And I Love Her

I grew up listening to popular music, as well as classical. In college I came into contact with sacred music, and there's no question that my very, very favorite music is polyphony, but life is sometimes long and music wide, so I'm grateful for all sorts of songs.

I mention this now because a month or two ago I heard an old familiar song that reminded me of Mary, and I was going to post about it here, but what with one wonderful thing and another, I posted about some one of those other wonderful things instead. Yesterday I heard the song on the radio (again) and was thus reminded (just like that time a month or two ago) of Mary, and I knew that the song's time to be mused over had come. So here it is! 

And I Love Her

I give her all my love
That's all I do
And if you saw my love
You'd love her too
I love her.

She gives me everything
And tenderly
The kiss my lover brings
She brings to me
And I love her.

A love like ours
Could never die
As long as I
Have you near me.

Bright are the stars that shine
Dark is the sky
I know this love of mine
Will never die
And I love her.

Bright are the stars that shine
Dark is the sky
I know this love of mine
Will never die
And I love her.

*     *     *

John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote it - may God rest John's soul and draw Paul closer to him every day. They had me at that first stanza: "I give her all my love, that's all I do. And if you saw my love, you'd love her too."

Yes, exactly!

I remember hearing that Chesterton and Belloc having an ongoing debate. Was it better to be a convert, or a cradle Catholic? Who could better appreciate the riches of the Faith: the one who’d found them after a long search, or the one who’d known them from the nursery?
 
I think the answer must be both! For truly the riches of the Faith are immeasurable and their discovery ongoing. Chesterton once said that those who leave the Church have often (or always?) merely failed to know her. I’m bungling this quote, so please feel free to Contact Me and set me straight if you have a better rendition of the thought I’m trying to express, and an assurance that it was GKC who said it!
 
But the thought behind the quote brings us back to the Fab Four (God bless them all, come to think of it) and this lovely song. Because doesn’t it seem that whether we’re speaking of Holy Mother Church or Holy Mother Mary, it’s indubitable: “And if you saw my love, you’d love her too”?
 
The previous lines of the song, though, are the ones that really capture my heart:
“I give her all my love, that’s all I do.”
This is Marcel to the core! And it captures perfectly the simplest possible version of Marian Consecration.

I've been realizing lately how much Marcel has changed me, simplifying my spiritual life, delighting me with his (and his heavenly interlocutors') words, teaching me, just as St. Therese taught him, every sweet and easy step along the Little Way. Well maybe not every single step, but many of them. These two, Marcel and Therese, always have more to show me, just as there are always more steps along this Way to walk, but it’s pure joy, for as St. Catherine of Siena so rightly taught, "All the Way to Heaven is Heaven because He said 'I am the Way.'"

The sequel to my having picked up Marcel's Autobiography (and then his Conversations), and then once having finished his Autobiography, my being unable to ever definitively finish (or put down) Conversations, is that no other book reads quite the same again. Or maybe a better way to put it is that every other book - and song as well - does read quite exactly the same. Quite exactly the same as Marcel's books, speaking to me the same message, reminding me of favorite passages, and so on and so forth.

My experiences, too, only serve to reinforce the Truth in Marcel's Conversations. He (the Truth, Jesus) has overtaken my mind and heart in a new and deeper way since the Advent of Marcel. A new and deeper Little Way, to be sure, but ‘new’ and ‘deep’ only barely begin to express Jesus-Marcel’s effect on the Little Way.

It's as if I’d been groping along, bumbling and stumbling behind our sister Therese, calling out to her "Wait up!" as she seemed forever just beyond my reach and sight, around the next bend in the dark forest through which our Little Way wound. Suddenly I came out into a clearing and light streamed from the Heavens to show me it was not night at all, but mid-day, and the Way was so clear. Clear of brambles, clear of darkness. And there was a diminutive Vietnamese boy standing beside our sister St. Therese, holding her hand.

"He's our brother, Marcel, but you can call him Therese, too," our heroine told me, and then the three of us burst into laughter. We couldn't help it! The day was so fine, the sky so cloudless, the Way before us leading - we could see some of them - to glorious places with lovely vistas. But most remarkably, the boy holding Therese’s hand had an expression on his young face. How can I describe it? Earnest yet full of mischief; sincere, yet full of fun; inviting, daring, and at the same time, with that inscrutable Asian je ne sais quoi, both simple and wise. In a word: charming! (Or better yet, charmant!)
 
