The fruit of contemplation

Today, at Dorchester Abbey (near Oxford), a funeral Mass was celebrated for an extraordinary woman, Dr Mary Berry. From her obituary in the London Times:

In 1975 a colleague, Rosemary McCabe, experienced a Eureka moment which was to reconfirm the course of Mary Berry’s life. Lying in her bath one day with a copy of Early Music magazine, McCabe read it from front to back and then, springing from the bath, informed her startled colleague, “There’s nothing in it about the chant. You must do something!”

Berry often told this story of how the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge was founded. Beaming at the assembled singers who gathered at the Schola’s singing weekends, workshops and pilgrimages, she welcomed all comers. From the Schola’s first service on Palm Sunday that year in St John’s College chapel, “our main aim was to tell people about this wonderful, virtually unknown, music”, and she did this by orchestrating medieval services, concerts and liturgical plays. She revelled in dressing up for the ancient liturgies with meticulous attention to detail and occasional wild improvisation.

As her work became known, her teaching of the chant took her all over the world — to France, Estonia, Canada, America and Australia, and places in between. Galvanised by her knowledge and encouragement, numerous local chant groups were formed, including a flourishing all-black choir from Dominica in the Windward Islands.

As icon of the Church, this consecrated soul would have lived out the mission to "build culture," and what a success she was!

Devout and erudite, Berry radiated a joyful and sunny blessing, occasionally interspersed with crisp commands if singers flat-footed a wrong note. There were no concessions to ignorance — either of the chant or the liturgy — but her bubbling humour leavened long hours of choir practice. With a fund of interesting and mildly scurrilous anecdotes delivered with a twinkle in her eye, she was fortunate to attract many fine cantors to sing at festivals and record CDs on the Herald label.

The cantors of the Schola, a professional group of singers interested in Gregorian chant and early music, specialise in the reconstruction and performance of liturgy from the 10th century to modern times. Led by Berry, they were the first in the field to record a reconstruction of a complete festal service based on the tropes and organa of the Winchester Troper, and this won the Michael Beazley Medieval Recording of the Year in 1991. Their work was, and continues to be, very significant in bringing early music to a wider audience.

In 2000 she was awarded the Papal Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice for her work with Gregorian chant, and in 2002 she was appointed CBE for her services to plainsong and Gregorian chant.

Who says the Church doesn't recognise and appreciate the talents of women? The accolades came from around the world, as exemplified by these comments concerning her funeral.

In my opinion, this was a most fitting way to remember and pray for someone who had devoted her life to the study, promotion and prayerful singing of the Church's treasury of sacred music. Dr Berry deserves to be remembered as one of the leaders of the 'new liturgical movement' in England, although I doubt she would see herself in that light. Rather, she only desired to live out what 'Sacrosanctum Concilium' said about Gregorian chant; small wonder then that both Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II awarded her for her services to sacred music. However, I am sure that her greatest reward will be in heaven, and even in death she remains a shining example of the merits of Gregorian chant. Her holiness of life - which many people attest to - is surely the fruit of a life that contemplated the divine mysteries through the Church's music, and what better witness to the power of the Liturgy and of Beauty need we have than that?

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May your servant, Mary, rest in peace.

[Pictures are from the New Liturgical Movement website belonging to Shawn Tribe. I hope he doesn't mind me "borrowing" his excellent photos. His site is always a tremendous source of beautiful images.]