Solace

Death Knell for Catholic Martyrs of Nice

Martyrs of Compiègne

Guillotined on July 17, 1794, the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Compiègne were executed for their unwavering vows of obedience to Christ. During the Reign of Terror, these women offered themselves as victim sacrifices to God: they prayed daily for the restoration of peace and faith throughout their beloved France; and they refused to abandon their monastic community even after the civil government demanded the dissolution of the Christian faith. The vulnerability, goodness, and martyrdom displayed by women such as these is startling in its simplicity and virtue. These sixteen women speak to us still today from their mass grave in Paris---Salve Regina!

Honegger's "Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher"

Marion Cotillard is a wonder as St. Joan of Arc, La Pucelle, the young virgin saint who fought for France and her dauphin king in the name and glory of God. The actors, the opera singers, and the choirs (adult and youth alike) perform the drama, tragedy, and mystery surrounding Joan of Arc's purposeful Christian life and eventual execution by fire for heresy. It wasn't until the early twentieth century that the Church finally canonized her as a bona fide saint.... Honegger's music and script (directly from the written records of Joan's trial and execution) is a dramatic, heart-wrenching, and beautiful tribute to "Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher" or "Joan of Arc at the stake". Joan of Arc is a militantly fervent example of a truly Christian life.

Spirituality and Gregorian Chant

Lately, I've been reading voraciously about ancient liturgy and its corresponding music. There is such a rich history of virtue, humility, and beauty in the Gregorian chant, and yet, many Christians today have hardened their hearts to the majesty of this transcendental spirituality found in the chant. This is the best book I've encountered so far. Reflections on the Spirituality of Gregorian Chant is an expanded compilation and translation of Dom Jacques Hourlier's notes from lectures that he gave from Solesmes about the importance of the chant. The Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes is a benedictine monastery in Sarthe, France, now dedicated to the timeless preservation of the Gregorian chant. Seriously, after listening to the prayers of these monks and seeing the beautiful environment in which they pray [see video below], how can one not believe that the beauty of the chant and the rhythms of monastic life point to anything other than timeless truth which is God?

                     

Dom Hourlier argues that, "Unlike many of today's compositions, the chant does not permit mediocrity. It is impossible to pray using mediocre means. Instead, as Saint Pius X said, the people of God feel the need to pray through beautiful music….The prayer of Gregorian chant is the public prayer of the Church; it leads to union with God" (10).

The chant also "helps you to become a more authentic person" (11) insofar as one must embrace a spirit of humility to the text and the ancient notations without adding improvisational artifice or theatrical ornamentation so as to make your voice or talent stand out above others. Rather, the chant is meant to bring the entire Christian community into prayer in a unison voice. As Dom Hourlier posits, "It totally refuses to play upon our gregarious instincts and never elicits a purely human fellowship. That is, although it establishes a profound sense of unity among cantors and listeners, this unity is not its primary function or effect. For the union it establishes among the faithful seems to flow from the communion it has already established between each individual and the Creator" (40).

These monks assume that there are necessary conditions or moral dispositions for Gregorian chant to be executed. "Singing, as you know, implies the willingness to listen: in choir, we need to listen to our neighbors, and we must pay constant and careful attention to the melody itself. Here you stress the need to practice discretion, which presupposes humility" (15).

In our world today, however, Gregorian chant has too often been marginalized as a useless relic of the past. "We live in a world that respects absolutely nothing" (23), and yet, the profanations of the Gregorian chant (i.e., background music in movies or radio, university survey classes, caricatures of the monastic life) end up doing only good. These snippets of Gregorian chant often lead people "to an authentic interest in the liturgy---and eventually to conversion" (ibid.). How can this be a bad thing? A profanation is something that is "outside the Church," and yet it always stands in contradistinction to the Holy of Holies that is the Eucharist. To bring a little taste of the Eucharist, through the chant, into the secular world is a blessing that the chant can provide.

I love Simone Weil's quote that Dom Hourlier often invoked: "It is quite conceivable that someone who is a passionate music lover might at the same time be evil or corrupt as a person. But I would find it hard to believe that such a thing could be true of anyone who has a thirst for Gregorian chant" (24).

