"It is the industrialisation of the word and of the image that has ruined religion"

I dipped this evening into Alina Reyes book of reflections on St Bernadette and the apparitions at Lourdes, La jeune fille et la Vierge. I commented on this book in June 2008 (scroll down the post to reach the section about the book). You might find it useful to read my comment there before continuing. My own translation from the French original; I have also added the emphasis in bold.

The word is at once erotic and transcendent; men and women know this well, when they address to each other words of love to at once enkindle their desire and to purify it. The Church, with its representations of the Virgin, of Christ often almost naked, of the apostles, of the saints who make up a humanity that sometimes is blessed and sometimes suffering, was for the faithful the place of an unconscious eros, but freed from sin, at the same time as being the sacred treasure of poetry.

How have these dimensions dwindled, not to say disappeared during the course of time? Just as the industrialisation of a country ruined the Soubirous family by undermining the work of the artisan, and pushed to one side the economic life of a lovely little village at the foot of the Pyrenees, it is the industrialisation of the word and of the image that has ruined religion. Their galloping proliferation by means of books and photography and even more by means of newspapers, then the cinema, radio, television, the internet, etc. It is calculated that the man of the Middle Ages saw fewer images in the whole of his life than modern man sees in one day. I bet that the proportion is not close to being equal to the instances of gossip suffered.

Le chant de Bernadette, was written by Franz Werfel, faithful to his promise. Bernadette possessed few words, and little mastery of her language. Also, her vision entrusted her with a message of few words, but condensed like a poem, a song.  The rest was expressed by all the other means that speak to the world, a place, a time, personalities, landscapes, a story, and then the bodies and faces, as it happens the body and the face of Bernadette, charged with receiving the imprint of the visions at the instant when they came, so that she could be read like a book of flesh. The first shrine that this field knew was a cave, a refuge for the light hidden below a dark forest, and the living flesh of a young girl wrapped in old clothes.

With the iminent introduction of the new English translation of the Roman Missal, we can perhaps reflect - and hope - that it will make the "poetry" of the Liturgy more transparent.

But we might also reflect on the "industrialisation of the word and of the image" represented by the modern means of communication, and whether or not our participation in that industrialisation makes better known the poetry of religion or, as Alina Reyes suggests, undermines it.

Impressions of Lourdes

In recent years my visits to Lourdes have taken place either in July/August, or in December for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. This is the first time that I have been there during the half-term holiday. So here are the contrasts:

In May, Lourdes is beautifully green (perhaps this year more so than ever because of recent rain), whereas in August it is dry and arid because of the heat. During the week, I was dipping into Alina Reyes book La jeune fille et la Vierge, and the first pages I read, referring to those times when the Virgin appeared without speaking, suggest that we could think of the universe as "a holy Scripture (Ecriture sainte), or at least like a writing (ecriture), a whole space that speaks, the invisible of the space which shows its word by signalling (la signalant) it by a sound, then imaging (la figurant) it under the form of an ideal femininity, all freshness, small and beautiful."

In May, Lourdes is like a "little England" because so many English dioceses or parishes visit during the half-term week; in July/August or in December, it is more like a "little Italy" because of the numbers of visitors who travel from that country. It was a rather odd experience for me to meet so many people I knew - from Maryvale (Birmingham Archdiocese were out for the week); clergy from my past (I have carefully thought how to express this - looking rather well fed, whether or not wearing the soutane); and even the member of the Knights of St Columba from a nearby parish who had organised the overnight watching for the "Forty Hours" recently.

The ceremonies at Lourdes were as busy during this week as I have previously seen them for the Feast of the Assumption in August. While at times the town did not appear too busy (perhaps I was walking around during "siesta time"), the participation at the International Mass and the Rosary Procession on Wednesday must have been approaching the capacity of the shrine to cope.

Lourdes Magazine - April/May 2008

The current issue of Lourdes Magazine arrived a few days ago. As usual it contains a mix of articles related to the life of the shrine. The main feature covers the 50th anniversary of the International Military Pilgrimage. I think it was participation in this pilgrimage, possibly in the late 1950's or early 1960's, that saw my father make his first visit to Lourdes. We saw from time to time some black and white film of this .... The ethos of this pilgrimage is that of military engagement as being at the service of peace. The pilgrimage can be an occasion of reconciliation between those who have fought on the opposite sides of conflicts. The Magazine also contains the homily preached by the Bishop of Lourdes and Tarbes on the 11th February this year, for the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

What caught my attention, though, was coverage of a "book fair" held in Lourdes 9th-11th February. This featured a number of books about Lourdes or St Bernadette, some published for the 150th anniversary year. One is a book La jeune fille et la Vierge by Alina Reyes. The surprising thing about this is that Alina Reyes previous writings are "controversial" (the word used by her interviewer in the Magazine - they are actually better described by the word "erotic"). I have not been able to find out much about Alina Reyes apart from the Lourdes Magazine interview. The fascinating possibility that I want to explore when I am able to obtain her book about St Bernadette and her novel Foret profonde (in which she writes about the healing influence of Lourdes in her life) is that her life expresses the purification of eros to become agape of which Pope Benedict XVI writes in Deus Caritas Est.

Meanwhile, some extracts from the interview:

I did not recieve a religious education; I was a natural mystic who was not aware of it. Above all, as far as I can remember, I knew with an unsustainable certainty (to the point that I often tried to rid myself of this feeling), that a superior, cosmic order, invisible and spiritual, which I could not name, carried me personally in His heart. I could never have talked about it, it was too overwhelming, and I still cannot say any more. At twenty four, whilst expecting my second son, I read and re-read the Gospels and spent months embraced by a marvellous grace. I continued to experience this state, but still declared myself an unbeliever. This is how I know of this process of emptying oneself to receive the invisible. Little by little, increasingly specific things occurred to me, more and more evident, notably a direct contact with God. I knew then I should no longer conceal the name of the One who inhabited me ...

My novels are only "controversial" for those who see evil where it is not. I have always denounced the culture of morbid sex, and sought to give my vision of the flesh; flesh which is happy is one of the means for human beings to access a fulfilled fusion with the world, in other words, the Creation. ... Then yes, I reconcile Eros and Agape, and I am a Christian because this religion is that of the flesh. When we enter a church we see the flesh of Christ, the flesh of the saints, we see the child Jesus at Mary's bosom ... God was incarnate, how can one believe He hates the flesh?...

I tried to show the literary dimension of this event [ie the apparitions at Lourdes], and what strikes me is its resemblance to the beginning of Genesis: "God said ... And there was light". The word of God is a light; this is what is happening in Lourdes. The word which Bernadette transmitted to the world testifies to this "light", as she says at the beginning, which appeared to her in the "darkness" of the grotto ...

Yes I have taken the liberty of paraphrasing Pascal and I do it again by saying: "It is necessary to find the virgin in oneself to discover the hidden Virgin". The Virgin Mary is a door to enter God, and this door is innocence, the spiritual possibility of regarding the world as immaculate in its conception. I think I have said that the Virgin in us is our true face, our face denuded of social masks ... Lourdes invites us to present ourselves before the Virgin Mary, as we are surrounded by the mountains which evoke naturally the purity of nature, a purity we lose so dramatically.

The introduction to the interview describes Alina Reyes book as "at the same time splendid and surprising"; according to the Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, it is "a book which will stand the test of time".