People used to sing together–on pilgrimage, on Crusade, on the way to battle. It kept up the marchers’ morale for the cause, shared beauty of melody and lyric, handed down and passed on noble ideas. The songs were really love songs: proclaiming love for Christ, and His mother, the saints, the Church, and the good things ordered according to God’s reign in Christendom.
All that is very hard to imagine in my culture–21st century America. But for a peek into what used to be, listen to some of the music of French Royalists, Scottish Jacobites, Portuguese Loyalists, Crusaders–Catholics of many countries and centuries. This wonderful YouTube channel, Ex Cathedra, has moving videos with lyric translations and beautiful historic images. I have been brought to tears, particularly by the St. Joan of Arc song, Chant a Sainte Jeanne d’Arc.
Destructive mobs do not sing. That is one of the many signs that they are not only uncivilized, but anti-civilization. Soon we will have to stand shoulder to shoulder around statues, churches, city halls, and capitol buildings. What songs will be in our hearts as we stand together? While we have time left to us, let us learn to sing together.
St. Catherine Catholic Culture Center 