Abbey News
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Genesee Solemnity
Yesterday, during a beautiful Indian Summer day, we celebrated the 34th anniversary of the dedication of our Abbey church. Our very own feast day is always something special which we celebrate as a solemnity. This year we had an extra special feature at Mass that enhanced the occasion.
One of our bread store cashiers, Steven Baker, is what we might call a keyboard virtuoso.
Not only is he adept at the cash register computer keyboard in our bread store he is an accomplished organist as well.
A former student of Organ Performance at the Eastman School of Music Steven teaches organ to a number of students including our own Fr. Gerard. He is also organist for his parish Church in Caledonia.
He graciously agreed to play the organ for us at yesterday's anniversary Mass choosing  selections from two of his favorite composers. His first piece for Communion was Prelude and Kyrie by Jean Langlais. This is a quiet, meditative piece. The Kyrie played on the pedals with a 4 foot flute stop is particularly sweet and comes as a delightful surprise.
For the Post-Recessional he chose Apparition de l'église éternelle ("Apparition of the eternal church") by Olivier Messiaen. This is a big, powerful piece. Even a bit fearsome. It pierces the veil to ‘reveal’ the utterly transcendent and transfixing realm of Eternity where God dwells in Light inaccessible. As for man, ‘They will go into caves in the rocky cliffs and into holes in the ground, trying to escape the dreadful judgment of the Lord and His royal splendor…’ It gradually diminishes in power and becomes almost bearable - Apparition de l'Eglise Eternelle on earth. ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us’, first as a tiny babe in the arms of His Blessed Mother, icon of the Church.
Below is a little bio of the composers for music buffs and anyone interested in human interest stories. Messiaen, for example, began composing at the age of seven and Langlais became an accomplished organist despite being blind from the age of two.
OLIVIER-EUGENE-PROSPER-CHARLES MESSIAEN (b. Dec. 10, 1908, Avignon, France.d. April  27, 1992, Clichy, near Paris), Olivier Messiaen was the son of Pierre Messiaen, a scholar of English literature, and of the poet Cecile Sauvage. Olivier Messiaen began composing at the age of seven, and taught himself to play the piano.
From very early on it was clear that Messiaen would be a composer who would stand alone in the history of music. Coming not from any particular 'school' or style but forming and creating his own totally individual musical voice. He took rhythmic ideas from India (desi tala), ancient Greece and the orient and most importantly adapting the songs of birds from around the world.
The single most important driving force in his musical creations was his devout Catholic faith. All his works center around the liturgy. All his rhythmic and harmonic ideas had a very specific purpose in the liturgy although they sound strange to Westernized ears. He felt that music in the Church was more than just an accompaniment. It was a vessel of communion with God.
Messiaen's youthful love for the fairy-tale element in Shakespeare prefigured his later expressions of what he called "the marvelous aspects of the [Roman Catholic] Faith"—among which may be numbered Christ's Nativity, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Transfiguration, the Apocalypse and the hereafter.
JEAN LANGLAIS was born in La Fontenelle (Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany), a small village near  Mont St Michel, France. Langlais became blind due to glaucoma when he was only two years old, and was sent to study at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris, where he began to study the organ. From there, he progressed to the Paris Conservatoire, obtaining prizes in organ. He was much in demand as a concert organist, and toured widely across Europe and the United States.
Langlais improvised most of the music he played using very colorful harmonies.
Meeting Report
Fr. Jerome returned from the annual meeting of the Legal Resource Center for Religious Institutes late Friday night. In chapter this morning he gave us an account of the high points of the meeting pointing out the effects the ever evolving legal picture will have on our bakery business. It is really necessary during these days of increasing complexity to have an on-site person keeping up with all the changes. Fortunately the efforts we've been making recently to conform to the American Institute of Bakeries standards are in line with governmental regulations.
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