7.12.04

Theology: Reflection on the Vatican II Document Sacrosanctum Concilium

A fake newspaper that shows what the headlines might have looked when the Second Vatican Council convened.
The Second Vatican Council convenes in St. Peter's Basilica.



It has been over thirty years since the Vatican Council began, since the renewal of the liturgy and the subsequent changes that have affected Catholic worship as we know it was first set into motion. I was born in 1979, more than a decade after these changes. I grew up knowing nothing different than the Mass that I know today, in the vernacular, which was the familiar language of English. I only know Mass, where the priest faces the people, not the other way around.

     Little did I know as a boy in Catholic grammar school that the liturgy and worship of my time and place had had a long and tumultuous history, a journey spanning two millennia, from the breaking of the bread recorded in Acts (2:2), to the Greek concept of koinonia, the Orthodox liturgy of the East, to the dramatic Papal displays of Medieval Europe to the Tridentine Mass so familiar to a whole generation of Catholics who came before me.
     So, reading the document on the liturgy from the Council today, more than three decades later, is very interesting because it is essential to go back to the source of what changed dramatically, a liturgy that had been practically unchanged since the Council of Trent. What has really changed, and what has really stayed the same? What did this document have to say, and how have we been faithful to it in our interpretations?

3.12.04

Poem: "Bobby"

A boy walks with two wooden spoons, a handmade drum, wearing a lion skin, and he struts his stuff.
Bobby was bigger, but only by a few inches; in a fight, he always toppled me
effortlessly to the ground
with a swift kick of his Keds, a warm thud: undulated by the trampoline’s
attraction to the center of things.  Bobby snarled like an innocent kid on crack as he stood over me, his hair almost falling into my face —
then laughing, jumping into the air,
landing on my belly
laughing —
again

I was angry by this
invasion after school with something I could only guess was
fucked up camaraderie,
his cat calls of queer only adding to the sting of the taut tarpaulin,
the weight of Bobby,
my own inability to stand on my own two feet, the feeling of
discontinuous motion,
too fueled with raw gut to understand what he meant when
he pushed his weight on my stomach,
his Abercrombie jeans against my ribs.

If there was intimacy,
it was only for a moment —
and even then,
I surmise,
illusory
for
he took my head
back to the grainy tarp, my face a contorted red mash:

His suck-my-dick mantra seemed a distorted fraternal gesture,
an initiation into the world of men,
inverted love and affection parading,
threatening to undo me —
pinning me in a corner,
giving me a cruel chance to

not verily “men loving men”
as I would read about later —
when I got older —
not a continuum —
but fractured fraternity,
violent; 

And he would
clap my back after we fought
as if it was a ritual of friendship.

as if the previous humiliation was nothing, really, as if I had nothing to be ashamed about — any feelings I might have had were none at this moment because Bobby was kind
and generous.

You did okay for a pansy.  Really.
Can I borrow X-Men?

I would say “sure” and “okay” like a monk at chant.
“They’re in my room”.

But, he was my friend.

Bobby in his white cotton v-neck Fruit of the Looms
and Abercrombie jeans,
wiry blonde hair —
(he didn’t sleep; red circles around his eyes)
would
graciously accept my comic books
as a token of some sort,
a secret pact between us —
and he would bring them back,
in their plastic slipcases,
as if he knew they were precious to me,
punching my chest with a cordial
fuckface,
not too distant from my mother’s call
to come to dinner.

9.10.04

Poem: Fat Contented Ladies

I took this photograph of a decorative electric light bulb and lamp at the Louis H. Lattimer Museum in Queens.
photo credit: Greig Roselli*
the fat contented ladies with their
formaldehyde eyeliner, pat expressions -
flit around like wearied gods
looking for a handout, a dimpled whisper -

I can’t stand ‘em
PDF Copy for Printing
*I took this photograph of a decorative electric light bulb and lamp at the Louis H. Lattimer Museum in Queens.

11.7.04

Of Carmelites and African Greys

Brother Gabriel, O.S.B., a monk of Saint Joseph Abbey, tends to his African Gray parrot.
Brother Gabriel Rivet, OSB
In a mostly abandoned seminary building, I climb a flight of stairs, pass two meowing cats, and knock on the door of an old prefect’s office to rendezvous (as I do every Saturday afternoon) with Gabriel Rivet, a monk of Saint Joseph Abbey, a Benedictine monastery on the outskirts of Covington, Louisiana, a bedroom community of New Orleans. The office is musty, retired parrot feathers garner the air and there is a strong scent of vegetables, parrot mix and the lulling hum of daytime television. “Mostly to entertain her,” Gabriel tells me pointing to the African Grey who does, in fact, seem to be watching TV, her head cocked to one side, intent, soaking it all in. Newspapers line the bottom of Jocko’s cage, old Times Picayunes and church bulletins; Br. Gabriel is exceedingly insistent that I place three layers of print to cover Jocko’s cage and to make sure I secure the edges with scotch tape. While he prepares Jocko’s egg – a treat the avian companion gets every afternoon – we talk about Saint Thérèse, Saint Benedict, and monasticism. “You want your egg, Jocko?” Gabriel croons, motioning to the bird with a plate he places on top of the cage. Jocko knows the routine and determinedly climbs up to eat her fill of the yellow yolk. Usually, the monk, who will celebrate his fiftieth year of monastic profession this summer, offers me the white of the egg. “It’s not good for her. No nutritional value.”

10.7.04

Poem: "On the steps of my porch"

A House in Saint Benedict, Louisiana is Now Owned by the Monks of Saint Joseph Abbey in Louisiana and is on their Property
    Never imagined to what extent love could take me,

    to which crevice it would find a home
    in my body
    and dwell there ...

    a place love could harbor and
    somehow blossom,
    take root in a wound −
    this mixed up home of sinew and blood,
    love has discovered a smile −

    an embrace that I did not expect,
    actually,
    in the form of you,
    at the steps,
    smiling.
Image Source: © 2004 Greig Roselli

10.7.03

Video: First Profession of a Benedictine Monk






"Accept me Lord as you have promised so that I may live and let me not be put to shame in my hope"
Psalm 31:17

In the Benedictine monastery of Saint Joseph in Saint Benedict Louisiana, monks of the Swiss-American Congregation pledge their first monastic vows in the presence of the abbot, their fellow monastic brothers, and the community gathered in the Abbey Church. 

When a monk takes his first vows (or, temporary vows), he has pledged stability, obedience, and conversion to the monastic way of life for up to a three year period, after which he is free to petition for solemn profession, which is a permanent vow.

FYI
In case you didn't know:
Benedictine monks take three vows:

Stability - The monk chooses to live out his life with a particular monastic community.

Obedience - The monk pledges obedience to the abbot of the monastery.

Conversion to the Monastic Way of Live - The monk lives his life according to the Rule of Saint Benedict.
Video Source: © 2003 Greig Roselli