Mozart!

Last night Marianne took me for my birthday to a performance of Mozart's Requiem at the l'Eglise de la Madeleine (Church of St. Magdalene) which is a famous church in the heart of Paris. Like most of the Catholic churches in Paris, it has a very interesting history - especially during the French Revolution. The Madeleine was being built when the Revolution brought it to a stop. The French state changed the plans for the building: it would be a 'temple' dedicated to the war heros of the French Republic! Well, at the Restoration of the monarchy, Napoleon thankfully decided to go ahead with the plans for building a church instead. The building is massive; and the style is "neo-classical": at this time architecture, as well as other arts, were marked by a conviction that the height of art was achieved in the classical age with Greece and Rome (as opposed to, say, the Gothic style of high medieval period with its pointy spires and gargoyles and flying buttresses). So the building is inspired by a classical Roman temple. Here's a picture: check out the columns and the frieze (Last Judgment) above the portico.

Inside the Madeleine there is no stained glass; there are not even any windows: the only natural light comes through the very top through two glass-tipped domes. It's interesting to think about what the experience inside churches was before electric light: there was only natural light filtered through windows and candle light. The whole experience must have been much more naturally enchanting... Back then it must have been so much easier to experience the natural world's ways of "proclaiming the glory of God".

I just found on youtube somebody else's home video of another performance of Mozart's Requiem by the same choir (The Amadeus Choir) in the Madeleine. In the video you can see some of the interior of the Madeleine: the choir stands on the steps of the high altar in the front of the church. Above the altar is a beautiful statute of St. Mary Magdalene surrounded by some dancing angels called the Ravissement de sainte-Marie Madeleine, which is a symbolic depiction of the moment of her death and the flight of her soul to the Lord. Above her, your eyes are then directly lifted up to a mosaic of the Resurrected Lord in triumph over death and surrounded by the saints. You can see to his right (your left) Mary Magdalene with her costly perfume placed at his feet (check out John ch. 11).

This video below is of the very famous Lacrimosa section. A Requiem (Latin for "Rest") is a funeral Mass put to music. So the text is from the church's liturgy (although today this hymn is no longer used in funerals). Lacrimosa is Latin for "tearful": it's a section of the Dies irae hymn, which means "Day of Wrath." Here's the Latin with a translation:

Lacrimosa dies illa,
[That day full of tears]
qua resurget ex favilla
[when shall rise up out of the ashes]
iudicandus homo reus.
[the guilty man to be judged.]
Huic ergo parce, Deus
[Spare him then, Lord.]
pie Jesu domine,
[Merciful Lord Jesus]
dona eis requiem. Amen.
[give him rest. Amen.]

The wonderful Protestant hymn-writer John Newton (author of "Amazing Grace") translated the hymn for use in Protestant liturgy ["Day of Judgment! Day of Wonders!"]. There is a lot of mystery surrounding Mozart's composition of the Requiem. It is true that Mozart wrote the Requiem after a mysterious masked visitor came to his door and commissioned it. Mozart himself believed that the visitor was an emissary of the Angel of Death and that he was being commissioned to write the music for his own funeral! Nobody said artistic geniuses weren't strange... It is also true that Mozart died before finishing the piece and his understudy at the time completed it. We know Mozart himself wrote most if it, including the Lacrimosa. There is something so haunting and sublime about it. It pulses with an awareness of the reality of God's judgment at the resurrection from the dead but is somehow simultaneously combined with a pleading hope in his mercy on that day when we "all appear before the judgment seat of Christ" (2 Cor. 5:10). So here's the video:

Kandinsky

Hi. That's me with one of the Kandinsky's at the Pompidou Center in Paris, which is the huge, ugly and very important museum of modern art in Paris. Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian born artist who died in 1944. He lived and died a Russian Orthodox Christian and his work is profoundly influenced by his faith. He is one of the earliest so-called "abstract" artists. This is probably the wrong label for Kandinsky - despite appearances - because if "abstract" art is based on an act of "abstracting" from the things of the world in order to offer a representation that expresses a meaning normally hidden from view, then Kandinsky is not doing that at all. Kandinsky does not paint the appearances at all; rather he paints pure "spiritual" experience - there is no "representation", that is, no relation of an observer to things in the world in his later works.

Michel Henry, one of the most interesting French philosophers at the turn of last century, wrote a book on Kandinsky called Seeing the Invisible. It is a great little book and was translated into English a few years ago. Kandinsky himself was as profound a philosopher of art as he was a profound artist: he wrote a number of books developing his theories of the meaning of art. They've all been translated into English. One of the most important is called Concerning the Spiritual in Art, written in 1910 (you can download it for free on the Project Gutenberg website).

