Receiving Eucharist at the Carmel of the Incarnation

Approaching the Table of the Lord

 

We recently received a reminder from our prioress to plan for our annual personal long retreat by the end of this calendar year. We have been much distracted for most of this year and such plans put aside. As I considered possibilities for a retreat of ten days outside the monastery I realized how much daily Eucharist meant to me and how I would be missing that privilege at all the locations which I considered.

These considerations brought me to meditation about my experience of Eucharist and how it has been affected by our experience in this monastery. I feel the warm Divine Embrace most keenly at the table of God’s love. And I have been feeling it even more keenly here at Carmel where both the architecture of the chapel and the choreography of liturgy seem designed to concentrate attention at the heart of the Eucharistic celebration.

The chapel, formerly very dark and hard at the edges, was recently reconfigured within the existing wall and roof structure to assume it the shape of an eye on the horizontal axis of the space. The current design places the entrance to the space at the middle of the curving bottom. The Eucharist is reserved in a silver cube-like tabernacle atop a wooden pillar opposite the entrance as if on the curve of the eye’s upper lid.

The shape is echoed most dramatically by an eye-shaped flying dropped ceiling. This pure white eye above contains a dome illuminated by indirect lighting and most dramatically by an ocular skylight at its apex. This opening to the sky brings a variety of lighting effects into the space as the sun travels across the sky through each day and each season. This ocular mandala illuminates the altar below, the entire eye-shape being mirrored in the tile pattern of the lustrous chapel floor.

The altar of Eucharist directly beneath the dome is perfectly round; a thick beige marble slab resting upon a matching platform of hardwood supported by four stout rectangular legs cross braced near the floor. Simple pewter candle stands seem anchored to holy ground in guard at the altar. Regardless of the location the viewer in any seat in the chapel seems to be directly facing the altar. The presider’s chair is the first seat of the first row of an in-the-round arrangement. He proclaims the Word from an ambo placed between the entrance and the altar.

 

When one makes a visit to the chapel during the day lighting is minimal. The beautiful setting behind the tabernacle immediately draws the eye and attention to the reserved Sacrament.  But when we gather for Mass the lighting is magnified, promoting a natural shift of eye and body toward the center of attention, the altar of the sacred banquet. In my own case, I am blessed to be assigned to a seat only twelve feet away from the altar at an angle which allows for a clear view of the vessels, the hands of the priest, the elements he consecrates and the expression on his face as he does so.

This arrangement alone fosters a unique intimacy in the experience of Eucharist. The priest so easily becomes Jesus himself beckoning, sharing, gifting; his movements imploring us to enter his life. The moment of remembering, the anamnesis of the Mass seems in this setting to be a progressive flowing into the Paschal Mystery. The flow of this shared moment of intimacy is extended by the manner in which all who celebrate here may partake of the Body and Blood of Christ made present on the altar by the very act of our remembering.

It has become the practice of this community to receive the Bread of Eucharist from the hands of the priest by approaching in two lines beginning from the rear of the chapel. Afterward each communicant is free to return to

their place for post-communion meditation or to proceed around the altar and face the chalices of the Wine of Eucharist waiting there. The altar is approached with evident but simple reverence, each person picking up a chalice and slowly savoring the Precious Blood of Jesus, cleansing the rim with a purificator and returning it to the corporal for the next communicant.

Some remark that this way of receiving Communion at Mass takes too much time. Some exacting liturgist may say it does not conform to the prescribed norms. Certainly it would not be practical in the parish setting. But here, where there are rarely more than 40 people present, it serves to provide time for a few contemplative moments at the heart of the Mass.

 

This manner of approaching the altar has provided for me a very sacred moment of intimacy; a very physical way of participating in Jesus’ last supper which we call into memory and into the present moment at every Eucharist. I come to the altar as if it is the table on which Jesus himself prepared this last gift, blessed it and invited all to partake of it; the bread and wine transformed by his power and by the community gathered together to listen to His Word. The altar table has been so carefully prepared; linens laundered white and crisply pressed, bearing a glowing chalice of precious metal containing rich wine. How many tables have I prepared with all the best in my own home? I remember the loving care I poured into banquet occasions so that they would be gift to the guest. In knowing that desire within myself I feel that same desire in the gift of Jesus’ table. My thirsty heart is watered by the sight of the lavish banquet prepared for me at this altar bathed in the light of God’s loving gaze. A heart thus watered blossoms into gratitude as I step to the altar and see all that awaits me there, all of it seeming to glow in the light that bathes what is received and those who receive it. I stand in the place where He stood; where He issued the invitation; where He made a place for me at His table. I raise the cup and drink at the banquet table of God’s love eager again to be transformed into what has been received. I am drawn into the anamnesis of the Mass, the act of remembering, in such a way that what is being remembered becomes present in our space, in our time. 

