Wednesday, 27 september 23
I have had a hard time remembering what day it is… One sweet thing is that Vigils has been suspended for the entire week of the Visitation so I have these luscious extra couple of hours to myself in the early morning.
So we started out the Visitation in an interesting way that sort of happened on the fly. Giuseppe, who is the novice master here and is also serving as vice-prior pro temp, suggested that we have an incontro with the men in formation. They usually get referred to as i giovani, the young guys, but I have a tendency to avoid that term. Some of the are indeed young (the youngest being 21, one of two Tanzanians) but the others are well into their 30s, 40s and 50s. Even if they are in the first stages of formation, several of them have a good deal of life experience behind them as well as some experience of religious life in two cases. We were ten in all, with Mario and I, a group that included a Brazilian (Edmario) and the two young Tanzanians, Erasto and Stefano (Ste-FAN-o, he pointed out to me) who have only been here a few months and who, besides being shy, are still just beginning to learn Italian.
That’s the first noticeable thing, and toward the end I remarked to the whole group, how fortunate they are to have this international and intercultural experience, and how that makes Camaldoli such a unique place. There are two guys from India here in Italy right now as well, Adaikalam, who is now down in Rome beginning his study in Latin and Greek, and another older one, Rippon, just visiting for a few weeks; and there had been the two guys from China until recently here as well. For a small congregation to have representatives from India, China, Africa, South America and little ol’ USA is pretty impressive.
Mario and I each introduced ourselves and then went around the table and asked each of them to tell us a little about themselves too. That’s when we got to see the full array of life experiences. We then asked about the formation program in general, and honed on in a few points that had been raised: the personalized approach to formation (I taught them the term “cookie cutter” and they taught me stampino, which is what we Camaldolese are definitely not), we talked about holistic spirituality (which means a little something different to them than it does to the guy who wrote Spirit Soul Body), the sapiential approach (Bruno Barnhart’s name was brought up with reverence), and the experience of living at the hermitage instead of the monastery (they each get some periods there during formation, and one, Giuseppe, lives there now during simple vows). I was afraid it would be stilted and tedious but it was anything but. They gave us a lot of confirmation to put in our final report.
We also began with our personal encounters on Saturday and Sunday mornings. My old friend Fede took me for a nice run on Sunday afternoon and told me all about his academic adventure. He is doing his degree at the Istituto Ponteficio di Musica Sacra in Rome, and his first year has been full of piano lessons and semiology studies, participation in choirs as well as conducting lessons. From the latter I got a great maxim: Il tuo gesto è già musica, il tuo respiro già suono–“Your gesture is already music, your breath is already sound.” On the way out he told me all about the history he is learning about the origins of the notation of Gregorian chant. Pretty impressive, and of he is very passionate about it. I asked him what he might do with all this (he has a background in rock n’ roll and is a very talented guitarist and singer) and he wasn’t quite sure.
The Italians are pretty brilliant at preserving the past, as evidenced also by the amazing new library/archive here at the monastery which has won a few architectural prizes. But of course none of us monks want to live in a museum, as Robert used to say. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say none of us, but certainly the Prior General, Mario, Fede, and I don’t. I find myself reflecting on that a lot when I am here in Italy, so deeply rooted in history but perhaps at times so entrenched in it that it’s difficult to move forward. I think that is what is so attractive and perhaps can be so annoying about us Americans: we have this great forward movement to us, openness and a “can do” spirit, and yet we can be a little shallow when it comes to a sense of the long arc of history––languages, literature, philosophy, culture, tradition.
I must admit that I get a little apocalyptic at times and ask myself, “Why bother? The planet might be uninhabitable in a few years or Russia might unleash an atomic war and blot us all off the planet (or Donald Trump might get re-elected and take away NPR and put all of us liberals in concentration camps).” And yet the more I read about the upcoming Synod and the Holy Father’s push to be in conversation with the modern world so as to keep the Church relevant and engaged, the more I get energized. The underlying question I have rolling on my mind like a drone is “What does the church and the world need of us monks right now, and what is the best way to live on the planet and prepare for tomorrow?” I guess that is the questions that has been rolling around in me for over twenty years and part of the underlying motivation for my ten years in Santa Cruz. The answers that come through the fog are slightly different at 65 years old in 2023 than they were at 44 in 2002, and even more subtle.
Thursday, 28 september 23
The week has been quite full. Monday Giuseppe, the acting vice-prior of the community (the vice-prior for the last six years was named bishop of a diocese in Sardinia and ordained the same weekend I arrived in Italy), gave a very comprehensive report on the community, and of course a discussion opened up. We ended with an image from Mario that we didn’t have enough time to explore: the sap that runs through the branches of Camaldoli. What is it? We hope to return to that.
Tuesday morning we had a two hour meeting with the financial manager of Camaldoli in the administrative office. Thanks to ten years of looking at financial reports and FAB meetings and the patient tutoring of Jeri, once I got some of the vocabulary down (utile, doesn’t mean “useful,” it means “profit”; mutuo doesn’t mean “mutual”; it means “loan”) I knew how to run the columns and do the numbers. The FAB would have been proud of me.
It’s no secret that these have been hard years for Italy in general and for Camaldoli specifically. Besides Covid (you may remember that Italy was hit early and hard), the war in Ukraine has affects here that we do not feel in the US, particularly fuel but also grain and other food stuffs. Besides that, the Antica Farmacia lost a huge customer from Korea for its creams that brought in up to $700,000 a year. So big decisions have to be made and, like us, they are looking at ways to bring in more income as well as looking at all the expenses. One thing that the motherhouse has that we do not is that it is supporting dependent houses, the foundations in Brazil and Tanzania, besides some significant financial help it has offered to a few of our other communities. Kind of like a parent waiting for his or her children to grow up, stand on their own two feet and maybe pay back a little.
After the meeting with the financial manager we had another two hours with all those responsible for income producing activities––the liquorificio that makes the famous laurus and all the other liqueurs, the small but hardy bookstore, the laboratorio that makes the creams, the foresteria (guest house) which has seen a real surprising decline in profit over the last five years, and also the farmacia in general, which the Prior General himself is overseeing and for which he has been actively pursuing a new line of perfume.
Later Alessandro asked me if I followed everything or if I was tired. I admitted that at a certain point it was like hypnosis; all the words just sort of blurred into a drone, which made him laugh. But four hours discussing finances was a real onslaught, I must admit. Mario is pretty good with numbers and ideas, so I let him carry the ball.
Giuseppe has graciously suspended Vigils this whole week of the Visitation, for which I have never been so relieved! So I’m gonna post this and get in a little stretching and breathing.
Bless you all!
