The Last Word
Fr. Yves le Roux
District Superior of Canada
“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”
Resting his head on the Master’s heart on the evening of the Last Supper, St. John understood better than any of the other Apostles that the Mystery of the Incarnation was above all a mystery of Love.
Indeed, the life of Christ is nothing other than a perfect song of love magnifying God’s majesty and His great mercy for us.
His continuous prayer, His teaching, His miracles, His sufferings, and His victory over sin and death are a symphony in a major key extolling the glory of the Father and His burning love for the salvation of souls.
This song that rose up two thousand years ago in the land of Palestine has never since ceased to ring out.
A countless multitude of souls have united their voices to that of Christ and imitated His accents to glorify God and spread the good news of salvation.
Gregorian chant, the proper chant of the Church, is a sacramental that truly enables the faithful to unite themselves to Christ and to His redemptive mission.
But most importantly, Gregorian chant carries on the song of Christ on earth.
In the Church, the voice of the Redeemer still rises up as strong and pure as ever. It repeats His love for the Father over the course of the centuries, without ever tiring or growing repetitive.
Through Gregorian chant, Christ sings to men the glory of God and presents men’s prayer to His Father.
Plainchant is also the way Our Holy Mother the Church, the immaculate spouse of Christ, expresses her faith in her Spouse, proclaiming loud and clear that He is her only hope and singing His love.
Gregorian chant is truly the expression of the outpouring of the heart of Christ’s spouse, and it answers her maternal desire to form our hearts after His.
It allows her to send up before the throne of grace her profound adoration, her boundless admiration, her infinite respect, her unlimited devotion, and her total dependency, in a tone of noble sobriety.
Let us learn to savor the unique beauty of Gregorian chant that is more of Heaven than of Earth.
Uniting our voices to the voice of Christ and of His Church, let us enter into the most intimate secrets of the Heart of Christ and embrace His love for the Father so that our own lives may become a song that rises up before the throne of Grace.