 

 

Heidi and Matt's Wedding Slide Show

This free digital slideshow made with Smilebox   

Old Voice for New Times

Thomas Merton in his cinderblock
hermitage at the Cisterican Monastery
of Gethsemane, Kentucky

The Trappist monk Father Louis, or Thomas Merton as he is commonly known, died 45 years ago. One would think that now in these fast paced times, in  a period considered by some as 'post-institutional religion', he would be 'done and over'. He could just be a little remembered phenom; the writing hermit whose literary voice helped to usher eager Catholics into the long awaited reforms of the Second Vatican Council and invited them to plumb the spiritual depths of the God relationship so that the renewal could take root. Then he died too young, only age 53, victim of accidental electrocution in Thailand during his exceptional Asian journey.

 

But Thomas Merton is still speaking to us and it is the very technological blessings of these fast-paced times that is making him available to us in surprisingly intimate ways. He has spoken to me these days with the force of a therapeutic jolting, a seismic jolt out of dysfunctional malaise.

 

Seeking spiritual guidance and intellectual enrichment I let my eyes wander through our community collection of recorded courses and lectures now in CD format. Through the years I had listened to poor quality audio tapes of Merton's lectures to his Novices. He was Novice Master for 15 years. Before cassette tapes became available, reel to reel tapes of his talks were informally circulated among contemplatives and laity eager to share his wisdom. As I looked at our current collection I sought titles of things I had not previously heard.

 

All of Merton's literary output and his recorded lectures are held by the Merton Legacy Trust and the Merton Center of Bellarmine University. (A lesson to us all - he died so young but had the wisdom to prepare his Literary Will some years before.) Now the gifts of technology are serving to make every recorded word Merton uttered available to anyone who wants to hear them today. CDs are available from NowYouKnowMedia.

 

These days I have been listening to a series of lectures Merton recorded alone in the natural surroundings of his own hermitage. These rather spontaneous talks were intended for the Sisters of Loretto whose motherhouse was nearby. They requested that Merton record his responses to written questions submitted by them. His tapes (reel to reel) would then be shared among the members of the Loretto community as part of their preparation for a General Chapter in 1967, a Chapter which would deal with the call to renewal of religious life.

 

He speaks in such a relaxed manner, in a tone suggesting that he considers the sisters to be an audience of his peers with whom he can be frank and to whom he has no need to condescend. Indeed, it was very touching to hear at the end of one lecture, " I will pray for you. I love you."

 

Merton's words in these lectures were so relevant to his times but it is striking to me that they have so much relevance for the situation in which we find ourselves today. His words have been gift to me and so appropriate for our current time as the Church, under the significant leadership of Pope Francis, seems to be emerging from a long period of self-absorption; denial of its own grievous faults; and its failure to preserve the value and significance of its spiritual voice for all people.

 

And Merton is so real. There is no Pollyanna here. He calls a spade a spade; warns of the pitfalls; acknowledges his own weakness; and acknowledges the price to be paid in taking the higher road. But he urges always that we must remain rooted in Jesus Christ and seeking the freedom of the children of God.

 

Why not revisit Merton? Why not visit him for the first time?

Soldier Reports on Jim Crow

My father died only five months ago and it remains difficult for me to live in acceptance; to believe that his formidable personality, intellect and influence are no longer present in my life. Yet in memory; in the way I think; in what I appreciate; in the faithfulness of my life he is surely present.  Many treasured objects also conjure his presence. These days it is this trove of letters that make him so very alive in my thoughts. Enthusiastic response to previous mention of these letters here and their historical significance  prompt me to revisit them. The letters were exchanged between my parents from mid-1943 to November 1945 and cover the period just before his draft into the US Army Air Corps; his stateside service largely in Meridian, Mississippi, one semester of study at Georgia Tech, Atlanta; their marriage in August 1943; two periods of living together near the base; and his overseas assignment to an air weather reconnaissance squadron on Guam in the Pacific. In the spring of 1944, the period discussed here, my father was a few months short of his 23rd birthday. He graduated from a New York city public high school in the Bronx and completed about three semesters of City College of the City University of New York. When he received his draft notice he was working as a machinist apprentice.

