During Advent 2000, I commented on the candles and images in Westminster Cathedral. There's always peace and quiet there and, regardless of one's beliefs, a sense of peace. There are times when people just need something like that. 11 September 2001 was one of those times. At work, friends and colleagues couldn't take in the enormity of what had happened. We burned transatlantic bandwidth tracing people we knew from the New York and Washington. Eventually, everyone was accounted for or, sadly, known to be missing.

Then, what most people needed was to be with someone. We watched newscasts together and phoned each other with snippets, because just sitting in silence on a telephone is an acquired skill. I wandered down to the Cathedral. There are always candles, but I've never seen so many. It seems it was a common reaction, to share the act of lighting a candle with others - of many faiths and in most cases complete strangers. Once again, the place felt like a European basilica.

Later, the chapel of Holy Souls was set aside as a sanctuary for prayers and remembrance for the dead and for those left to cope with the aftermath. There were more candles and offerings of flowers in front of an American flag.

Then something brought me up short. A gift from the Catholic Society of London, of a wreath of two hundred "peace doves", fine origami work strung into fronds. Although there are many Japanese in London, there can't be that many Catholics and I had a brief and slightly irreverent vision of all of them sitting in someone's lounge working together through the night.

The depth of meaning of a Japanese memorial to American dead wasn't lost on me and I hope my friends in Washington and elsewhere on the East Coast will appreciate the generosity of spirit of the gift. The prayer cards, a quotation from Cardinal Hume, begin "Grief cannot be shared, for it is my own". But this comes close. My heightened awareness caught something as I passed the statue of the Madonna. Someone had placed a rose in her lap - this is apparently not uncommon - and a few petals remained there. But on the floor below, a single petal lay, like perhaps a remembrance poppy.

Or a tear.