There's my story about the Blessed Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne on the cover of the July/August issue--illustrated with a scene from Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites!
Watch this space for more information!
Just a little sample from the beginning of the article:
A visitor in Paris today might arrive at the Place de la Nation, a hub of transportation and commerce on the right bank of the Seine River and never know about the Revolutionary deeds of blood committed there.
Restaurants, taxis and buses ring around the Place de la Nation and its statue depicting Marianne, the symbol of the Republic, while locals walk their dogs in the park. But here, in the last hot summer of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, on July 17, 1794, fourteen nuns, three lay sisters and two servants of the Carmelite house of Compiègne died for their Catholic Faith.
What brought them to such a bloody end beneath the blade of the guillotine the day after the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel? The answer might be surprising if we presume the ideals of liberty, fraternity and equality truly summarize the spirit of the French Revolution. After the fall of the traditional, absolute monarchy and the rise of the National Assembly with a constitutional monarchy in 1789, the state attacked the Catholic Church, confiscating churches and closing convents. . . .
That introduction is based upon my pilgrimage to the site of the Carmelites' execution and to their place of burial at Cimitiere de Picpus (in November of 2010).
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