Reflection on the Carmelite Martyrs - feast day of 17 July

     Last Friday, the Bishop, Father Kevin Slattery and I celebrated the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel with the Carmelites sisters of Jackson at their monastery on Terry Road in South Jackson.  The Bishop, Father Kevin and I have a very strong friendship with our Carmelite sisters.  I am actually in formation right now to become a secular Carmelite.  That feast day is the central feast day of their religious order.  

      The day after that feast day, on Saturday, July 17, we commemorated the feast day of a group of 16 Carmelite nuns who were martyred for the faith at the end of the French revolution: the Carmelite martyrs of Compiègne, France.  I remember some years ago being introduced to the story of these Carmelite martyrs when I read the book entitled The Song at the Scaffold, written originally in German in 1931 by a convert to Catholicism, Gertrud von Le Fort.  After the French revolution in the late 18th century, many monasteries and convents were ordered shut in France as the new government turned against the Catholic Church.  In 1790, the government ordered the closure of the Carmelite monastery in the town of Compiègne, France. The nuns in that monastery refused to abandon their vocation as Carmelite nuns and refused to leave.  In 1794, those 16 nuns were arrested on charges of living in a religious community, which was against the law in post-revolutionary France.  The nuns were sentenced to death in Paris, where they put to death by the guillotine while they sang the Salve Regina.  They refused to bow down to a government that condemned their Christian way of life.  

       Later, in 1957, French composer Francois Poulenc wrote an opera based on their story entitled Dialogues of the Carmelites.  It is the only major opera that has all female voices. This opera is still performed frequently to this day. Poulenc, a lapsed Catholic at the time, said that composing the opera, both the music and its lyrics, brought him back to the Catholic faith, as he was so inspired by the story of these Carmelite nuns.  

        Below is a link to the Ave Maria that he wrote for the opera, performed by the Metropolitan Opera of New York City.  The song is led by the renowned American opera singer Jessye Norman.   

         Last Sunday at Mass, Deacon John gave a wonderful homily about the challenges that we face in our Catholic faith in our modern world today.  He spoke about how the flock is somewhat scattered right now in a lot of ways. As someone who is trying to serve as a shepherd in the Church right now, I can tell you that thinking about the challenges that face us in the Church today and thinking about the workload that faces me each day, it can all be very overwhelming.  Deacon John mentioned Mother Teresa of Calcutta in his homily, of the inspiration she and her fellow sisters give us, of the way they have given up comfortable lives to serve the poor.  I am inspired and encouraged by many of the saints, including these Carmelite martyrs from France.  In these challenging times, may we feel the prayers of these Carmelite martyrs and the entire community of saints uniting with our prayers.