The upshot? I haven’t been the same since, and as I mentioned, neither has anything I see or hear (or read) – or rather, it’s very much the same, Marcel’s adorable face shining with the light of Christ right through it.
 
Getting back to the first two lines of our song, I’ll show you what I mean.
 
“I give her all my love
That’s all I do.”
 
At (235) of Conversations, Jesus tells Marcel (and us through him):
 
“Yes . . . you are very weak. I have never seen a soul weaker than yours. However, Marcel, this must not discourage you. It means little that you are weak. After having put everything into my hands, why would you be afraid of your weakness? All that remains for you to do is to love me. As for the rest, I will take it upon myself. Indeed, what can little children know? To love: there you have it, their sole occupation.”
 
And again (or previously, I should say) at (122) Jesus explains:
 
“My child, the smaller your love is for me, the more mine will envelop you with its intimacy. Let us suppose that the little one does not even know how to say to its mother the few words that I gave to him earlier and that he can only fix his gaze on her, be assured that he would receive from her marks of a love even more tender . . . My dear child, my love envelops yours and will last until the time when your love loses itself entirely in mine . . . My dear child, following the example of the little one, be happy to gaze on me and I will penetrate the depths of your heart more even than the mother penetrates that of her child; and throughout eternity, my love will never be separated from you. On the contrary, it will only make your love grow eternally.“
 
While Jesus is teaching us about how our love for Him, however small that love is, suffices to draw His love to us (and His love more than suffices!), He is also teaching us about the love of a mother and child. God’s own mother is the Mother par excellence, and we can rest assured she finds us doing enough when we simply fix our gaze on her. There’s another passage in Conversations where she says just that – when we gaze on her, she can’t help but respond before we’ve done anything else; to look on her is to call her; to behold her is enough.
 
And what does she do in response? How does Our Lady reply to the call of our smallest glance?
 
“She gives me everything
And tenderly
The kiss my lover brings
She brings to me
And I love her.”
 
Just as Mary is famous for bringing Jesus to the world at Christmas (and oh! The Madonna and Child stamps are available at the U.S. post office again! There is Jesus’ Mother holding Him and offering Him to us and the recipient of every letter we send!), so too that’s the central thing she’s been concerned to do every moment of every day of every single year since that first year of Our Savior’s birth. She wants to protect us and guide us, teach us and snuggle with us, heal our hurts and cheer our sadness, yes, everything a mother does Mary wants to do for us, but just as you could sum up a mother’s tasks in the brief statement, “She wants to give every good thing to her child,” so in our song we see that Mary actually does that, and so sweetly: “She gives me everything, and tenderly.”
 
But she who is so pure of heart, exceptionally single-hearted, she is able more than anyone else to give us what God gave her: Everything in one adorable package: Jesus! The Truth is simple, whether told in the books of the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church or in the rapt looks of the smallest tot beholding a nativity scene in our commercialized world:  Mary is the one to give us Jesus.
 
“The kiss my lover brings, she brings to me.”
She is so good to us! What else can we do but love her?
And yet in God’s goodness, there is more:
 
“Bright are the stars that shine
Dark is the sky
I know this love of mine
Will never die
And I love her.”
 
The stars are the Saints – and they are so very bright! But the sky is also dark: the world in which we live, the nights through which we pass: dark, dark, dark! Ah, but we have nothing to fear. This love of ours will never die because it is enveloped in Jesus’ love. And His love? Enveloped in Mary’s and vice versa – just look at the new stamps, or any lovely image of the Madonna and Child.
 
But best and most truly of all we can say:
 
“A love like ours
Could never die
As long as I
Have you near me.”
 
We do have Mary near us, and she will not allow this love to die, this love between ourselves and Love, that is Jesus Who is God (Who is Love). Remember how we said a mom wants to give everything to her child? Ultimately, that would be God (whether the mom knows it or not) – in Whom is every good, from Whom is every good. You can bet your bottom dollar that Mary is a mom who knows that, no question! And she won’t settle for giving us anything (or anyone) less. She’s got us covered, which is why the image (and reality) of her mantle is so lovely. Warm, safe, all-enveloping, like Jesus’ love.
 
