Tag: religion

Excerpt from The Holy Mass, yesterday, today and tomorrow , quotation from Mr. Dominique Ponnau, director of the Ecole du Louvre, Conference given in Le Mans, September 19, 1998.

"I remember. This memory is for me a cultural and human reference almost every day. 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 — the magnificent director of music and dance to Minister Jack Lang, friend of Pierre Mauroy, leftist, promoter as enlightened as he was determined of contemporary music, took the speech. 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.”

Christian testimony – 2

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When I started this blog, very quickly the idea of ​​writing on the liturgy came to me. Not to claim specialist status, but to share my experience of what is at the heart of a Christian's life. There were therefore two paths that had to merge: It was necessary to tell the mass (and its benefits), and then entrust the journey that had revealed it.

Part 2: Christianity, king of communities – At the foot of the altar

When I lived in London, the thought of spirituality never ceased to inhabit me. My quest boiled down to the permanent search for the inner life. This beating, throbbing heart could only be flesh and blood. That was my intuition. Twenty-five years later, it's a certainty that lives in me: not to let this heart beat and throb without giving it enough time, attention and affection. Unceasingly, seek to deepen this mystery which surrounds it. Anything that prevents this dialogue, anything that interferes with this connection, provokes my deepest contempt. This burning intimacy has perfect enemies hatched by the modern world, enemies like communitarianism and syncretism.

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On the stale air of our societies

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“We are told that the air of the world is unbreathable. I agree with that. But the first Christians found each morning at their door an atmosphere saturated with vices, idols, and incense offered to the divinities. They were for more than two hundred years relegated, slandered and marginalized by the current of the social river which carried them away and rejected them altogether. Do you think that the grace of their baptism kept them away from urban life almost in its entirety? They renounced taking part in major civic performances, such as the entry into office of a magistrate, or the triumph of a victorious general, because none of these ceremonies could be inaugurated without a sacrifice of incense offered to the emperor, divine character. The grace of their baptism kept them away from the thermal baths, a morning meeting place highly prized by the Romans, because of the nudity of their bodies and the shamelessness of their attitudes. They also gave up circus shows because of the scenes of cruelty that made them the main subject. But these early Christians formed a society, and this society by force of spirit broke through the shell of ancient paganism. Their earthly hope was limited to the desire not to die before seeing Christ return on the clouds, and they were the founders of Christian Europe. »

Dom Gérard, in Tomorrow Christianity

Speech by Donoso Cortes (1850)

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“Regular armies are the only thing today that prevents civilization from losing itself in barbarism.
Today we see a spectacle new in history, new in the world: when, gentlemen, did the world see, except in our day, that we are heading towards civilization through the arms and towards barbarism through ideas? Well, the world is seeing it as I speak. This phenomenon, gentlemen, is so serious, so strange, that it demands some explanation on my part. All true civilization comes from Christianity. This is so true that the whole civilization has been concentrated in the Christian zone. Outside this zone there is no civilization, everything is barbarism. And this is so true that before Christianity there were no civilized peoples because the Roman people and the Greek people were not civilized peoples. They were cultured people, which is very different. “Christianity has civilized the world by doing these three things: it has civilized the world by making authority inviolable, obedience a holy thing, self-denial and sacrifice, or better, charity a divine thing.
In this way Christianity civilized the nations. Well (and here is the solution of a great problem), the ideas of the inviolability of authority, the sanctity of obedience and the divinity of sacrifice, these ideas no longer exist in civil society. : they are in the churches where we adore the just and merciful God, and in the camps where we adore the strong God, the God of battles under the symbols of glory. And because the Church and the army are the only ones which have preserved the notions of the inviolability of authority, the sanctity of obedience and the divinity of charity, they are also the two representatives of European civilization. "I don't know, Gentlemen, if your attention will have been drawn like mine by the resemblance, the quasi-identity between the two persons who seem to be the most distinct, the most opposite, the resemblance between the priest and the soldier. Neither of them live for themselves, neither live for their families. For both, it is in sacrifice and self-denial that their glory is found. The soldier's job is to ensure the independence of civil society. The office of the priest is to watch over the independence of the religious society. The duty of the priest is to die, to give his life as the good shepherd for his sheep. The duty of the soldier, like a good brother, is to give his priestly life, the priesthood will appear to you, and indeed it is, like a veritable militia. If you consider the sanctity of the military profession, the army will seem to you a veritable priesthood. What would the world be, what would civilization be, what would Europe be if there were no priests or soldiers? »

