...as we wend our way through the woods

Wednesday, August 17, 2022
 

Chère amie, cher ami,
 
Once, while I was waiting in line at Customs at the Paris Airport, an impatient traveler dared to protest. Why weren’t there more Customs agents? Why were there only two?
 
The doanier lifted his grizzled head from the study of travel documents. Quelle outrecuidance! He stared at the outspoken tourist with cold outrage. He drew his bushy eyebrows together in a frown and raised his gaze to the tired crowd.
 
“If you don’t want to wait,” he said, “You shouldn’t travel on Pentecost.”
 
He returned to the study of a passport. His colleague hadn’t even looked up.
 
Religious holidays have a special significance in France. Everyone observes them, even communists.
 
One of the most entrenched observances took place Monday.

August 15th is the Fête de l’Assomption. It marks the day the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, rose up to heaven in body and soul. 
 
This day has more than a religious significance. Summer vacations often begin or end on the Assumption. And the weather always changes.
 
“La Vierge du quinze août arrange ou dérange tout,” says Madame Brigitte, our farmer’s partner in the vicissitudes of agrarian life. 
 
“The Virgin of August 15 fixes things. Or makes them worse.” 

The Assumption is a turning point. If it’s been dry, we will expect rain. If hot, a spell of cool weather. For centuries, the Virgin Mary has been implored to makes the weather cooperate.
 
But just imploring is not enough, explained a dear friend. One must treat one’s particular statue or painting of the Virgin Mary with special attention. She must have flowers and prayers, rosaries and novenas.
 
“Then you’ll see,” Chantal assured me. She keeps a well-polished brass statuette of the Virgin in her pocket. “But I didn’t do all that polishing,” she told me. “It belonged to my grandmother.”
 
Not that long ago, village priests usually led a procession around the church and among the houses at the Fête de l’Assomption. But these days, the village priest is rare. Processions have fallen out of use.
 
At least in public. But friends in the neighborhood recently revived the tradition on the grounds of their own château. 
 
We gather in the late afternoon. There are children of all ages with parents and grandparents. A priest, dressed in a traditional “soutane” of silky black, leads us. André is an old friend whom we knew as a very young man. He played the organ in church. He taught our sons to be “enfants de choeur,” altar boys. Although he has been very ill, there has been a reprieve; he walks with vigor and his voice is strong.
 
Leaflets are handed out with the words of songs that honor la Vierge MarieIT. And then we set off on the path through the woods. Someone begins to recite the Ave Maria, which in French begins
 
“Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grace…
 
Hail, Mary, full of grace…
 
We all join in to finish the last couplets together:
 
“Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu
Priez pour nous, pauvre pecheurs, maintenant et à l’heure de notre mort…”
 
“Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us, poor sinners, now and at the hour of our death…”
 
Powerful words in the face of our mortality. And all the more so because Mary, in dying, escaped death. She was “assumed” into heaven intact in body and soul.
 
The Assumption of Mary is a concept elaborated in the Byzantine church in the early centuries of Christianity. There is no evidence from the Bible that Mary rose to heaven intact, but the doctrine follows a logical process: if Mary gave birth to God in the form of Jesus Christ, she must have been pure and free of sin. Her sinless body could not be subject to the corruption of death. Instead, she underwent a “Dormition,” as the Byzantine Church described it, a “falling asleep” rather than mortal death.

If the Assumption is an interpretation that only became official Roman Catholic dogma in 1950, the rest of the novena we recite as we walk evokes the essentials of Christianity: the “Notre Père,” the Lord’s Prayer, given by Jesus to the multitudes almost two thousand years ago, and the “Gloire à Dieu,” which glorifies the deeply-anchored doctrine of the Trinity: that God is three persons in one – Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- not three separate entities. 
 
This doctrine was agreed upon in 325 at the council of Nicaea. It is still a fundamental tenet of Christian faith, uniting Protestants, Roman Catholics and the Orthodox Churches.
 
About halfway though our hour-long procession, we stop at a grotto. This is a slight depression in a chalky rock face in the woods. According to family lore, during the Second World War the gardener prayed here for his children trapped above the line of German Occupation. No-one likes to claim that he saw a vision of the Virgin. But on the site he placed a statue of her in thanks.
 
We stop here and write down intentions on little slips of paper. When we take up the procession again, behind us we leave little wishes clustered like a cloud of white paper butterflies at the feet of the statue.
 
And we sing. 
 
“Couronnée d’étioles,” “Crowned with stars,” is probably the most beloved Marial song in French.
 
The image draws on a passage in the Book of the Apocalypse in which John, disciple of Jesus, describes a mystical vision. He sees a woman standing on the moon, her mantel made of the sun. She wears a crown of 12 stars. The vision is of the triumph of Mary, the Mother of God. She has risen to heaven.
 
The procession winds down. It is early evening, but still light. We gather under an allée of clipped linden trees at long trestle tables. Our hostess serves an apératifIT and some salted nuts. We unpack picnic baskets. The young folks drift away to dance in the Orangerie. And we spend a convivial moment together in the August twilight, perhaps catching sight of a star shooting up toward Mary’s crown before it falls, mortal, into the Earth’s atmosphere.
 
     A bientôt au Château.

Elisabeth
                          
 
P.S. I have always found Couronnée d’étoiles to be a beautiful song.  This version is by the boys choir, the Maîtrise de la Croix de Neuilly. A translation of the refrain is below:

Nous te saluons, ô Toi Notre Dame,
Marie Vierge Sainte que drape le soleil,
Couronnée d’étoiles la lune est sous tes pas,
En toi nous est donnée l’aurore du salut… 

We salute you, O thou Our Lady
Mary, virgin, saint, wrapped in the sun
Crowned with stars, the moon is at your feet,
From your body arose the dawn of Salvation…
 
And from our Archives: 
 
The Assomption has been an important holiday in France since 1638. That is the year the future Louis XIV was born. 
 
Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, his parents, had been married since the age of 14. In 23 years, no child appeared. Though they were on notoriously bad terms, they both made public appeals to the Virgin for an heir. 
 
One stormy night, they were trapped together in the palace of the Louvre…
 
To read the full Letter of August 21, 2020, click here.

                       
 **

 As always, Heather and Beatrice (info@chateaudecourtomer.com and +33 (0) 6 49 12 87 98) will be happy to help you reserve your holiday or special gathering at the Chateau, the Farmhouse or both. We still have a few openings for this year and are taking bookings through 2024. Please feel free to call or write us.