If there be any doubt about whether God wants us to have the close relationship with Mary that our Marian Consecration (and our song-of-the-day) implies, we can let Jesus settle the matter. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He spoke with authority when He walked on earth, and He speaks with authority now. Like the sheep we are, we can hear His voice when He speaks to us through Marcel, and here is the passage in which He tells us what attitude to have to His Mother Mary. He was speaking on Good Friday (Conversations, 480):
 
“Remember today is the anniversary of the day when I gave you to my Mother Mary so that you might be her true child; it is also the day when I gave Mary to you to be your true Mother. Finding myself in the presence of my Mother, I suffered with joy. At that moment, when all the creatures of the world seemed to have abandoned me, only my Mother remained to comfort me. Even God the Father seemed to wish no longer to look at me; but my Mother Mary did not cease to look at me until the time when I escaped from suffering. Oh! Little brother, Mary is your real Mother as well as mine. When she sees you suffer, she is closer to you to console you, for all time until you, too, will have escaped all suffering. Mary, you are the true Mother of Marcel, the real Mother of all souls, never be far from your children . . . Mary is your true Mother, and you are really her child. Always think of her; she understands you better than you understand yourself. She knows your sufferings, she is always close to you, carrying you unceasingly in her arms and covering you with kisses . . . “
 
Oh Jesus! Oh Mary! How astonishing is the attention and tender, solicitous love you give to us! Never stop kissing us! Keep us close in your arms! And if we wriggle free, call us back to your lap, Mary, where we can play and visit with little Jesus and Therese and little Marcel.
 
The problem I run into is that I find Jesus’ words to us in Marcel’s books to be such beautiful words of Love and Truth that I’m somewhat bored by other books. (Not that this is a real problem since I haven’t nearly begun to mine the treasures from Conversations.) But perhaps this poverty in other books is why God has given me more music lately. Music is the food of love they say, and music has been feeding my love for Him.
 
Despite my disclaimer at the outset, lest you think I have only the Beatles’ music to fill my loving cup to overflowing (miracle-filled as their songs can be), I’ve got a surprise which will draw us to a higher level of art.
 
Last night I got to hear – for the first time in my 53 years – a performance of the entirety of Handel’s Messiah. God bless George Frideric Handel!!! And if you don’t mind a shameless plug (and so that I don’t sound partisan, I’ll recommend three products!) – if you love music, and if you want to go to college, do come to Thomas Aquinas College in sunny Southern California, where the student produced music is tremendously gorgeous, under the direction of Dan Grimm, (or for another great option, try Christendom College, where first under Fr. Robert Skeris, God love him, and now under the direction of Kurt Poterack, students have been making lovely music for decades). You might just find yourself, as I did last night, in Heaven, or at least looking into Heaven. Or even looking down from Heaven, onto the panoply of salvation history. Spectacular!
 
To complete my trilogy of college product placement, I’ll add that I recently heard from a wonderful young lady who is in her first year at Thomas More College. There she’s meeting in the chapel each day with fellow students (her own set of dear friends, becoming dearer by the day I’m certain) reading 33 Days to Morning Glory and together preparing for their Marian consecration (or re-consecration). That would be a great place to go too, if you’re looking for a good college!
 
But back to last night’s miracle of The Messiah. While I’ve loved many of the airs (arias) for many years and have loved playing them seasonally in renditions by Kiri te Kanawa and Kathleen Battle, last night I appreciated more than ever the choruses – it was like hearing the angelic choir, and then the saints’ voices in heaven mingling with them. This will be us!
 
I wasn’t the only one to wish I had a voice as lovely as an angel’s or as lovely as some of the saintly voices we heard in the performance. I’m thrilled to announce that in heaven we’ll all have such miraculously glorious voices! One more reason to hurry there! And yet, miracle of miracles, each voice was so different from the others, each so uniquely beautiful. Unlike in a recorded performance of The Messiah, this concert featured different soloists singing the different airs, so there were 3 bass soloists, 5 sopranos, 4 altos, 3 tenors, as well as a mezzo-soprano I’ve been lucky enough to know since her childhood. My good Jesus, what are You trying to do? Kill me with beauty before I hit 55? I’m ready!
 
