The Power of Hymns to Move (1890)

[66] But it is not only parents who are influenced by the Catechism, gentlemen; I have seen men of the world, worldly women, high and great personages, laid hold of, conquered, overcome by the sight of a Catechism, by these holy hymns, by the voices, by the souls of these little children.

[67] You will tell me, perhaps, this is difficult to understand, for that after all these hymns are very indifferent poetry. Not always, gentlemen; among these hymns there are some that Racine would not have been ashamed of, there are even some of his; but whatever they were, they were sung with such an enthusiasm, with such expression, with that deep and powerful expression which only the pure feeling for heavenly things gives to the soul;[1] and I have seen the irreligious subdued, conquered by the irresistible power of these holy songs. And observe, too, gentlemen, I am speaking of times which were not favourable [sic] to religion; it was the time when the Archbishop's palace was pillaged, when crosses were thrown down, when Priests were publicly insulted in the streets of Paris.

I can see now one of these men, who had had the curiosity and the patience to remain throughout the whole two hours of the Catechism, and who at the end said to me with a tone of great emotion, "It is really wonderful that you can thus keep together all this little audience; it is a strange secret—to be able to keep four hundred children, for two hours, quiet, motionless, and happy."

He understood nothing about it, and I saw that he did not.

I replied to him, "Ah, sir, it is true; you have seen it, these two hours have passed like one minute; but believe me, it is God Who has done it; if He were not with us in this Chapel, we should not succeed in this; and it seems to me that you yourself have been interested."—" Yes," he said, "it has singularly touched me, and I shall come to it again, if you will allow me."

I remember also a Priest, a great preacher, but a stranger to the work of the Catechisms; he had come there to see what was going on. When it was over, he could not contain the emotion he had felt, and he said to me, "I thought I saw the sanctifying Spirit Himself hovering under the vaults of this [68] Chapel, over these dear children." I did not refuse this praise—it was true. It was on the Monday evening of the Retreat for the first Communion; they had sung the hymn "Hélas, quelle douleur!" It was this hymn specially which had so thrilled the heart of this Priest, and I had been as much moved by it as himself.

But enough. In our next discourse we will go yet more into the bottom of all these things.

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Footnotes:

1. I have no hesitation in saying that through this, a harmony, a musical perfection is attained, which I have never met with elsewhere.

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Source: Félix Dupanloup, The Ministry of Catechising, trans. by E. A. Ellacombe (London: Griffith Farran Okeden & Welsh, 1890), 66–68.