A Complete Story

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 38, 27 September 1923, Page 11

A Complete Stor y

(By Alice Cease, in the Irish Catholic.)

The Music=Master

Mother Margaret looked down with puzzled eyes at the organist, who, oblivious of her presence, was putting his heart and soul into the music that he was rolling out of the old organ in the schoolroom of St. Mary’s. Nearly twenty years as choir-mistress of the convent and musicmistress in the school had given her a large and varied experience of organists and masters, but none of them had been quite like this latest specimen, who was a staunch Protestant,- where the nun felt he should have been a Catholic. Indeed, in her own mind she went further, for to herself she said he odght to be a priest. He had a wonderful instinct for things Catholic, and, as Mother Margaret discovered before he had gone many months to St. Mary’s, a very complete knowledge of Catholic .doctrine. And yet he had never shown the slightest wish or intention to enter the Church, though he had often spoken of religion more simply, more naturally than many Catholics would have done, and after each such conversationall of his own seeking, for the unwritten code of the convent forbade any interference by the nuns with the religion of the extern teachers—Mother Margaret felt more ,and more strongly what an excellent Catholic the Protestant musicmaster would have ' made, if only he were endowed with the gift of Faith. '

One day the stumbling-block in his path was at last revealed. Like so many whose ignorance of Catholic fundamentals is almost incredible, he was firmly - convinced that whilst giving a certain complement of worship to Almighty God we reserved the highest place for the Blessed Virgin. Devotion* to her, therefore, was, in his eyes, anathema.

Mother Margaret’s denial - of such, an outrageous reversal of fact was unheeded. Her explanation •of ? the Truth was met with the not uncommon rejoinder : “I don’t say that you, individually, put your worship of the Virgin above that due to . Almighty God, but other Catholics do. It seemed as though the darkness of his perveisity and obstinacy was impenetrable, and Mother Margarot only felt, after their talks, how useless was discussion, and that prayer to obtain light and the gift of Faith for Mr. Nielson was the only thing of any use. And so, in the convent chapel, where Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament was exposed .daily, prayers went up very often that this greatest of. gifts might be bestowed upon the man who spent himeslf for the good of the convent, so far as its music-pupils were concerned, and not for the pupils alone. If Sister Cecilia, Mother Margaret’s Successor, was in any difficulty for the choir, Mr. Nielson was always willing and anxious to help, and it was a chance remark of hers one day to Mother Margaret that started the train that eventually led the music-master so very far from the convent schoolroom of his daily tasks. There is a custom at St. Mary’s during the month of May, of a pilgrimage being made every day to one or other of the many shrines of Our Lady in the convent, to which the girls walk in procession, singing some hymn m honor of the Mother of God. There was, of course, a Shrine of Lourdes, of Good Counsel, of Perpetual Succor whilst Bethlehem, Nazareth, Loreto, and various other names were given to different places in the house and grounds where a statue or picture of the Blessed Virgin was set up, to be honored on certain days- in the month. It was Sister Cecilia’s pride that her girls knew so many hymns in Latin, French, or in the vernacular, that the same tune had not to be heard more than two, or at most three times during the month. “What is the hymn for to-morrow?” Mother Margaret asked one evening.

There was a tinge of dissatisfaction in Sister Cecilia’s voice as she replied: “It ought to be the turn of “Speak to Him, Dear Mother, of Me,” but it is such an unmusical air—Virginie Brennan calls it hideous, and I am not sure that she is wrong.” Mother Margaret hummed a bar or two, and then broke off, nodding her head.

Yes, it certainly is not good enough for the words.” Then an idea flashed across her mind. “Sister, will you let us have something else to-morrow, and I promise you by this day next week I will provide you with a setting that will be really musical.” ' ’

“Of course. But where ”

. “No questions, please,” interrupted Mother Margaret, smiling. “Wait until you hear my music, and then ask mo any questions you wish.” Sister Cecilia had to be content with her curiosity unsatisfied, whilst falling back for the morrow’s hymn oil the ever-popular “Ave Maris Stella.”

