CHAPTER 3
The Oratory held a festive atmosphere at Evening Prayer time. Whereas at Daytime Prayer the community members were in their work clothes and smelled like cleaning products and paint, now they were in their monastic habits. Light gray tunics with navy blue scapulars down the front and back of each person, gathered together with a black leather belt, created a certain relaxed uniformity. The monks had a blue hood attached to the neck of their scapulars and the nuns wore a small blue veil with hair showing in the front.
Flowers, keyboard accompaniment, and candles all announced that a new week had started and that Sunday was beginning. Anthony fumbled with the colored ribbons, which served as bookmarkers in his Office Book. Sister Scholastica came over to his pine wood podium-like choir stall and helped the Observer find his way through the celebration of Evening Prayer.
The community quietly piled into two cars and made the two-mile silent journey to the local parish church for the Eucharistic celebration of the vigil of Sunday. The monks and nuns of the early Church joined in with the larger Christian community for Eucharist, but over time they more and more celebrated Eucharist in their own monasteries. The Salesian Monastery, and some other small communities, had returned to the custom of joining with the People of God for Eucharist most of the time.
Though the local parish was about fifty years old, the worshippers had moved from a small wooden frame church to a newly built and much larger church in recent years. In accord with the directives of Vatican Council II, which aimed at revitalizing the Church and the People of God, the parish house of worship was very simple with lots of light and green plants visible behind large clear glass windows. Some parishioners longed for the old days. One woman was overheard telling her husband before Mass: “There are no statues here; I’m going to Saint Matthew’s next week.” Another person said that he thought that the church looked like a television studio. So much for simplicity!
Anthony was lost in a flurry of page turning during the service. He seemed embarrassed by it, as if he were trying to hide the fact that he was not well able to follow the liturgy.
After dinner some people played cards, took a walk, or just chatted. Recreation lasted for an hour and then there would be Night Prayer. Sister Scholastica invited Anthony to get a little fresh air with her by taking a walk outside. Fall was in the air and the leaves were bursting into a riot of color but were not at their peak yet. As the couple walked down Dairy Lane, they felt as if they had entered into a multicolored tunnel. The trees, still heavy with leaves, formed an arch above them.
“I was wondering if I can help you become more familiar with our liturgical books sometime, Anthony. Perhaps a little class would help you along.”
“That would be very helpful, Sister Scholastica,” Anthony responded. “I can use all the help I can get.”
The nun probed gently. “I’m a little surprised that you are not too familiar with our Liturgy of the Hours or Eucharist. You are Catholic and have spent some time looking into monastic life at other monasteries.”
“Oh that. You see, Sister, I am a Ukrainian Catholic. We are all part of the one Roman Catholic Church of course, but our branch of the Church has a much more Eastern liturgy.”
“That explains it,” the nun responded pensively. “Actually I thought you were of Italian descent.”
“My mother’s parents were from the Ukraine, and my father’s parents were from Italy.”
“What a rich background, Anthony! And now you are considering joining a spiritual family which was begun by two French people from the 1500s—Saint Francis de Sales and his spiritual companion Saint Jane de Chantal.
I have a friend who is a Ukrainian Catholic nun. She is in the Order of Saint Basil the Great. I’ve never met anyone who is more joyful. Unfortunately I rarely see her, but when I do its lots of laughs.”
“Tell me more about the community if you would, Sister. I get the impression that you have been through lots of adventures together, and not all of them happy ones.”
“One or another of us, or the entire group, has dealt with sickness, death, murder, international intrigue, romance, marriage, and just about anything else you can think of. We have been written up in the newspapers and gossiped about, but tend to land on our feet. Salesian spirituality is about dealing with what life hands you in the best way possible. Too often our need to control things gets in the way of our peace. I’ll stop now; this is starting to sound like a homily.”
“Not at all, Sister Scholastica, I appreciated hearing your view of the spirituality of your monastery. It’s one thing to read about it in holy books, but quite another to see it alive in other people.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’m such a good example of Salesian spirituality but I certainly do love Jesus and our spiritual teachers, Jane and Francis. Our motto is “Live Jesus!,” translated from Vive Jesus! in the French. This can be taken on several levels, you know, let Jesus live in everything, live as Jesus did, Jesus lives within each one who follows him, etc.”
“I guess the peace and wisdom you quietly radiate comes from living monastic life all these years.”
“Actually, Anthony, I’ve not yet taken my solemn or perpetual vows. I am in my late forties and entered the monastery less than ten years ago. If the solemnly professed community votes to accept me for final vows, then it is likely that I will make my solemn monastic profession in the new year.”
“After all these years, the community still has to vote on you?”
“That’s right. You are just starting out and your Observership is simply an informal visit to help us all to get to know one another. Then the various steps of incorporation into the community begin—Postulancy, Novitiate, Simple / Temporary vows, and finally Solemn / Perpetual vows. In our hearts we give ourselves to God and the community formally at Simple profession, but the Church requires a period of vowed probation, temporary vows for about five years prior to a final commitment. The only Order in the Church that makes perpetual vows immediately after completing their novitiate years is the Jesuits. They seem to do lots of things differently. Saint Francis de Sales loved them—but that’s a story for another time. Here we are back at the monastery already.”
“Thanks for the walk and the conversation, Sister. It really helped. I think that you are going to be a special friend. By the way, what was your life like before you entered monastic life, may I ask?”
She hesitated. “Perhaps that would be best left for another time. However, even though I’ll do whatever I can to help you, Anthony, we are all in this together. The others will be gentle but firm with you also.”
“Gentle but firm?”
“That’s the maxim we try to live by and two of the main virtues we strive to follow as Salesians. Some think that being a Christian is being a wimp, but it requires a great deal of strength. There I go again giving a homily. See you at Night Prayer, Anthony.”
As they parted ways, the Oratory bell began to peal. The sound of the bell in a monastery is taken to be the voice of God calling the community to prayer. The community gathered in the Oratory as the sun was setting. Golden streams of light blended with darkness and painted the natural wood interior of the small chapel.
The Night Prayer Office includes a reflection about or raising of consciousness to the choices one made during the day past. Older theology called this an “Examination of Conscience,” which typically only included sinful actions and infractions against the Rule of the monastery. A revitalized theology takes a more wholistic and positive view of this review of the day and calls it an “Examination of Consciousness.” How mindful or aware were we during the day of God’s presence? What positive choices did we make? Did we celebrate them? Where is God inviting me to grow stronger?
Standing at their choir stalls, the community reflected on the day. Anthony became restless. He had read somewhere that monastic life is not so much about avoiding sin as it is about practicing virtue, e.g., charity, patience, prudence, and the like. Was he still fighting sin or was his focus now more on the practice of virtue? If so, which virtue was he focusing on? Which dominant fault was his trying to uproot? “All through love, nothing through fear.” That’s what Saint Francis de Sales says, isn’t it?
The Observer distractedly chanted through the psalms in the softly lit Oratory. The final prayers and chants of Night Prayer were followed by the sprinkling of Holy Water upon the head of each person by Abbot Francis. Anthony prayed for a renewal of his life, a changing from what was to what he was on the brink of becoming.
Later in his cell, the monastic equivalent of a simple bedroom, he felt the increasing sense of tension deep inside that was so very familiar to him. He prayed that it would pass. Finally, mercifully, sleep took him.