo XIV celebrated vespers in Paris’ beloved Cathedral.
It felt like a fitting celebration for the restored and renewed basilica, a place of worship and iconic symbol of the “Ville Lumière“, badly damaged by fire on 15 April 2019.
On that day, dramatic images and videos of the cathedral engulfed in flames, and of people praying in the streets as the fire consumed the building, spread around the world through social media and news outlets.
Today, the French Church has come together again. This time to rejoice, as the Pope visited the Cathedral and celebrated Vespers, almost two years after its reopening in December 2024, following a long and meticulous restoration process.
As the sun shone through the stained-glass windows, colorful patterns moved slowly across the walls. Meanwhile, an organ played and the choir sang while the bishops, priests, consecrated men and women, seminarians, and other members of the French Church solemnly prayed together with the Successor of Peter.
Before the Vespers, Pope Leo venerated a relic of the crown of thorns, which was placed on Christ’s head during his Passion. A symbol of his suffering and sacrifice before his Resurrection.
“We are gathered for Evening Prayer in this place which, more than any other, has invited the people of Paris for centuries to lift their eyes towards heaven,” Pope Leo said in his homily.
At the time of the fire, he continued, “we also watched anxiously, conscious of how powerless humans are in the face of the unforeseen.“
“In that tragic moment we came to realize that Notre-Dame is more than a monument. The collective effort to rebuild it, and the splendour of the result reveal that the heart of a people beats here, and that here we stand at the living center of a civilization, where past and future embrace, where heaven and earth meet.”
Read the full text of the Pope’s homily
The Pope ended his homily by encouraging the Church in France to be “living stones of a Church that hopes and does not fear the future.“ This Cathedral, he said, “has been reborn so that you too may be reborn with it in a new impetus towards holiness and daily mission.”
Bring God’s love to all, he said to those present, a love which has the power to change lives and hearts and heal the deepest of wounds: to bring light out of the darkness of ashes.
“Let us lift our eyes towards the fourteenth-century statue of the Virgin and Child, which was untouched by the fire and now shines, once again, before us.”
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