I was so enraptured by the different voices. To realize that “soprano” or “tenor,” “bass” or “alto” is just a general description, and to begin to appreciate the range and variety of sound and personality within each of those categories was an awakening. It reminds me, in fact, of the angels, properly known within their 3 hierarchies of three choirs each (so 9 choirs total), and yet each angel a species unto himself!
 
The biggest lesson I learned, though, and the Marcel moment I took away, had not much to do with the music, but more to do with my part in the evening. Wanting to get myself and my husband and my son (and four of my son’s own dear friends who were with us for the afternoon) to the concert on time – or early, really – I managed to get us there about 10 minutes late! And I was going to meet another dear friend (very, very dear!) so that we might sit together, and I managed to make her late too!
 
To top it off, once we were there, entering on tiptoes so as not to disturb the on-time audience already seated in the new and magnificent St. Cecelia Hall, we found ourselves looking down from a side balcony and scanning for the very few vacant seats (that weren’t way below us in the front rows). To my joy, I found two aisle seats near us, pointed them out to my husband, and saying a hurried good-bye to our son, I led the way.
 
The very little way. For not only were the seats near us, but as soon as I found myself sitting in the lower of the two (they were one above the other and my husband was in the seat just behind me), I was horrified to realize what I’d done, and thus in reparation (of nothing!) I began to worry (about nothing, but we’ll get to that soon enough).
 
I’d abandoned our son to stand for an hour and a half of musical delight or, much more likely for anyone, I thought, extreme boredom. I hate standing!  And I’d done so very little to prepare him for the concert. When he’d asked about The Messiah before we left home, I was in such a hurry to get us out the door that our teachable moment comprised my throwing a handful of disjointed and uncertain “facts” his way. Once there, I hadn’t even encouraged him to move forward along the balcony, past the others standing there, to where he could have a good view of the stage. So I sat in my own prized seat, unable to turn around to see him (I was raised with good Church manners and good concert hall manners too, though sometimes, like last night, I regret them!), and definitely unable to return to him to explain his options.
 
Yes, he is 16, but what better time to learn to love (or hate) high culture?!
 
I knew I wouldn’t be entirely comfortable (or even comfortable in any measure) before Intermission when we’d all be set free. Meanwhile I tried to remind myself not to worry, but in vain. Eventually I remembered that in the Little Way, failure is the new success, so I tried to assure myself that making everyone late and abandoning my son to an ignorant, view-less, standing fate was perhaps in some Little Way a good thing . . . and I remembered, to my chagrin if not to my consolation, that St. Therese had told Marcel (in a passage she’d brought to my attention yesterday morning, a passage in which Marcel tells us what she said this very week in November of 1945):
 
“Your worries are only about unfounded things.”
 
If only it were true!
 
And of course, it was.
After some time on the rack, I allowed my eyes to wander to the opposite balcony. There was my tall son, standing in a line-up of his friends, a group of good-natured teen boys leaning over a railing to watch the performers and the audience, occasionally whispering to each other, but for the most part looking completely comfortable standing, watching, and listening.
 
“Your worries are only about unfounded things.”
 
I think this statement is meant to cover every possible worry. I could switch over to worrying about the state of the world, the state of the Church, the state of our souls. But how unfounded those worries would be too, what with God governing the universe and Jesus taking care of everything.
 
In fact, returning to this passage from Therese (and it's a miracle that I’ve easily found every quote I’ve needed for this post, but that’s another story), let me supply for you the parts I didn’t remember last night. I won’t apologize for my forgetting them; as Jesus says, that’s just the happy opportunity for Him to remind me! He asked Marcel to write these things down because the words are meant for us too. In this case, our sister says to us in her words to Marcel:
 
“My dear little brother, when you feel trouble in your heart, remind yourself to have recourse to the love of Jesus and do not neglect to speak to me also so that I can help you with my advice. Do not forget either that your worries are only about unfounded things. I am kissing you dear little brother, be happy always in the love of Jesus. Little brother, remain peaceful. Formerly I also was inclined to worry, like you, but I regained my peace by obeying my director.” (Conversations, 127)
 
Therese didn’t always have a director, and not always one director, and the director she chose (Fr. Pichon) was often unavailable, having gone to far-away Canada for missionary work. But she found directors wherever Jesus provided them, and in her worst unfounded worries, the intense scruples she experienced as a girl, her sister Marie was the very helpful director Jesus provided. Praise God that when Marie went into the convent, Therese was inspired to seek a miracle straight from heaven. She turned to her two little sisters and two little brothers who had preceded her there, and begged them to obtain her cure. They did, and she became herself a great director for those, including her cousin Marie Guerin who became Sister Marie of the Eucharist, who suffered scruples too.
 