Kandinsky was concerned with the feeling of color and line and the relation between them. So, we all know that red in a baby's room is probably not a good idea because it tends to make him or her anxious or upset; blue is a soothing color, etc. With lines there is something similar: a curve or an egg-shaped circle is peaceful or attractive, whereas a jagged line is unsettling. Kandinsky's thought and his art are based on an attempt to understand and implement the spiritual significance of the various "tonalities" related to each simple element available to an artist (line, point and color), particularly in their complex interaction with each other. If there is some "reality" to these tonalities, some reason for their particular significances, then there is something to what Kandinsky is saying in his books and showing us in his paintings - even if, to the untrained eye, his works just look like random scribbles and blotches. But that's the challenge of modern art in general, and Kandinsky is one of the best. Here are some more of Kandinsky's pieces that we saw:

Follow the yellow brick road ...

I am beginning to go a bit crazy here in Paris. I stopped going to my art class so that we could save money for our moves, back to the states and then to Australia. Then the sisters at our church have been gone on a retreat for the past month and so I haven't been volunteering for them. Consequently, my weekly schedule has been a bit lacking! Chris and I are planning some fun outings here and there, but for the most part, I find myself pretty isolated in a French speaking world.

Not being an academic, I am unable to read day in and day out the introspective, internally- challenging (amazing!) books on my reading list without balancing it out with a bit more human interaction. So I am turning to fiction to get through these somewhat grueling days! On Saturday Chris and I headed over to W.H. Smith, an English bookstore here in Paris and I got The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (whose house we just visited a few weeks ago at Place des Vosges) and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I finished The Wonderful Wizard of Oz yesterday and so Chris and I re-watched the movie last night.

For those of you who haven't read the book, or maybe didn't even know that it existed - I highly recommend you "follow the yellow brick road" to your local bookstore and get it! It is a great book to read yourself or with a child. There are so many scenes and characters that are not represented in the film - In fact, in many ways, the film almost seems like an entirely different story!

One thing that may surprise you is that Dorothy's shoes that she acquires from the wicked Witch of the East are not ruby red - They're silver! Dorothy doesn't encounter the wicked Witch of the West until half way through the book. When the wicked Witch of the West sees Dorothy's silver shoes and the the kiss of the good Witch from the North on her forehead, she realizes that Dorothy is protected by the kiss, in  way that makes it impossible for the evil witch to harm her. She also knows that by wearing the silver shoes, Dorothy possesses great powers that she herself is unaware of!

Now a common problem that (I think) I had in college, being an English major, was that I would often read my own themes or interests into a book - and well, I couldn't help doing that with reading through The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (Does anyone else have this problem?) For example, I couldn't help connecting the kiss of the good Witch from the North on the forehead with confirmation - our being sealed with the Holy Spirit. No evil spirit can have power over us when the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us and so, being a Christian, I know that in a very important sense, I am protected from evil! Secondly, Dorothy's silver shoes reminded me of the graces we receive through the sacraments. Through the sacraments, we are given the grace to become more like Christ - to put off our old self, and to put on the new! And I can't help but wonder how little we tap into that? Just like Dorothy, we own a pair of magical shoes that, if we click them together and use them like we should, they can in a sense - take us home. I was listening to a NT Wright lecture on virtue, and he was saying that when we foster the habits of virtue, we are learning the way of being that will be the norm in the new heavens and the new earth!

Of course, when the wicked Witch of the East is melted with something as simple as water, it was hard then not to reflect on the way water is symbolic throughout all of Scriptures - from God passing judgment and also showing great mercy by the flood waters and then when Moses led the Israelites through the Red Sea, only so that once they were safely across, the waves could come crushing down on the Egyptians. In all of these examples, God brings light out of darkness and in so doing he often destroys what was dark.

I have not the slightest inkling of a thought that this is what L. Frank Baum meant to communicate in his book. He states explicitly in the introduction that the book is truly just meant "solely to pleasure children." But maybe it's a sign that it really is a good book, if I can get so much out of it? If you think I have gone too far, at the very least, you can enjoy the book for all of the many details not included in the film, like the special green tinted glasses everyone must wear when entering the "Emerald" city or the magical idea of the golden cap that gives anyone who possesses it the chance to have three wishes answered by the flying monkeys, or the "real" story on how the tin man lost his heart. It is definitely a classic worth reading!

"Chantons avec toute l'église"

Bonjour tout le monde ("Hi everybody")! This is Chris. I wanted to see what this blogging thing was all about. So I asked Marianne to let me do a guest post. I thought I would share with you the 'chant d'entrée' (song of entry) we sang this morning at our church, La Basilique Notre Dame des Victoires, near the Louvre. It is good to have the sisters back, Les sœurs Bénedictines du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, the monastic community who have a profound ministry in our parish. They have returned recently from their annual January retreat. In a human perspective, they are the heart and soul of our parish. And the best thing about them is their contagious joy in the Lord. They are full of vibrant and simple and powerful faith. No frills, no show, just Jesus Christ. That is what it is all about for them. One of the best things for me is their singing. Today's chant d'entrée especially carried me up into the worship of the Church and prepared me in a new way to meet the Risen Lord. Here's the refrain that we sang as the procession of the Cross passed through the midst of the people of God and up to the altar:

CHANTONS AVEC TOUTE L'ÉGLISE
(Let us sing with all the Church)
LA JOIE DONNÉE PAR LE SEIGNEUR,
(the joy given by the Lord)
ENTRONS AU COEUR DE SON ALLIANCE
(Let us enter into the heart of his Covenant)
OU LA VIE DE DIEU JAILLIT POUR TOUS:
(where the Life of God bursts forth for all:)
JÉSUS-CHRIST, TEMOIN FIDÈLE,
(Jesus Christ, the Faithful Witness)
OUVRE-NOUS LES PORTES DU CIEL !
(open for us the Gates of Heaven!)

I think I like this refrain so much because it has a rich, dynamic movement, from us to Jesus Christ, from earth to heaven. It is composed of three imperatives. The first two are words to ourselves: "Let us sing..." and "Let us enter...". We assemble together as one body to face the Lord, to meet with him, who is alive and reigning over all things, even death. We don't meet the Lord alone, we meet him together with all the Church. Just like the dynamic movement in the song, in the Liturgy of the Mass we go forward ahead of history itself to meet the Lord who is coming. And what do we do when we meet him? We give thanks (eu-charistia)!

The first line of the refrain comes from Psalm 95, the "Invitatory Psalm," which is the first hymn sung everyday by millions of people in the Hours of the Daily Office, whose first verse says: "Come, let us sing to the Lord." In this first song of the liturgy today we also said: "Let us sing." And we do not sing alone. We sing "with all the Church," which stretches from the circles and circles of creatures and elders and angels and saints around the Throne of God in heaven, all the way into the visible world and all over the earth. All creation is represented in the Church (from the highest angels all the way down to material things like the stone of our altars, the bread and wine of the Eucharist, the water of baptism, the oil of anointing and the light of candles, etc.). I love that the first thing we do as Christians is sing. And our singing is marked above all by joy (the second fruit of the Spirit). That is the first imperative.

And then, with this awareness of meeting the Lord together in joy we encourage ourselves, in the second imperative, to be renewed, to "enter into the heart" of God's covenant with all humanity. And the heart of the covenant, "where the Life of God bursts forth for all," is Jesus Christ, who is given the title in Revelation of "The Faithful Witness" (check it out: Rev. 1:5). And it is right here, at the center of the covenant, filled with joy, that we roll over into the third imperative, which is a petition, a prayer: "Jesus Christ, the Faithful Witness, open for us the Gates of Heaven!" We are saying, here we are Lord, Your people. In You the Life of God bursts forth through the Gates of Heaven and we are ushered into the Holy of Holies at the center of the universe! Heaven and earth are joined together in the Resurrected Jesus and we Christians, by God's mercy, are caught up in the middle of this movement. And the main word that marks all this is joy: this is what it means to be a Christian on Sunday!

To hear the sisters click here: A taste (or sound) of Paris

A Question for St. Francis

St. Francis was asked who should be considered truly obedient and this was his reply:

"Take a corpse," he said,"and put it where you will! You will see that it does not resist being moved, nor murmur about it's position nor protest when it is cast aside. If it is placed on a throne, it will not raise it's eyes up, but cast them down. If it is clothed in purple, it will look twice as pale. This," he said, "is a truly obedient man. He does not judge why he is moved; he does not care where he is placed; he does not insist on being transferred. If he is raised to an office, he retains his customary humility. The more he is honored, the more unworthy he considers himself."

The life of St. Francis
Bonaventure

The foolishness of Christ

A modern day saint?

Throne of Grace

The first Sunday of the month all museums are free so Chris and I went to the Musée du Moyen Âge last weekend.  One of my favorite pieces, Throne of Grace, was from a special exhibit Gold and Fire where they featured Slovakian works. It reminded me of something that Pope Benedict said in his recent book Light of the World about the crucifix being the supreme symbol of God's absolute love for us.

Here are some other highlights from our visit:

 St. Denis was the Bishop of Paris in the 3rd century. He was martyred. His head was chopped of and it is said that he walked several miles holding it, preaching the whole way!

 Adam

 St. John

 Tombstones used to give a general portrait of the person who died in reference to their employment while they were living.

 Mary Magdalene

 The head of John the Baptist

 The Mysterious Sixth Sense

 Sight

 Smell

 St. Michael the Archangel

A book that teaches knights how to fight