Many Christians prayed the Our Father and the Angelus together on March 25 in communion with Pope Francis. This prayer recited in the middle of the day could well be an opportunity to rediscover this poem by Paul Claudel which begins with “It is noon”.
” It is noon. I see the church open. You have to go in.” The Holy Father invited Christians around the world to pray the Our Father in communion this Wednesday, March 25 at noon. This time was followed by the Angelus led by Cardinal Angelo Comastri. With the Angelus prayer, which includes three Hail Marys, the Church meditates on Mary’s “yes” to God’s will. Today especially when the Pope invites Christians to unite through prayer, why not make these lines from the writer Paul Claudel your own?
In this poem written after the war of 1914-1818, he addresses the Virgin Mary who, according to him, saved France during the Great War. The poet and future academician thanks her for intervening “at a time when everything was falling apart”. Isn’t this period of pandemic and confinement the right time to enter your inner church and turn again to your mother in Heaven, invoking her benevolent help? Saying the Angelus every day, turning to Mary, alone, as a couple or as a family, this can be a beautiful way of living this time that is certainly suffered, but to which we can choose to give meaning.
It is noon.I see the church open.You have to go in.Mother of Jesus Christ, I do not come to pray.I have nothing to offer and nothing to ask.I only come, Mother, to look at you.Looking at you, crying with happiness, knowing that I am your son and that you are here.Just for a moment while everything stops.Noon !To be with you, Mary, in this place where you are.Say nothing, but only sing Because our hearts are too full, Like the blackbird who follows his idea In these kinds of sudden couplets.Because you are beautiful, because you are immaculate, The woman in Grace finally restored, The creature in its first honor And in its final blossoming, Such as it came from God in the morning From its original splendor.Ineffably intact because you are The Mother of Jesus Christ, Who is the truth in your arms, and the only hope And the only fruit.Because you are the woman, The Eden of ancient forgotten tenderness, Whose gaze suddenly finds the heart and brings out the accumulated tears, Because it is midday, Because we are on this day today Today, Because you are here forever, Simply because you are Mary, Simply because you exist, Mother of Jesus Christ, be thanked!
