A Young Lebanese Woman, an Aramaic Chant, and Leo XIV Moved to Tears

It is September 25 at the Stade de France, near Paris, where Pope Leo XIV is set to meet with French youth that evening, on the first day of his apostolic journey to France. On a backdrop depicting a boat and a sail, a man and a woman can be seen standing, while, overlaid on a fourth-century Aramaic hymn rising through the stadium, a voice-over reads:

“When France did not yet bear its name, Heaven was already preparing its plan. In the year 44 AD, on the shores of the Mediterranean, a frail wooden boat reaches the coast. Two disciples of Jesus Christ set foot for the first time on this land that would become Provence: Lazarus and Mary Magdalene. From the coastal calanques to the cliffs of Sainte-Baume, their passage would carve into stone, into hearts and into the memory of men the very first page of the Christian chapter in the history of France. ‘Here is the cry of my entire life,’ Mary Magdalene, the converted sinner, then proclaims: ‘Christ is calling you by name. No one is too broken to be loved!’”

Thus begins, through a meeting of East and West, the grand spectacle staged for Pope Leo XIV as part of his encounter with French youth. A centerpiece of the vigil was a large-scale living fresco and a litany of the saints specially arranged for the occasion, blending traditional prayers with invocations to saints and figures from the history of Christianity in France, including Joan of Arc, Vincent de Paul, Francis de Sales, Louise de Marillac, Thérèse of Lisieux, the Curé of Ars and Charles de Foucauld. The arrival in the year 44 of a boat without a sail, oars or rudder, carrying a group of Christians who were companions of Jesus, including Lazarus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary Magdalene, who had been abandoned to the waves by their persecutors, is well attested in Provençal tradition.

The voice singing in Syriac belongs to Helena Alamil, a singular Lebanese talent whose personal journey brings together the worlds of advanced scientific research and ancient Eastern Christian liturgy.

Héléna Alamil at the Stade de France.

A Dual Career

Far from being a traveling artist, Helena Alamil is, in fact, a full-time scientist. She holds a PhD in toxicology from Université Paris-Saclay and has worked as an assistant professor, researcher and field application scientist specializing in mass spectrometry for the life sciences.

Originally from Rmeich in southern Lebanon, a large Maronite village near the border, Helena has been living in France for around a decade. In her adopted country, she is also known as the daughter of the village priest, Father Nagib Alamil. The hymn she performed, Abo Dqoushto (Father of Truth), is a profound fourth-century Syriac liturgical hymn addressed, according to the Maronite liturgy, to God the Father and centered on Christ’s sacrifice.

Helena was chosen to represent the “first Christians” at the opening of the “In the Footsteps of the Saints” tableau presented to the Pope. The production was masterfully directed by Alexis Duffaure, a conductor and choir director who is as “humble” – Helena’s word – as he is talented. He led an orchestra and choir of 2,500 people coordinated by Ecclesia Cantic, a French ecclesial organization dedicated to supporting liturgical singing. Visually, vocally and musically, the production featured around a dozen scenes recounting the history of sainthood in France. One of the evening’s biggest surprises was a chariot drawn by four horses, bringing to life the story of Saint Blandina’s martyrdom in Lyon, followed by Joan of Arc and her companions-in-arms galloping on proud steeds between the rows of spectators.

Helena’s performance accompanied the scene depicting the Eastern roots of Christianity in Provence. As actors portraying Mary Magdalene and Lazarus entered the stadium standing in a boat, her soprano voice gave the performance its momentum, moving Pope Leo XIV and the crowd of 80,000 spectators filling the stadium’s stands to tears.

“An Honor and a Grace”

“It was an honor and a grace for me, and a great responsibility,” Helena tells Levant Time. “Is it a matter of succeeding in life or giving one’s life?” asks the script for the evening, narrated by André Dussollier. Helena’s answer is immediate: “All I want is to touch the hearts of the faithful, play a part in their conversion, and give glory to God and His Church.”

Now in her early thirties, the young woman, speaking by phone, has no intention of letting the “talent” entrusted to her go to waste. Instead, she seeks to put it to use primarily at public and private religious ceremonies, with only the occasional “wine reception” as an exception.

She says she has never been happier than when some of her listeners in Europe have told her they “didn’t understand a word of the hymns” she had performed, only to add: “When we listen to you, it’s as though we understood everything.”

It is a source of pride for the young woman, who has sung “all over France,” including in Monaco, Luxembourg and Germany, and even in Rome, where she sang with a choir at the canonization ceremony of the three Massabki brothers, Maronite laymen martyred in the Damascus massacres of 1860, alongside thousands of other Christians from Lebanon’s mountainous region.

“Roots in Rmeich”

It was from the village of Rmeich, where her family roots lie – now reduced to a residential enclave surrounded on all sides by the Israeli military, with entry and exit allowed only with authorization – that she traveled to Paris and answered the call to sing for the Pope. It is also there that she returns at Christmas and Easter and during the summer to be with her father, her mother Violette, her married sister, her brother, who is a priest, and her eight nieces and nephews.

“I owe everything to my family,” Helena says. She inherited her beautiful voice, as well as her love of her homeland, from both her parents. “In fact, I learned to sing before I learned to read,” she says candidly.

Deeply attached to Lebanon, which she, like many Lebanese, considers “part of the Holy Land, since Christ walked its soil,” Helena’s attachment is “above all to Rmeich, which she loves deeply, and where, according to local traditions, certain sites still bear traces of Christ and his disciples as they traveled toward Sidon and Tyre.”

Héléna Alamil with her family in her village of Rmeich.

What does she remember most vividly from the ceremony at the Stade de France? What touched her personally? Surprisingly, it was “the discipline, the calm and the respect for others” that left the deepest impression. “You have to compare the crowd leaving the stadium that night with the crowd leaving a soccer match to understand,” she tells Levant Time. “Everyone filed out smoothly and orderly. Not an overturned trash can in sight!”

But that was not all. She was also moved to tears by the message of hope delivered by the Pope: “You are the saints of France!”

“What also struck me was the Pope’s emotion. He enjoyed the vigil. In fact, everyone was moved to tears, even the Pope,” Helena adds. “I think this awakening is deep and will last. You only have to look at the response on social media. Young people are no longer ashamed to call themselves Christians or to talk about their faith. The Pope’s visit has given them greater confidence. In France, a new generation of Christians is spreading its message of hope.”

Let us leave the final word to the great Christian poet Jean-Pierre Lemaire: “We were on Mount Tabor… Now we must come down from the mountain and root this renewed faith in the ordinary rhythms of everyday life.”