I know I’m not the only one to have found a helpful (and Heaven sent) director in books and tapes by the Catholic psychiatrist Conrad Baars (God rest his soul), as well as in the writings and friendship of St. Frances de Sales, St. Teresa of Avila, and other Saints, and in various priests whose paths I’ve crossed, if only for one short confession or conversation (though sometimes, blessedly, for several, and in a few cases, for providential years’ worth). Finally, though, Jesus’ words to Marcel have been His latest and greatest direction for me. This book bears for me that inimitable mark of the Holy Spirit – the gentle Wisdom which frees my soul and at the same time fills me with a peace and joy beyond anything natural or earthly. Straight from Heaven!
 
Thank you, once again, Jack Keogan! Where would I be without your English translation of Marcel’s works? May our little sister fulfill her many promises by staying near you, showering you with heavenly roses, and making you love God as she does! (And this prayer is for all those you love, too!)
 
Speaking of Jack K., I don’t think he’ll mind if I tell you that he was inspired with a lovely plan for these 33 days. He selected, at random, 33 passages of Mary speaking to Marcel in Conversations, one for each day in preparation for her feast on December 8. I would say I wish I’d thought of it first, but then I can’t imagine the havoc this would wreak on my daily life. Each day reading something more marvelous than the day before, feeling compelled to share them with you, dear reader, in spite of every time constraint and shred of common sense. No, I think it’s better that I lead the way through Fr. Gaitley’s 33 Days of Morning Glory – the Little Way, as usual, in which we enjoy Beatles’ songs and Handel’s miraculous Messiah as we go forward, and forget to say much of anything about Fr. G’s daily insights.
 
Ah, but if I worried about what I said here, we’d never get anywhere. So instead, I will keep repeating my refrain. I’ve forgotten it as soon as it’s come off my fingers onto the virtual page, so let me repeat it for us again:
 
When you feel trouble in your heart, remind yourself to have recourse to the love of Jesus and do not neglect to speak to our sister Therese also so that she can help you with her advice. Do not forget either that your worries are only about unfounded things. Be happy always in the love of Jesus and remain peaceful.
 
As for what else there is to do . . .I can only tell you what works for me (and Marcel) –
 
I give her all my love
That's all I do
And if you saw my love
You'd love her too.
 
Although living in the modern world can be frustrating (to say the least), we do have access to the latest in blog technology, which means I can give you our picture of Mary again down here to save you the trouble of scrolling up (ah, instant Marian gratification!) . . . Then you can see my love and you’ll love her too!
First, to the One she is giving us to, and giving to us, we say:
 
Draw me, we will run!
Little Jesus, we love you a lot!
Thank You, little Jesus, for giving us Your Mother to be our Mother too!
 
And now, here she is, darling in her Immaculate beauty, and holding Beauty Incarnate, giving Him (and thus Everything) to us, and His kisses too – oh so tenderly!
 
p.s. I know I'm supposed to have Mary's picture right here, but hold your horses, that's coming just a smidge below because I would be remiss if I failed to mention that today is St. Elizabeth of Hungary’s feast day. This is important to us because she is one of those bright shining stars we (and John L. and Paul McC.) mentioned above, illuminating the dark sky. And guess what I found out by reading the blurb on her in Magnificat? She is the proto-Therese! Like our sister Therese, it’s said of Elizabeth that “she was a prodigy of charity . . . she died at the age of twenty-four.” But best of all, the hallmark of a real Therese: Once when confronted by her angry husband (for bringing their bread out to feed the hungry, and in his defense, perhaps he was hungry too), “she opened her apron and a bunch of red roses tumbled out.” Ah, that familiar but ever abundant shower of roses! And just think -  this particular shower tumbled down in the 13th century! I was tempted to call Elizabeth “the first Therese” until I realized how complicated things could become – Therese would have to be the 2nd Therese, and Marcel the 3rd. . . So the proto-Therese it is! St. Elizabeth of Hungary, pray for us, and help Therese and Marcel shower us with roses too! And now, for Our Lovely Lady: