Chavagnes International College

Chavagnes International College

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Chavagnes International College episodes

  • "Hymne de Chavagnes" The school hymn of Chavagnes International College

    With music by our music Masters (melody by Liam Maguire, harmonised by Nicholas E Lloyd) and words by Headmaster Ferdi McDermott, this hymn expresses the true spirit of our College and its mission : to build a spiritual community of learning and prayer for the good of the Church and the world.

    Out of the darkness comes the light

    Which from the east dispels our night;
    And so the never conquered sun
    Gives man each day a call:
    Work with gladness til the day is over.

    And so from north, south, east and west,

    Our gracious Lord has thought it best
    To bring us to this house of prayer
    To read and learn and play
    And to learn to live with one another.

    For every man who joins us here

    Will soon become a brother dear,
    For while the world be harsh and cruel
    The rule for us is love
    That each man may find his way to wisdom.

    For love of Beauty, goodness, truth

    Forged in the fire and force of youth
    Laurels of learning, by God’s grace
    To love and lead His world.
    Princes, we will wear our crowns to serve Him.

    And all we do, will do it well.

    Work of our hands and minds will tell
    That while we strive, we strive for Him
    Who gave his life and death,
    That we might in Heaven live Forever.

    So when we run, we run to win

    And to love best, we flee from sin;
    That fit in body, mind and heart,
    We may begin our task:
    We shall build a house that lasts forever!

    And when we’ve lived for Him alone,

    Casting our crowns before His throne,
    As children we will stand again
    Before our Shepherd King.
    “Come”, He’ll say, “my brothers, join my Table.”

    So, Shepherd King, from nations call

    More saints and scholars to this hall
    That with our brothers we may sing;
    A hymn of thund'ring praise:
    To the Trinity, One God, be Glory.

    (Ferdi McDermott)

    6 min
  • “Charles Péguy, the French Catholic Revival and a little girl called Hope”, Ferdi McDermott.

    Following calls from recent popes to a rediscovery of the theological virtue of hope, this paper examines a poem dealing specifically with that subject, by Charles Péguy, a French poet who died in 1914 in the early fighting of the First World War. He is a key figure of what has been called the French Catholic revival. His dramatic monologue takes the form of a catechism lesson lesson addressed to the young St. Joan of Arc, in which Hope is portrayed as a little girl. Rooted in a rediscovery of the “real” and under the influence of the philosopher Bergson, Péguy’s message seems to be that a childlike Hope could be the key to a renewal of Faith and Love, and perhaps to a re-energizing of the Christian message. Péguy wrote his poem at a time when France was deeply traumatized by the Franco-Prussian war, the Dreyfus scandal and the anti-clerical purge of the early 20th century. It was a society that had lost is bearings. Many themes of his day are strangely current in our own.

    This talk was delivered (online) as part of the Chavagnes 2020 Summer conference: Faith and the fin de Siècle.


    1 hr 6 min
  • “Black Butterflies: the Life and Work of Olive Custance, Lady Alfred Douglas”, Ferdi McDermott.

    OLIVE CUSTANCE WAS the long-suffering wife of Lord Alfred Douglas, the beautiful young man over whom Oscar Wilde lost his reputation, livelihood and family. But at the same time Lord Alfred was holding court in Oxford, his future wife, Olive, was already holding court in London. She ventured into literary society very young, at the age of sixteen in the London of the 1890s, surrounded by admirers of both sexes. A Catholic convert, like her husband, she was also an accomplished poet and her work is now being rediscovered. 

    This talk was delivered (online) as part of the Chavagnes 2020 Summer conference: Faith and the fin de Siècle.

    56 min
  • The Young Masters 2 : Nostalgia

    Join me, Ferdi McDermott, Headmaster of Chavagnes, for a friendly chat about the good old days, with a gathering of young friends, and of course (especially for this subject) some of my oldest and best friends ... Let's talk about nostalgia. Is it innate in man? Is there a gene for it? Or is it a folk memory of Eden? Or is it something that comes out when times are hard? Is it a comfort mechanism? Or a a survival mechanism ? With us this evening are Chavagnes Young Masters Philip Marhsall (Durham and Oxford) Charles Eric Lorin (McGill), Antoine Bureau (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon), Antoine Bertier (ESCP), plus three extremely fine Old Masters : my friend for over 25 years, Charles Coulombe (ITI, Austria), celebrated writer and journalist, then dear friend of 20 years and literary scholar Robert Asch  (Montréal), former professor at Chavagnes from 2002 to 2012  ... and last but not least, former Chief Librarian at the Manchester University Rylands Library and international authority on Cardinal Newman and the Oxford Movement, Peter Nockles, another old friend from my London days in the 1990s. Welcome to all these fine gentlemen. 

    42 min
  • The Young Masters 1 : The French Revolution

    Headmaster Ferdi McDermott asks the Young Masters of Chavagnes International College "What was the point of the French Revolution and did it succeed?" Featuring Philip Marshall (Durham and Oxford), Keir Martland (Cambridge), Charles Eric Lorin (McGill), Antoine Bureau (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon), Antoine Bertier (ESCP) and Ferdi McDermott (Edinburgh and Buckingham).




    56 min

About Chavagnes International College

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Music plus reflections on faith and culture from a seat of Catholic learning since the 13th century. Chavagnes International College was first a medieval Benedictine monastery, then a seminary in the wake of the French Revolution and now an international Catholic boarding school for boys with its own Liberal Arts university college.