Immaculate Mary, your praises we sing...

Right now I'm re-reading The Sign of Jonas, one of the many books written by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, known in the monastery as Fr. Louis. This is my favorite of all his books, and picking it up again is like visiting with an old friend. I've read this book at least half a dozen times since the late 1960s, and some passages I know almost by heart. I was rather amused the other day, however, when I came across a passage about which I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever. After writing about several recent major liturgical feasts at the Abbey of Gethsemani, the Trappist monastery in Kentucky where Fr. Louis lived out his monastic life, he noted in his typical blunt fashion:

"At all these pontifical functions they have been playing some weird music on the organ. It reminds me of the stuff you used to hear at the movies before the silent movies went out and the talkies came in. Now I discover that it is the hymn that the faithful sing at Fatima. Mother of God, why do you let these things happen?"

Good grief, he was talking about the hymn "Immaculate Mary"!!! I love that hymn! It sure doesn't sound "weird" to me, especially the way we sing it so happily and enthusiastically at the end of daily Mass in my parish. Ah well, Fr. Louis and I are coming from two different places. Perhaps if I had been in a monastery singing Gregorian chant for seven years, as was his case at the writing of this book, "Immaculate Mary" wouldn't appeal much to me either.

Mother of God, we love you!