APRIL 19, 2013
All the news is from Boston, if it is not from Korea. Why do we hurt each other so? All the news pours into a monastery’s heart and runs out as prayer. We try. What else can we do but keep trying to love, and keep trying to rest in the sacrificial heart of Christ?
A friend sent the loveliest video study of Boston–Boston before the disaster. I suffered a major attack of nostalgia. A couple of cities have my heart and one of them is Boston.
We have just got over a couple of windy weeks. The kind of wind that shrieks and whines without reason. Now the trees have stopped shivering, and the sun smiles through a blue, blue sky. Our Chipping Sparrows have come back. The thing about this flock is that it matches the grass for color, and you think the grass itself is alive until the whole mass of birds rises up together. OH BIRDS!
There have been several sightings of our Vermillion Flycatcher down by the mailbox. We are into Paschaltime and he seems to know it.
April 5, 2013
I have been reminded that it is time for a new journal entry. Friends are so helpful.
We have got through the tribulations of Holy Week, and nothing we go through is anything like the experience of Jesus. Father tells us that the two best days of a monastic’s life are the day after Christmas and the Day after Easter. We spent the day after Easter as a Hermit Day, and this week we went back to work on Wednesday.
Note: the flour at Host baking was in excellent shape. It has to be just exactly so old, and not a moment older. Or younger, I suppose. Four has a personality, with which the baker copes.
We continue to receive lovely pictures and articles about Pope Francis. Whatever he is able or unable to accomplish, his exquisite personality and the brilliance of his choices are points of light in a dark world. The best picture sent to me was one of himself sitting on a little stool in the midst of the congregation after his Mass. Only a couple of people were looking at him.
Did you see the interview with his sister? She feels that he belongs to the world and so she has a responsibility to accept interviews. But her whole life has been turned around.
Our poor dog is aging, arthritic, and not terribly well, but not in appreciable pain. She still enjoys life, has her four o’clock bark, and waits breathlessly for treats from the UPS man and our helpers. I wonder how long she will remain with us.
Oh dear—I have to put more pictures on. It seems as if something unreasonable is happening to time. As if it is stretching or condensing or just making itself unavailable.
We tried a new way of doing the Mandatum and Seder Supper on Holy Thursday. Of course the supper was in the refectory, so we followed the practice of some monasteries and followed it with the Foot-washing. It worked nicely. We suited the Seder text to the menu we have had for years, pointing up the symbolism of the food we do have instead of the traditional bitter herbs and so forth.
And Vicki sang the Exsultet for the Paschal Vigil. She has passed on her job as chantress, having become superior, but that is a tradition she MUST follow. God gave her a lovely voice, and we should not be deprived of it forever.
Rita and I went into town to pick up a visiting Sister, and since one never ever goes in for just one errand, we also picked up Father from the rental car place, and checked into the Pastoral Center to get our Holy Oils. THEN, because the Pastoral Center is right next to our cathedral, we dropped into that marvel of ecclesiastical renovation. It is SO BEAUTIFUL. I wish you could all see it. It’s full of history, and full of light and space.
The Blessed Sacrament Altar is on the left hand side of the sanctuary, and held between two sculptures: Mother Drexel and Juan Diego. Mother Drexel is the foundress of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, who serve Native Americans and African-Americans.
At the edge of the sanctuary, stood a fine photo of the new pope, with a bouquet before it. The view from the rear up the main aisle to the sanctuary is totally satisfying. The cathedral possessed a battered medieval crucifix from Spain, which was renovated and hung in the center of the rear wall of the sanctuary.
When Bishop Kikanis first came, and I first saw the cathedral, I was depressed: the poor man, with this dreary, unappealing place to preside in. But he has worked wonders with it. The foyer is distinctly different from the body of the church, a painted meditation on reverence for and service to the poor. There, for instance, we find an image of Dorothy Day.
Back soon. Happy Paschaltime.