Mr. Nielson,” said Mother Margaret to the musicmaster next day, when he had finished his morning’s work, “I am going to ask you a favor. You have, I am sure, heard the children singing their May hymns every day this month Well, there is a set of words I have here, of which we are very fond, but the tune they have been set to well, as French people would say, it nearly pulls off one’s ears. Now, lam going to ask you, as a great favor, to make us another setting for the hymn. You know the compass of the children’s voices. We want something devotional and musical, yet an air they can easily learn. And please remember that when we sing our hymns we are speaking to Almighty God, or to His Saints. We are praying, in fact, ■so that a hymn tune must have prayer in it, as well as melody.” Mr. Nielson held out his hand for the copy of the words which the nun offered him. “You are not setting me an easy task. Sister,” he said. “The children’s compass, an air to suit both their voices and the words you are giving me, and one that contains both melody and prayer. Well, certainly when you do ask what you call a favor, you do it thoroughly.” He laughed as he spoke.

Mother Margaret was satisfied, as she handed him the words, that her promise to Sister Cecilia would be fulfilled. ' ' ; - .

■ ;•• As Mr. Nielson said, Mother Margaret was asking for a good deal, but when he began to study the words that she had given him, a quit© unforseen difficulty added itself to those he had already mentioned. The hymn was a prayer; not a prayer of worship to the Virgin, who he had always thought usurped her . Son’s place in the Catholic Church, but a prayer of supplication, an entreaty to her to do all she could for the supplicants, and that was to speak to her Son for them. Mr. Nielson was familiar with pictures.of the Madonna and Child, but something infinitely more beautiful than any picture he had ever seen rose before his eyes Mother, in whom was centred the most gracious loveliness of motherhood, with her Child, her Divine, all-powerful Child in her arms. And the words of the hymn kept asking her; “Speak to Him, dear Mother, of me.”

He seemed to see the beautiful face glowing with mother-love bending over the beautiful Infant. The gentle, gracious lips moving, telling the Infant that suppliants on earth were asking Him to bless them, and at His mother’s bidding the Baby raised His little hands, and the music-master felt like falling on his knees to receive that Divine blessing. “Speak to Him, speak to Him, dear Mother, of me.” Was it not only natural that the Child Jesus would listen more readily to His Mother than to any earthly supplicant.

A melody rose ufp in the musician’s heart. He knew and loved much of the old stately music of ecclesiastical lore, and now that the Mother of men was speaking for —could he doubt —to her Son, God, he felt a power of composition that had never before been his, and his prayers seemed to form itself from an echo of old Church music, with the personal strain of entreaty and of thanks in it that filled his heart to bursting.

With quick, nervous fingers he turned the pages of Mother Margaret’s hymnbook to where the words of the “Ave Maria” were to be found. “Hail, Mary.” The first part of the prayer came, he realised, from the words of the Bible.

The second —what was there in it to uphold his old false theory of higher honor being paid to the Mother than to the Son

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners.” In a few moments a sheet of music paper was covered

with dots and dashesa magnified form of what might have been shorthand gone mad.

Then, with his hands on the keyboard, there swelled into his little room the melody that was filling his heart: “Speak to Him, dear Mother, speak to Him of me.” Next morning a folded sheet of music-paper, very much more legible than the queer hieroglyphics of, thd previous day, lay on Mother Margaret’s desk. Mr. Nielson said nothing as he laid it there, but the nun saw’ something in his face that had never been there before.

“Has—has she spoken to Him for you?” Her question was not more than a whisper, so that the music-master could have disregarded it if he would.

But silently he bent his head. , ... “And He ?” Mother Margaret hardly dared ask.

“And He said ‘ Come,’ ” replied Mr. Nielson.

The music that the children sang on their pilgrimage next day has never been published, but at, St. Mary’s it is handed from generation to generation of school-girls as a treasure beyond price. It is the distinctive hymn of their Alma Mater, and a manuscript copy of it is in one of the schoolday relics that each one carries home with her when her span of happy years at the convent have gone by.

And Mother Margaret’s wish for the erstwhile musicmaster has come true. A few yearfj more of teaching, as a Catholic; a span of years as a student himself in an ecclesiastical college; and thenthe priesthood. He never made a name for himself as a composer. His hymn was for St. Mary’s alone, for he knew that with this one exception his talent for composition was worth little. But in the church which he now serves the choir is certainly above the average, and even the most critical of his congregation own that Father Nielson’s selection of hymns in honor of Our Lady are “quite good.”