Demonstration for Voting Rights Act of 1965

We have recently celebrated the history-making, soul uplifting event of the 1963 March on Washington, a plea for the civil rights of all citizens of the nation. We have also marked the 50th anniversary of the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama church which killed four young girls just weeks after the March. It is with these events in mind that I have been reading my father's letters and appreciating his witness to a time some have forgotten, to atrocities hard to comprehend. His reflections provide such valuable context to our acts of remembering; the context of full appreciation of the situation that existed in our country at that time and long before.

Many comments about the sad plight of the of the Negroes are sprinkled through Dad's letters. By March, 1944 my father had spent over a year in Mississippi and my mother had joined him there for about six weeks. Each had become all too familiar with the Jim Crow south. With his letter of March 22 begins a brisk exchange concerning events of the kind caused him to write on March19, "No Sweetheart, there is nothing in this damn South, not even the joy of Spring - nothing but hatred and discrimination."

Many have said to me, "You should write a book." I resist because I know what research would be required. I've had to do some here to get the full import of this episode. Turns out that a Senator from Mississippi, Theodore Bilbo, a Democrat, had risen through the ranks to become head of the Senate's District of Columbia Committee. It has been said that he ruled the city like a plantation owner. He called Clare Booth Luce a "nigger lover"; praised Hitler; and declared  that whites were "justified in going to any extreme to keep the nigger from voting." For years he blocked anti-lynching laws."  In his book Washington Goes to War journalist David Brinkley wrote:

Bilbo seemed to hate everyone: communists, Jews, union leaders, union members, anyone who could, by any definition, be called a foreigner, and above all, of course, blacks. And Bilbo never hesitated to make his hatreds known.

When he ran for the Senate in 1934, he denounced an opponent as "a cross between a hyena and a mongrel...begotten in the nigger graveyard at midnight, suckled by a sow, and educated by a fool."

When he received a hostile letter from a woman named Josephine Piccolo in New York City, he wrote back and addressed her: "Dear Dago."

As one of the nation's most outspoken racists, Bilbo hated the fact that nearly half the residents of the city he helped administer were black. "If you go through the government departments," he once said, "there are so many niggers it's like a black cloud around you." He repeatedly introudced a bill to deport all Negroes to Africa and once suggested that Eleanor Roosevelt be sent with them and made their "queen." Throughout his tenure on the district committee, Bilbo judged almost every proposal on the basis of its effect on race relations. Anything that might benefit blacks -- and in a city whose black population was growing rapidly, that was most things -- he opposed. Nothing outraged him more than the effort in 1941, by blacks themselves, to confront racial discrimination in employment.

That sets the stage for my father's reportage on March 22

Mia Dia,

As always, the radio in Tech Supply was babbling to itself this afternoon - being peacefully ignored in talk and in the hard rain outside. It continued to be ignored until it drew attention to itself with the outbursts that made all of us, there in the building, keep quiet and lend our ears to the most criminal and flagrant contribution to [the] Negro problem I ever heard.

Darling, you've never heard anything like this. You've seen it, being here, but to have heard this is to gain insight into problem as the South sees it - or should I say refuses to see it.

I am only sorry that a printed copy of the speech is not available...but the best I can do now is to as you to accept these quotations. We were all so moved that Kuspeil said, "That man is starting the next war right now." I can't write what I said.

The issue was the Mississippi (?) broadcast of a speech by Senator Bilbo made from the state capital - Jackson where he addressed the legislative bodies of this fair state in joint session. The subject, which must keep these warped people awake at night, was the Negro and social equality.

From the start you could see the vicious farce the whole thing was with half an eye. For the benefit of the untrained audience he seemed to adopt a benevolent attitude, but he gave himself away with some of the worst hateful and bared faced statements I ever heard. Remember they came from a Senator for State consumption.