Dom Hourlier continues, "All sacred languages tend to create a certain holy or 'hieratic' atmosphere. They build a wall between the sacred and the secular, between the words of prayer and the common speech of everyday life. A sacred language is not meant to be immediately intelligible to just anyone" (26). This is not to say that only scholars of ancient languages have access to the divine; rather, the encounter with the divine is a mystical interaction that defies our human languages wrought as they are with imperfections, divisions, and transitoriness. The hieratic atmosphere that the chant creates thereby leads a person to prayerful union with the divine insofar as it evacuates the profane from our midst and leads us into total consecration to God (53).

The chant seems to be "sui generous" (41) in its simplicity and in its evocation of the truth through beauty. As prayer, it captures the following attributes: purity, simplicity, dignity, discretion, humility, calm, gravitas, serenity, balance, gentleness, strength, and peace (46).

Finally, Dom Hourlier argues that "We are given the music we deserve. We hear music and are enriched by it according to our receptive capacities…we must make a sincere effort to better ourselves. A person of good will can only grasp the spiritual message of music when he begins to deepen himself and to attain inner peace. Only in this way can he open himself up to the infinite, and rediscover the source from which all music flows" (63-64).

Hotel de l'Abbaye

The last time we were in Paris we stayed at the Hotel de l'Abbaye in the seventh (St. Germain) arrondissement. I appreciated the wallpapered interiors, the container-garden courtyard walk-up, the petit-dejeuner with pain au chocolat and jus d'orange pressé, and the friendly people. The nicest thing was that the staff endured my stilted French and played along as I tried to rescue the French language from the recesses of my memory. It always takes a couple days to get it all going again, you know? tu sais? Missing this place just thinking about it!

Le Tour de France

After the debacle of Lance Armstrong's dethroning from his epic seven-time victories in the Tour de France, I had sworn off my love for this July-long bike race. I had been watching the Tour for over a decade, and then between Lance, and Floyd, and Alberto, and even Frank Schleck implicated in various drug scandals, I gave up my July hobby as an act of protest for all of those clean riders (like Cadel Evans, for example) who were denied their yellow fame and glory owing to all of the cheats and frauds out on the pavement. But this year, my brother was in town for the Fourth of July, and Andy convinced/coerced me to watch the Tour yet again, if even for a day. I couldn't help myself. Now I'm full in. Back in the saddle (voyeuristically), just as obsessed as I was a couple of years ago before all of the disillusionment. The riders in the Tour de France are amazing athletes who ride through apocalyptic thunderstorms, navigate icy cobblestone streets, climb beyond-categorization mountains, speed down precipitous declines, consistently put their bodies into the red zone of heartbeat activity, and do so for twenty-plus days on the metaphorical road(s) toward Paris. The strategies, the egos, the teammates left behind (Bradley Wiggins, Team Sky?!), the knock-out sprint finishes, the tumbles, the bruises, the interplay between the domestiques and the GC riders, the announcers' man-love for Fabian Cancellara (AKA Spartacus), the virtual tourism of the beautiful French countryside, the goofy road paraphernalia, and the drama of each stage victory make the Tour de France the most amazing sporting event ever (even surpassing the World Cup, playing today as I write). Vive Le Tour…I hope to see you in person someday soon!

Chantelivre

Chantelivre is the best place to look for kids' books while shopping in Paris. I mistakenly assumed that I could stock up on les livres pour enfants at any regular Parisian bookstore, but as I discovered, their selections were often scant, outdated, or translations of popular English books I could already buy at home or clunky French translations of Spanish or Italian children's literature. As Chantelivre's website states, "à une époque beaucoup de libraires refusent d'avoir un rayon de livres pour enfants qui ne soient pas strictement éducatifs." In other words, French bookstores once refused to offer children's books other than those written for strictly educational purposes (enacting centuries of debate over the proper education of children a la John Locke or Jean-Jacques Rousseau). Chantelivre departs from this outdated paradigm and offers books upon books for little ones and adolescents alike without worry that that which entertains somehow detracts from a suitable educational trajectory.

Chantelivre also boasts a primo location in the Saint-Germaine-des-Prés sixth arrondissement: at 13 Rue de Sèvres, it is in close proximity to the Bon Marche and all of the boutique stores surrounding it. The neighborhood itself may not be the most kid-friendly due to its high-end reputation, but this bookstore competes with its Hermes/Tods/Ferragamo luxury neighbors owing to its impeccable selection, its expert staff, and its beautiful merchandising and airy light-filled space…and it's kid-friendly too. Chantelivre really is a "songbook" as its name suggests!