The abandonment of Benedict XVI

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Ocean

“Eli, Eli lama sabachtani?” 1 When Benedict XVI signifies, in a few simple words, that he renounces the office of pope, it is an earthquake that shakes the world and strikes Catholics. The wildest rumors are circulating and everyone wonders about the causes of this decision which, even if it is not unique, causes amazement. Personally two feelings inhabit me: abandonment and sadness, its pilot fish, not to say desolation. The abandonment resembles an echo that keeps reproducing and growing, like a haunting complaint.

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A year that ends...

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On a year that is ending, we often cast a furtive glance. Don't linger too long. You never know how many things you've forced yourself to bury in memory might pop up again, like those impromptu, rude and irritating pop-ups on the Internet. The exercise that can be performed is to concentrate very strongly to extract the important events; the events that will make it possible to understand why they mattered so much; how they turned out to be decisive. It is also important not to lose sight of when the event occurs.

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Monsignor Centene...

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The Vannetais are well off people. The homily of Monsignor Centène in the Saint-Pierre de Vannes cathedral last Sunday is invigorating. This is not the first time that the homilies of Monseigneur Centène have been cited on Catholic sites, and given the quality of these, it is not about to end.

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Newman and Socrates

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The links between ancient Greek philosophy and Christianity are numerous. The most famous of the Greek precepts: Gnothi Seauton , "Know thyself", inscribed in Delphi retains a certain mystery. Another end of the sentence has stuck with us: “But not too much”… Know yourself… But not too much! Plato leads Socrates to reflect on the Delphic formula in the Philebus :

SOCRATES: In short, it is a species of vice which takes its name from a particular habit, and this part of vice in general is a disposition contrary to that recommended by the Delphi inscription.

PROTARCHUS: It is a precept: know thyself, that thou speakest, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Yes, and the opposite of this precept, in the language of the inscription, would be not to know oneself at all.
"Know thyself" in order to improve yourself, to erase in you what hinders your development. Not knowing himself is already a fault for Socrates. "But not too much", because man so easily believes himself much more than he is, son of Adam, man is the plaything of his presumption. “But not too much” so as not to take yourself for a god.
This is one of the foundations of Greek culture, the idea of ​​knowing oneself, the idea of ​​wisdom, of advancing in wisdom, but also the feeling that if you dig too deep, surprises can arise, and not necessarily good. The Greeks were very aware of man's weaknesses, his shortcomings. The Greeks are even, with the Christians, those who have most highlighted the possibility of human weakness, it is also what makes them so close to us. The weakness of man is expressed in their gospels, the tragedies. Pity and terror are the two pillars. Know yourself… but not too much.

Emotion at Notre-Dame du Lys

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It is a very beautiful emotion that all the assistance of the faithful of Notre-Dame du Lys felt this morning at the holy mass at 11:15 a.m. A delegation of Iraqi Christians from Baghdad was present as well as an Iraqi priest who had simple and touching words to testify to the massacre last October in Baghdad's cathedral. The recall of the facts by one of the witnesses of this carnage transported the assembly for a few seconds in deep contemplation. The young Iraqis present followed the Mass of the Extraordinary Rite with fervor and contemplation. Father Charles Fazilleau's beautiful sermon has been translated into Arabic so that Iraqis can learn the lessons of this Passion Sunday.

On leaving the chapel, the smiles and handshakes exchanged with these young men from the Orient who had already been so tried in their faith were a moving and joyful moment. Well beyond the language barrier, an infinite joy was reflected in the eyes. The joy of being alive in Christ.