On Good Friday, the Archbishop of Paris held a small service in Notre Dame Cathedral, during which the Crown of Thorns was venerated. Only a handful of people were permitted to attend, and one of them, French actress Judith Chemla, concluded the service with the Ave Maria.

This, it seems to me, is the embodiment of Christendom in 2020: a tiny group of people standing amidst the half-ruined works of our ancestors, looking up at the cross and the few relics that have been preserved, and offering an ancient prayer into the silence.