Jean-Jacques Olier: Letter 93: On the Chant of the Church

Introduction

Jean-Jacques Olier (1608-1657) was a French priest and founder of the Sulpicians (Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice).  Though encouraged at a young age, by St. Francis to Sales, to become a priest, he lived for fashionable society; when he studied at the Sorbonne, he hoped for academic glory, striving to learn Hebrew in order to defend his thesis in that language, just for the thrill of it.  When his eyesight began to fail, he undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy House of Loreto, where he was cured and converted.  Taught by St. Vincent de Paul and Charles de Condren, superior general of Pierre de Bérulle's Oratory of Jesus, he undertook both spiritual reform and works of charity.  Eventually headquartered at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, he founded a seminary and an order of priests, the Sulpicians, who continued Olier's dual aim, especially in following St. Vincent de Paul's lead in caring for the poor.  (A pupil of the seminary, St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, later extended this care to the education of poor children.)  Though he recovered from a first stroke in 1652, a second one in 1653 left him paralyzed and in great suffering for the remainder of his life.  

Olier's greatest legacy is the Sulpicians themselves, but he also left behind a number of writings.  Part of the French School of Spirituality, inaugurated by Pierre de Bérulle (whose influence comes to Olier both through St. Vincent de Paul, Bérulle's former roommate, and Charles de Condren, Bérulle's successor at the Oratory), Olier's main writings are devotional, such as the Introduction to the Christian Life and Virtues, the Catechism of the Interior Life (which is available in English), and the Explanation of the Ceremonies of the Mass.  Recently, though, a number of his mystical writings, previously unknown and unedited, have been published in French: these include The Crystal Soul: On Divine Attributes in Us and From the Creation of the World to the Divine Life.  The editor of the monumental Patrologia Latina and Patrologia Graeca series, Jean-Paul Migne, also edited Olier's works (as well as Bérulle's).

The text below is from a collection of Olier's "Spiritual Letters" published in the late 1600s.  I have previously translated Olier's "Feelings Regarding the Grandeurs of Saint Joseph" (Part One, Part Two).

Letter 93
On the Chant of the Church

Jean-Jacques Olier 

With much joy do I learn of the dedication you now show towards the divine Offices, and the love you have for the chant of the Church. This is an all-holy, all-divine employment, and one which must be a source of many blessings and graces for you, if you apply yourself to it with religion. It seems to me that this, properly, is the occupation of the saints and the exercise of paradise. For what does one do in heaven but glorify God and chant His praises? Chant in the Church is an expression of the praises which, in the secret of our heart, we render to God, in the inner spirit of Jesus Christ. The Son of God is the true sacrifice of praise of God His Father, and the Holy Scripture names Him this, according to the Prophet: sacrifice of shouting (Ps 27:6).1 However, He is mute upon our altars and in the bosom of the Father, at least, with regards to us. For we hear nothing of His voice, and the Church is not aided outwardly nor in a sensible manner. This is why she complains lovingly in the Song, and this makes her say, Sonet vox tua in auribus meis [Let your voice sound in my ears] (Sgs 2:14). Your Father, and also the souls favored by Your love and Your inner visits, hear well enough the inner sound of Your voice, with which You speak in the midst of silence. But the gross people, who can hear only the outward and sensible voice, and who do not have ears of the heart open to the words of the spirit and able to understand quid spiritus dicat Ecclesiis [what the spirit says to the Churches] (Rev 2:7), they have need of another voice, besides the one which speaks only in the heart. It is for this reason that the Son of God, with His spirit, animates priests, in order to publish the praises of His Father through them, and we hear His voice as the voice of a multitude, tanquam vox multitudinis (cf. Dan 10:6), as the Holy Scripture remarks, since, in each of them, He renders Himself a sacrifice of shouting.

Jesus Christ, unique in His religion, and in the homages He renders to God in the heart of priests, makes use of the angels in heaven to spiritually spread His religion, and He makes use of the instrument of men to spread it bodily on earth, thus making a perpetual concert of divine praises on earth and in heaven. This ought to be the consolation of those who chant plainchant, which, in its measures and pauses, is regulated by the ordinary method and rule of God. For, as He makes all with weight and measure (Wis 11:20), and with society and unity in the Church of heaven and earth, so He makes chant to be so regulated that out of many is made one voice, or, rather, one single harmony.

Those souls dedicated to chant are assured that they have one of the purest and most eminent functions of the Church of God. They are like the angels of the highest hierarchies, who, separated from the commerce of men, are dedicated to this ministry of praise alone, and they have society not only with all the Church, who chants and praises the majesty of God in all, in one and the same spirit, but they are, again, in society with all the angels of heaven, who are dedicated to God only in Jesus Christ, and they are more in society with Jesus Christ Himself, Whom they serve as an aid, so that He be heard by the Church through their instrument; thus they are the completion and fullness of Jesus Christ, Who, through them, spreads and multiplies the praises of His Father, and they are the very function of the Word in eternity, He Who is the universal and perfect praise of God. This is why all chanters lose themselves in Jesus Christ, and why they stay ceaselessly united to Him, so to be animated by a profound respect, by a lively love, and by a perfect religion in their praises. It is to this that I exhort you, above all, so that you might worthily acquire this holy ministry.

1This is the literal translation of the Vulgate phrase (hostiam vociferationis); the verse is more often translated “sacrifice of joy” or “sacrifice of jubilation” (Douay-Rheims).

 

Source: Lettres Spirituelles de Monsieur Olier… (Paris: Jacques Langlois, 1690), 220-222.

Translation ©2026 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.

 

 



  

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