Music is the Voice of the Soul

Suzanne Cooke, RSCJ
Lent is moving into Holy Week as we across the globe cope with the increasingly tragic pandemic. We watch the number of people suffering and dying from COVID-19 grow hourly. We read and hear news of our families and friends as they navigate this moment. All these experiences challenge our very hope and confidence.
As he was accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950, William Faulkner said of us human beings...We will prevail not because we have inexhaustible voices, but because we have souls. The human person..."has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things." Faulkner explained that the writer, the poet, the artist is privileged to help the human person endure by lifting our hearts and reminding us of the "courage and honor and hope and pride and compassiona nd pity and sacrifice which have been the flory of our past." This voice is the pillar that helps us endure and prevail. 

Have we not witnessed the impact of artists' voices in the spontaneous virtual concerts which have sprung up around the world? I offer you a few of tehse spontaneous acts of the human soul. In each case, the arists speak of wanting to create new ways we long to be united in our humanity. 
Let us take Faulkner's confidence in the soul of the human person to heart as we move forward. May these voices and those of all who are calling us forward in hope inspire us to respond with hope and grace.
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Schools of the Sacred Heart share in the educational mission of the Society of the Sacred Heart as articulated in the Goals and Criteria. The structure supporting Sacred Heart education in Canada and the United States includes the Conference of Sacred Heart Education and the Network of Sacred Heart Schools.  Together they provide services and programs to ensure vitality of mission for the member schools sponsored by the Society of the Sacred Heart.