Benedict XVI in Paradise!

"Is it morning or evening?"
My breath would catch, then it would resume. As if giving a sign of a defect. He let me go. The pneuma was leaving me. I sighed that I was ready. My God I love! But, the breath came back, the air of nothing, as if he had gone out to run an errand. The memoir is out.
I knew G. was coming. I hoped that my last strength would last until his return. I was waiting for him to go into agony. I felt no tension. I think everything went quickly afterwards. Time is rushing. I heard different sounds that don't seem to all belong to the same universe. It gave me a vague torpor like you feel when you're comatose. Sounds coming from several dimensions. G arrived with two sisters, my little memories who had taken such good care of me all these years.
I heard perfectly what was being said. The soul has ears, doesn't it? I gauged which witnesses would be present during my judgment. I questioned my angel, but he did not answer. Was he already called to pave my way? I could hear G. speaking to me in his melodious voice to reassure me, but I couldn't answer him. This is certainly what decided him to bless me and offer me the last sacrament. My voice no longer came out. I understood that this time, she would never go out again. My voice on Earth died out at that moment. It started like this. She had betrayed me before, however this time, I understood that it was final. I no longer exerted any force to make her change her mind. I felt that parts of me were becoming independent of me. I wanted to repeat: my God whom I love! I say it without a voice. From the look, G. understood me. The soul has ears. G. knelt down the moment I felt like I was slipping. I remembered myself, as a child, slipping on a pool of freezing water and finding myself on my buttocks, spinning on my own. My eyes closed on this delicious memory of mom and dad laughing at the bursts of my fall, my very dear brother was also laughing at their side, then he helped me to get up. My dear parents who had given me life in a difficult time and who, at the cost of great renunciations, had prepared a marvelous home for me with their love. Everything happened very quickly. I left my body. I understood that the soul was the real I. I still felt my limbs. It was strange. I felt someone coming. Everything was going very fast. A person was approaching. He was familiar to me. How did I know? It was like a new sense that preceded all my lost senses. I knew who was coming even though I didn't see anyone, besides my vision was blurring, it was getting confused, but I knew, I felt that someone was standing in front of me.

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Argentina wins against globalism

Never has a World Cup started so badly.  Offered in Qatar, with Zinédine Zidane as ambassador, in a suspicious climate of corruption. Everything has been said about this country, as big as half of Brittany, managing to change the season of the World Cup for the first time since its existence, air-conditioning its stadiums, and killing workers on the job so that all stadiums are ready on time. About the change of date: playing in the summer after the club season, allowed to prepare the players and to form a group, which is always difficult with national teams, the chemistry has to happen in a short time and the results must be immediate; playing in winter guarantees having players who have not played an entire season, who are therefore less mentally and physically worn out and who benefit from their pre-season preparation… Regarding the workforce, have we ever heard of the low-cost labor that has been used systematically for decades at every High Mass organization around the world? Similarly, the argument of gossiping about the health of players at risk in this climate was laughable. Who cared about the health of players at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, for example, where impossible heat and humidity reigned, this organization did not move the world at the time. The choice of Qatar should have been denounced as soon as the name of this country rustled, afterwards, it was too late and decency should have prevailed. In terms of play, this World Cup marked the end of an extraordinary generation: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi played their last World Cup. This World Cup was announced as the advent of Mbappé. The young French prodigy was about to bury the old glories without firing a shot.

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Father Garrigou-Lagrange about the enemies of the Church!

The Church is uncompromising in principle, because she believes, and tolerant in practice, because she loves. The enemies of the Church are on the contrary tolerant in principle, because they do not believe, but intransigent in practice, because they do not love. The Church absolves sinners, the enemies of the Church absolve sins.

Paradise Lost by Sebastien de Courtois


There is a nostalgia for a lost paradise. We all feel it, more or less; it connects us to original sin and to the fall. This disease torments pure souls. She heels and waves. Illness of youth if ever there was one, romantic madness, this nostalgia is at the heart of Sébastien de Courtois' novel, L'ami des beaux jours .

