ABSTRACT
Jean-Marie Lustiger was born in 1926, 18 years after Olivier Messiaen. Both of them lived and worked in the context of the Church of France, challenged by major social changes and bitter political struggles common in the twentieth century. The chapter highlights the period from the end of the nineteenth century to the opening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962. This period was marked by a Catholic revival movement that puts great emphasis on liturgy and sacred music. The chapter deals with the introduction of liturgical reform in Paris and the way in which Jean-Marie Lustiger and Olivier Messiaen responded to this major challenge. An analysis of Lustiger's implementation of the liturgical reform during his tenure as pastor of Sainte-Jeanne-de-Chantal highlights the difference between his interpretation of the reform and that of Messiaen. As a professional church musician Olivier Messiaen was influenced by currents proper to nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which rooted the Catholic renewal in Romanticism, Symbolism and Surrealism.