He covered his subject, beating the drum of White Supremacy, the Negroes Place and the Color Line in the well worn language of the Baiter, he finally came to the climax of his comparison between the North and the South. Stating this climax as if the North had the worst disease known to mankind - rather than seeing it for the southern problem that it is.

He hit his nail on the head like this. In bringing up the "dreadful progress" the negro is making toward equality he mentioned the equality extended the Negro at the Washington [DC] C.I.O. canteen. Here, he said, an equal number of whites and negroes were served in the same place by an equal number of white and Negro waitresses - all eating together. With this he illustrated his point, kept quiet a moment to let it sink in, and the brought up the artillery. "Can we conceive of such a thing, such unheard of social equality?"

That Honey, is unheard of for this man of the stone-age - twice the Governor of this beautiful State.

But the real dynamite came later when continuing to analyze what trouble the North is creating by extending equality - get that Sweet - we create the problem, not they. He said, "If the North thinks we want to live like that, we will tell them, our nigger lovin' Yankee Friends, to go straight to Hell." And that is a quotation.

So this is how they solve a problem. No, in reality he's not trying to do that, only to maintain the whites here on the backs of the Negroes. By the way, he couldn't say that word - he said "Nigger".

But he belied his false benevolent attitude by saying, "White Negro lovers should be treated like we treat the niggers." This swept away all he said about negro benefits here, bringing into focus the fact that much treatment is considered the worst punishment. Then how are the Negroes treated with benevolence?

The shabbiness of his argument also appeared when enumerating the rights of equality a negro has here, he drew laughter from the audience by saying they have equal space rights on public conveyances. Yes, its a joke to them. But I'd hate to be in their shoes when the negro turns the worm here. These people can't see the problem for what it is, they refuse to recognize it as their Frankenstein - rather, they feed it. He pointed to our difficulty with the riots, but didn't mention that these were caused whenever color lines were drawn - to the just resentment of the negro. Those lines are dirty rags these southerners drag up with them and see them stimulated by the enemy to create conflict. Actually we have much less resentment and strife than they do here, where they are sitting on a volcano they've built themselves.

Honey, I am pretty sore tonight.

In his next letter my father enclosed a newspaper clipping from the editorial page of the Jackson, Mississippi Daily News of March 20, 1944.  Bilbo was not a lone racist mad man in a position of power. The editorial reads:

 

GO STRAIGHT TO HELL

 

An (sic) United Press dispatch from Washington says:"The United States office of education

 today called on white educational institutions in the South to open their doors to negro scholars."

 

And here's telling the responsible head of the United States department of education, whoever

 he may be, to go straight to hell.

 

The South won't do it - not in this generation and never in the future while Anglo-Saxon blood

continues to flow in our veins.

 

Nobody but an ignorant, fat-headed ass would propose such an unthinkable and impossible action.

 

The speech and the editorial appeared in 1944, 19 years before the March on Washington in 1963 and 21 years before the Voting Rights Bill was enacted as the law of the land.

 

The story will continue in the next post.

 

Baby on the Way

Does not include all that was delivered at home by Amazon

But did I tell you that a month after the wedding a new grandchild will arrive? No, the bride is not pregnant. The baby will be born to my already married youngest son Andrew and his wife Teresa.

 

So this is how it goes: June move to new monastery; July Mom goes from assisted living to hospital, to nursing home; August Mom is returned to assisted living; September baby shower; October middle son marries; November new grandchild arrives. Whew! Makes me tired just to write all of that.



Teresa and friend both very pregnant
 

Shower was lovely and so generously presented by two of Teresa's friends and attended by many more. It was an at-home shower which  allowed for meeting everybody including the three dear darling newborns who came along with their moms. I got my baby fix complete with breast milk spit up but who cares. Babies smell sooo good.

 

No not cupcakes - baby washcloths

 

Best of all was that the setting offered an opportunity to chat with my two daughters-in-law and the one-to-be without the usual interruptions; the four of us talking about the guys they love who happen to be my sons. I heard some very nice things.

 

Oh, did I mention that I am excited about this baby? Hope its a girl.

 

Kim, Jonathan's wife and Heidi, Matthew's wife-to-be

 

Everyone busy adding their designs to new little onesies