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Of the authority

In ancient Greece, men know each other and recognize each other in the eyes of their family, their loved ones, their community. Women reserve the mirror for themselves, which is about beauty, femininity and seduction. Reflection is everywhere. "There is no place that does not see you" summarizes Rilke. Can we exist without worrying about our reflection? Can we be aware of ourselves without knowing ourselves? Can one be aware of oneself without being recognized? One can have a self-image, but it can be very far from oneself. Thus man should not see himself in the mirror for fear of being absorbed by his image. This image that manages to make us forget that we are there. If we think what we see, if it resonates with us, we dream it too. Our image escapes us as soon as we see it. Thus the woman adjusts herself in the mirror when the man could get lost there, drown there. The dream, binomial of memory, conceals time and numbs it. What did we see and when? The gaze and the imagination interpenetrate and cannot be dissociated. To see and to know oneself merges among the Greeks. To see, to know oneself... but not too much, because if man is a marvel, in the sense of an incident, of a fascinating fracture within the living as the chorus of Antigone says, he also conceals his own terror, he exterminates and tortures himself, and he is indeed the only "animal" in this case.

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Learn Gregorian Chant

It was in June 1985, in Pont-à-Mousson, at the end of the symposium “Music in the Church today”. Maurice Fleuret — in peace be his soul — Minister Jack Lang's magnificent director of music and dance, took the floor. Word of fire. Of supplication; one can say so, since he himself begged. I will quote him ad sensum, but this word I have never forgotten: it is his. Evoking what Western music, from its origins to the present day, owed to the Church, to the liturgy of the Church, what owed to the music of the Church the music of Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart , Beethoven, Stravinsky, Messiaen: everything . To the liturgical music of the Church, Western music owed everything, he said. And himself, Maurice Fleuret, in his own life as a musician, to the music of the Church, what did he owe? Everything . He owed her everything, he said. And this Western music which owed everything to the Church, to the liturgy of the Church, what did it owe to Gregorian chant? Everything , he said. To Gregorian chant, all Western music, he said, owed everything . But the Spirit of Gregorian chant, he said, this spirit which he could not imagine ceasing to breathe, where was it breathed? In the liturgy, he says. And that's when he begged the Church…: I beg you, he exclaimed, for the benefit of the ecclesiastics present, don't leave the monopoly of Gregorian chant to the State. It is made for the liturgy. And it is in the liturgy that it must be practiced.”

Even if the Gregorian is sung less (when Vatican II recommended it as the major chant of the liturgy, go figure), it remains the treasure of Europe. Maurice Fleuret, pupil of Olivier Messiaen and minister of Jack Lang, recalled it precisely above. The Gregorian was omitted by those who promulgated it, so it is difficult to see clearly. Those who take the time to go on retreat in monasteries or who, out of taste, listen to Gregorian chant know that it wins over believers and non-believers alike. The Gregorian turns out to be unclassifiable. Rooted and distant, powerful and delicate, humble and solemn, fragile and vigorous. Brother Toussaint, former monk of the Sainte Madeleine du Barroux abbey, now a hermit, offers Gregorian courses à la carte and whatever your level. He is an excellent teacher, and I can attest to that!

Brother Toussaint offers you very flexible formulas. You can follow the courses remotely or come on site (the Saint-Bède hermitage is located between Lyon and Grenoble). For the moment, he cannot yet accommodate anyone, even if in the long term he would like to build a small hostelry to receive guests... There are accommodations not very far from the hermitage. Anyone who knew Barroux in its early days knows the secret but avowed desire of Brother Toussaint to recreate this unique atmosphere and to receive a few guests to immerse them in almost perpetual prayer. In the immediate future, it is a good idea to start by learning to sing, which gives Brother Toussaint time to find the funds to increase his structure (patrons are welcome here!). The prices are decreasing if you come with several people. One hour, three days, all formulas are possible. Brother Toussaint will gladly come out of his eremitism to teach you the art of Gregorian chant.

Information: Learn Gregorian chant with a Benedictine monk

Reservations: https://frere-toussaint.reservio.com/

And the complete site where you can discover Brother Toussaint's articles on eremitism: https://www.ermites-saint-benoit.com/

The Pump by Clive Staples Lewis

"In the first place, you must get rid of that nauseating idea, the fruit of an inferiority complex manifesto and a worldly mind, that pomp, in the right circumstances, has anything in common with vanity or sufficiency. A celebrant who solemnly approaches the altar to celebrate, a princess led by her king in a noble and delicate minuet, a senior officer reviewing the honored troops during a parade, a butler in livery bringing food lavish at a Christmas banquet — all wear unusual attire and move with calculated and impeccable dignity. This does not mean that their gestures are in vain, rather docile; their gestures obey an imperative that presides over every solemnity. The modern habit of practicing ceremonies without any etiquette is no proof of humility; rather, it proves the powerless celebrant's inability to forget himself in the service, and his readiness to rush and spoil the pleasure proper to the ritual of placing beauty at the center of the world and making it accessible to him. »

Free translation by the blog author.

