Here I double a post from the Steel Lily, to see what the trad-cat readers think.

Last week, in the usual Thursday-noon recital, a fellow-piano-major and I played Debussy's beautiful Petite Suite for piano, four hands. For the first two movements I played the upper part and he the lower, and for the other two, we switched places. We received a good deal of very flattering praise; it was, by all accounts, a pronounced success.

The suite, and some of the things Mr. Schene has said about it, were still turning over in my head after the recital; and when I got home I wrote down this little "suite" of verses. The music can be found on youtube (I'll put links in the titles). My readers may listen to them, and tell me how accurate my little images are.

I. En Bateau

The paddles slice the waters silently,
And in the peaceful golden light of noon
We glide along the river easily,
Far from the faintest thought of dark or ruin;
No ripples on the glassy water lie
To mar its softly pointillistic gleam,
And even the breeze sings, as it whispers by,
A tune I half-remember from a dream...

II. Cortége

The fairy-flutes are piping, far and high,
Sweet as the laughter of the elfin crowd,
And as their small procession marches by,
We cannot help but smile at them - so proud,
Tossing their braids, or curly-tops held tall,
Waving the spoil of a successful raid,
Flowers and nuts from some King Squirrel's hall,
Borne in a gay victorious child-parade.

III. Menuet

Cast off that melancholy from your face!
Upheld by an enchanting violin,
The pairs advance with charming ancient grace;
The minuet is going to begin.
The pipe and viol their harmonies unfurl;
Across the sward they sweep unerringly -
Balance together, step and step and twirl,
And we dream on, lulled by the melody.

IV. Ballet

One rich-voiced cello guides the airy tune,
And trippingly the children whirl away,
Carefree small fairy folk, beneath the moon,
Light-footed, lighter-hearted, bright and gay -
Until the waltz, with passionate romance
(That music is inebriety divine!)
Lifts us, who love, aloft into the dance,
Soaring on wings of song, of love and wine.

Since we are having a series of posts about Halloween, I thought it would be appropriate to quote something about the liturgical spirit of the church around this time (emphasis added):

Let us prepare our souls for the graces heaven is about to shower upon the earth in return for its homage. Tomorrow the Church will be so overflowing with joy, that she will seem to be already in possession of eternal happiness; but today she appears in the garb of penance, confessing that she is still an exile. Let us fast and pray with her; for are not we too pilgrims and strangers in this world, where all things are fleeting and hurry on to death? Year by year, as the great solemnity comes round, it has gathered from among our former companions now saints, who bless our tears and smile upon our songs of hope. Year by year the appointed time draws nearer, when we ourselves, seated at the heavenly banquet, shall receive the homage of those who succeed us, and hold out a helping hand to draw them after us to the home of everlasting happiness. Let us learn, from this very hour, to emancipate our souls; let us keep our hearts free, in the midst of the vain solicitudes and false pleasures of a strange land: the exile has no care but his banishment, no joy but that which gives him a foretaste of his fatherland.

The Liturgical Year by Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.

Now that Halloween has passed and we've been greeted by the usual onslaught of blood and gore, it leads one to think about why our society is so enamoured of all this ugliness. Every October we are bombarded by blood, death and violence: the stores sell everything from dismembered limbs to rotting gravestones, Hollywood releases its most violent movies and occultism temporarily becomes mainstream. Why this fascination? One significant reason has to do with Satan. Where he goes, ugliness follows, and a society as steeped in sin as ours can't help but be inclined to wallow in it. Just as beauty uplifts the soul, ugliness pulls it down, and this is why Satan tries to destroy anything beautiful and replace it with filth. He uses ugliness as a tool to distract those he wishes to lure away from God.

But the fascination with ugliness isn't just a sign of being associated with Satan-it can also be a sign of the despair one feels at not finding beauty (or truth, for that matter). The more one desires the good life, the more poignantly one feels the lack of it. Then in anger and despair the soul says, "Well, if this is all there is, I might as well revel in it." And so the degree of reveling is in direct proportion to the intensity of the frustrated desire. It's partly what they mean when they say "The propensity for evil is equal to the propensity for good." So we can never judge someone who seems given over to ugliness, whether visual or otherwise-we don't know what's in their heart and whether they are merely frustrated in their longing for the good, the beautiful and the true. As Catholics, we have the duty to bring them to the fulfillment of that desire, and away from the ugliness.

