It’s not unusual for vacationers in Europe to say at some point, “I’m tired of seeing churches.” And it’s true, Europe has lots of churches, especially church buildings that are considered “historic” and “must see.” On our recent trip to France, we certainly saw our share of churches, including one of the most visited tourist sites in all of Europe, Paris’ iconic Notre Dame.

France, like much of Europe, is not a very religious country. The French Revolution in the late 18^th century was violently anti-church, with thousands of priests killed or exiled and countless religious buildings and artworks damaged or destroyed. Catholicism revived somewhat afterwards but its place in society remains controversial to this day. An interesting quirk is that since 1905 most church buildings have been owned by national or local governments, which pay their expenses. Nonetheless, private donations more than covered the nearly $1 billion needed for Notre Dame’s recent post-fire repairs.

A half-dozen major gothic churches are scattered across northern France, many drawing thousands of tourists every year. Since reopening, Notre Dame has drawn over 11 million visitors annually. That’s about 30,000/day, which our visit would confirm. As we slowly moved through its magnificent interior, I wondered what all these people were doing here. Religion, history, architecture, and curiosity likely all play their roles.

The more one looks at and understands these structures, the more amazing they become. The artistry and skill in their creation are unparalleled. What was the energy that built and sustained these magnificent buildings? And why do our jaws still drop today when we see them? During the revolutionary period, it was seriously proposed that Notre Dame be torn down. It may sound outrageous, but if religion had been abolished, why keep it? Today we tear down unneeded buildings all the time. (That it wasn’t torn down at the time was due mostly to the expense.)

Entering a church like Notre Dame, it’s almost impossible not to feel one has entered a different world. And that is, of course, because you have. The medieval piety that created Europe’s monumental cathedrals is beyond our understanding. And yet, in some way, not beyond our appreciation. We can’t, and wouldn’t want to, go back to the Middle Ages. But these ancient buildings nonetheless retain some qualities we know our world lacks, to our detriment. They elicit, however subtle, a sense of longing for something lost.

According to theology professor Bradley Green, one of the things we miss is a sense of “telos.” Telos is an ancient Greek term meaning end, purpose, or goal. Green believes one of the characteristics of the modern world is the lack of belief that civilization or our individual lives are going somewhere.

“For many moderns … they would believe that we live in a world that’s not headed somewhere, that the human person is not really headed anywhere. And once you lose that sense of telos, we shouldn’t be surprised if a real sense of despair breaks into the world or dominates the world.”

That wasn’t the case, Green says, in the pre-modern Christian world where people felt they were “pilgrims” heading somewhere: heaven or hell, the kingdom of God, Augustine’s “City of God”, or however it was felt or understood. Medieval cathedrals convey that sense of transcendent purpose. Their size, their cost and time in building, their grandeur and mystical quality all speak of a dimension of reality beyond our day-to-day existence, a dimension beckoning us toward it.

As I say, we can’t go back to the Middle Ages. We all like electricity and indoor plumbing too much, and we can’t un-know the things we all surely know. The ancient layer-cake universe has been blown apart, never to be reassembled. It is vast and ageless beyond our comprehension. Nor can we reserve some corner of it, call it Heaven, for a human-like great Being, call it God. None of that works anymore.

But what then? What is our modern “telos”? What gives us purpose and direction now? So much of our modern culture’s attributes seem to be getting exaggerated to the point of absurdity: our quest for more and better stuff, for power and pleasure, for longevity, for physical performance and perfection, for experiences, for recognition and celebrity. And what is ironic is that we pursue them knowing we have been set up to fail. We won’t reach the telos they claim to promise us.

Step into a medieval cathedral, however, and we hear echoes of a different possibility. Or a great mosque or an ancient Asian shrine. Or walk through a deep forest, reach a mountain’s summit, or stand on an ocean shore. All these and more like them trigger some awareness within us of a void longing to be filled, of an energy longing to be channeled and directed.

The grief and tears of the French watching Notre Dame burn was not the sign of some religious revival. Nor was their commitment to and joy at its rebuilding. Rather, they came from a deep and perhaps unspeakable sense, “We cannot lose this building.” Similarly, the millions that pass through its vast space may also sense, “There is something important here I need to pay attention to.” Today, as our world stumbles from one calamity to another, our immediate telos may be to listen to those urges within us and figure out what they are trying to tell us for our own well-being.

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