The Chief's Sacrifice

A book by Army Corps General Pierre Gillet published by Sainte-Madeleine editions

“Who is like God? »(1), the book of the army corps general Pierre Gillet, lists in an exhaustive way the qualities of a chief and draws up the Christian virtues necessary to the command. What could pass for an insider's book, a new TTA(1), becomes under the delicate and virile pen of Pierre Gillet, former corps commander of the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment, general commanding the rapid reaction corps - France , a poetry of being, imbued with spirituality, passion, perseverance and dignity.

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I chose you to see you fight under the flag of Christ!

Blessed Alain de la Roche (1) lamented the lukewarmness with which he recited his rosary, in a Dominican church in Paris, during the octave of All Saints 1465. Suddenly, Our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by several virgins:

“Don't run away, my son! she told him. If you have any doubts, either about me or about my companions, make the sign of the cross over us.

If we are visions of hell, we will suddenly disappear; if, on the contrary, we are visions of Heaven, we will remain, and the brighter still will be the radiance that springs from each of us. »

Alain makes his sign of the cross. The light of the apparition becomes more intense.

“O my son, have no more doubts! I am your virgin bride, the apparition told her; I still love you, and I still care about you.

But know that no one is without pain in this world; neither I, nor my Son, nor any of the saints here below have been without suffering. There is more: covered with the weapons of faith and patience, prepare yourself for trials even more difficult than those you have had to go through so far.

Because I didn't choose you to make you a soldier on parade, but to see you fight bravely and as a hero under the flag of Jesus Christ and under my own banner.

As for the dryness and the aridity which you experienced during the space of a few days, do not worry about it; it was I who wanted you to go through this ordeal; bear it as a pain and as a chastisement for your old faults; and also, receive it as a means of making progress in patience and in view of the Salvation of the living and the dead. »

(1) Alain de la Roche, born around 1428 near Plouër-sur-Rance in Brittany (France) and died in 1475 in Zwolle in the Netherlands, was a 15th century Dominican Breton monk. He is celebrated on September 9.

 

From Father René Laurentin

Lauda Zion

Magnificent sequence in the Mass of Corpus Christi, written by Saint Thomas Aquinas, this dogmatic poetry praises the new and true Sion, the Church. Benoit XVI said of this Mass: “These are texts that make the waves of the heart vibrate, while the intelligence, penetrating with wonder into the mystery, recognizes in the Eucharist the living and true presence of Jesus, of his Sacrifice of love that reconciles us to the Father and gives us salvation.”

Praise, Sion, your saviour, praise your leader and your pastor, with hymns and canticles.
As much as you can, dare to sing it, because it exceeds all praise, and you are not enough to praise it.
A special subject of praise is proposed to us today: it is the living and life-giving bread.
The bread that at the meal of the Holy Communion, Jesus really gave to the troop of the twelve brothers.
Let the praise be full and sonorous;
may it be joyful and beautiful, the jubilation of the soul. For today is the solemnity that recalls the first institution of this Supper.
At this table of the new King, the new Passover of the new law ends the ancient Passover.
The old rite is chased away by the new, the shadow by the truth;
the light dissipates the night. What Christ did at the Last Supper, he ordered to be done in memory of him.
Instructed by his holy orders, we consecrate the bread and the wine in the host of salvation.
It is a dogma given to Christians that bread becomes flesh and wine becomes meaning.
What you do not understand or see, living faith attests against the course of events.
Beneath various appearances, simple signs and non-realities, hide sublime realities.
The flesh is food, the blood drink;
however Christ remains whole on one and the other species. By whoever receives it, it is not broken or broken or divided, but received whole.
Only one receives it, a thousand receive it: each as much as the others;
taken as food, it is not destroyed. The good guys take it, the bad guys take it, but for a different fate: Life or death!
Death for the wicked, life for the good: see how different the outcome is from the same take.
If finally the sacrament is broken, do not be troubled, but remember that there is under each particle as much as the whole covers.
No scission of reality occurs: of the sign alone there is a rupture, and it diminishes neither the state nor the magnitude of the reality signified.
Here is the bread of the angels which has become food for travellers: it is truly the bread of children, which must not be thrown to the dog.
It is signified in advance by figures: the immolation of Isaac, the lamb set apart for the passover, the manna given to our fathers.
Good Shepherd, true bread, Jesus, have mercy on us: feed us, keep us, show us the real good in the land of the living.
You who know and can do everything, who feed here below the mortals that we are: make us up there your commensals, the co-heirs and the companions of the holy citizens of heaven.