Finally, there is also one major reason why ugliness (merely in itself) can never be totally despised: Our Lord Himself embraced ugliness at the most crucial point in His life: Death by crucifixion was the most violent, disturbing and well..just plain UGLY death in existence at that time in the ancient world. But Our Lord didn't just die on a cross, which would have been bad enough. No-first He was scourged to a bloody pulp and THEN crucified. This is what the Psalmist is referring to when he says "But I am a worm and no man..." (Psalm 22:6) So the "good" ugliness can't be totally despised because if Our Lord embraced it, and we are to imitate Him, then we must embrace the "ugliness" in our lives also. Sorrows, loneliness, disappointments, and even failures are all to be accepted (and even LOVED, if you can manage it ;) ). Then we can truly imitate Our Lord and really be worthy of Him.

"There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness...there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him." Isaiah 53:2

The Viking's posting of "Black and Tan" reminded me of this song... the very definition of sarcasm! I love it... Lyrics below the video.



Oh, I'll tell you a tale of peace and love
Whack fol the diddle o the die do day
Of a land that rules all lands above
Whack fol the diddle o the die do day
May peace and plenty be her share
Who kept our homes from want and care
Oh, God bless England is our prayer
Whack fol the diddle o the die do day

Chorus:
Whack fol the diddle o the die do day
So we say 'hip hooray'
Come and listen while we pray (1st chorus only)
Whack fol the diddle o the die do day

Now our fathers oft were naughty boys
For pikes and guns are dangerous toys
At Ballinahabwee and at Peter's Hill
We made poor England cry her fill
But old Brittania loves us still

God bless England so we pray (remaining choruses)

Now, when we were savage, fierce and wild
She came as a mother to her child
She gently raised us from the slime
And kept our hands from hellish crime
And she sent us to heaven in our own good time

Well, now Irish men forget the past
And think of the day that's coming fast
When we shall all be civilized
Neat and clean and well advised
Oh, won't mother England be surprised?

I hopped upon my Vespa today to drive down to a local music school where I was going to interview the lady who runs it, who offered me a place as a piano teacher. It was slightly rainy, and the ground wet. I kept to the speed limits carefully, usually below them, in fact; but as I hummed along, I suddenly hit a slick spot and found myself spinning across the lanes....

By God's grace I didn't hit anyone, or vice versa, and when I disentangled my cloak from the Vespa and picked us both up with the help of the two kind ladies behind me, I discovered I had escaped with two scraped knees, a bruised thumb and a bad shaking. The poor Vespa fared worse, with a badly scratched right side and the handlebar bent to the right, so when I remounted I had to hold the handlebar sideways to keep the front wheel straight. But I made it to the music school, albeit somewhat late, as it's not very well marked and I passed the building three times before finding it with the help of a kind lady (who happens to send her children there, though I didn't find that out till later.)

The directress was very kind about my lateness and my student's mother insisted on my resting and not teaching that day, so I played a piece for little Dylan (who, though hopping up and down with excitement, professed himself willing to wait a long time -- "I can wait three months!"-- for his lesson,) and then gathered my things and climbed into the car of a Webster alum who teaches guitar there and was kind enough to drive me back to the University. The Vespa was parked inside the real-estate office downstairs, whose kind secretary let me keep it there until I can go get it tomorrow.

The long and the short of this is that I owe St. Raphael and my guardian angel a big BIG BIIIIG BIIIIIIIIIIG thank you for keeping me from worse harm and letting everything come out pretty well. I have little doubt I owe it to the prayer taught me by a dear friend, which I pass on to all of you.

Sanctus Ioseph cum Maria,
Sanctus Raphael cum Tobia,
Sanctus Michael cum caeleste herarchia,
Sint nobiscum in via.

Which I translated, with some little freedom, as:

Holy Joseph and his Bride,
Raphael at Tobias' side,
St. Michael and armies heavenly,
On my journey be with me.

Say it. It works. Believe me.

I was born on a Dublin street
Where the royal drums did beat
And the loving English feet walked all over us,
And every single night
When me father'd come home tight
He'd invite the neighbors outside with this chorus:

Chorus

The day is coming fast
And the time is here at last,
When each shoneen will be cast aside before us,
And if there be a need
Sure my kids will sing, "Godspeed!"
With a bar or two of Stephen Behan's chorus.