Saturday, 7 oct 23
Oh, my goodness. I don’t even know where to begin. What an eventful week it has been! Bro. Emanuele and I traveled down to Rome by train on Sunday afternoon. I do love that train trip, and I have really enjoyed getting to know Emanuele, who speaks decent English (and is fluent in French) but has been a very patient tutor along the way as well as a good travel companion. He and I and Thomas Mazzocco are all staying at Sant’Antonio with our nuns since there was no room for us with the monks at San Gregorio. It’s just as well. We have a little more liberty to come and go and it’s very comfortable. And of course the nuns are always eager to pour out a little TLC.
I took Monday as a day to myself. Following my instincts, I got up in the cool of the early morning, tucked my holy books in my backpack and headed out on a walk well before sunrise. The smell of coffee and fresh bakery was everywhere but I abstained for a good couple of hours. I walked along the Tiber, through Trastevere and made it all the way to St. Peter’s Square, looking resplendent in the early morning light, and already beginning to fill up with pilgrims cueing for a tour, and the vendors in the various trailers and stalls setting up for the day selling tchotchkes and postcards, food and drinks. I was looking for a nice church to sit in and do my morning readings and meditation but finding one that was either open or quiet proved difficult. I finally stopped at a little restaurant on the Lungo Tevere that wasn’t too crowded (though there was a radio squawking a not quite tuned in correctly to the station in the background) and treated myself to a pot of tea, a fresh squeezed orange juice and a sfoglia (a kind of turnover) with fruit filling. At 14 Euro, I won’t be doing that very often, but it gave me a chance to sit and read and write if not meditate. From there I found my way back up to Santa Sabina on the Aventine near the nuns, one of my few favorite places in Rome. Somewhere I learned that it is the oldest extant church in Rome, 4th-5th, century, set up in the oldest basilica style at a time when the church had just taken over that style from the empire (Empire!), with the “choir” in the middle. It’s very plain inside, unusual for Rome, though indications were that at one time it was covered with mosaics.
After a brief stop at home, I headed back out and took care of a bunch of errands I needed to accomplish to set myself up for the month I will be spending there, including getting a pass for the metropolitano, re-finding the gym I used during my sabbatical, and picking up supplies. Believe it or not I found almost everything I needed at Roma Termini––oat milk, honey, a new plug for my phone, my favorite magazine (Internazionale), and even glue for my fake fingernail (for playing the guitar) at a profumeria. That evening we ate with the nuns, and Thomas arrived from California, a wonderful reunion.
Tuesday there was not much to do except that the three of us, with the addition of Bro. Fabio, who is living and studying at San Gregorio, had a rehearsal of our music for the next day. After a few weeks of feeling a little inadequate at Italian it was kind of a relief to be singing a few things in English and listen to them struggle a little with the pronunciation, though they do pretty well. The “th” is impossible for Italians, and how do you explain the difference between “breath” and “breathe”?! They totally impressed me with their knowledge of the old hymn “Abide With Me” which they sang for me in three-part harmony.
We were all quite nervous-excited about the next day, and decided to meet for breakfast at 6 AM and leave for the Vatican at 6:30. Since there were four of us we decided to splurge on a taxi just this once, since we knew that traffic was going to be impossible and Matteo wanted us there promptly at 7:30. All gussied up in our dress whites and ready to go, we got to the Via della Conciliazione by 7 and we were glad we did because getting inside the inner circle proved a little harder than we thought. Matteo was already inside and kept sending us text messages, but the guards were stalwart in spite of our badges that read “animazione liturgica” with our not-very-flattering photos. By this time we were joined by another of our confreres, Fabian, a young monk from Hildesheim who has just returned to Rome for another year of study. He somehow slipped through the barrier and was taunting us with his complacency from the other side. We finally made it in after walking all the way around the back of the basilica and entering near the Holy Office, where we met Matteo who promptly ushered us into the grand hall that leads to la Scala Reale, the royal staircase that I was told goes to the papal apartments.
At the upper part of the hall were laid out table after table with stoles and chasubles for the priests, bishops and maybe a cardinal or two who were vesting for Mass. At the bottom of the hall were all of the delegates who were not vesting for Mass, which included of course lay people, women and non-Catholics. There was a lot of hubbub and a lot of people greeting each other, and a few well-known faces. My Italian brothers knew a lot of the people there, professors from France or Germany. Thomas’ new rector of JST in Berkeley was there. I kept looking for the Americans and I finally spotted one, Sr. Maria Cimperman, CSJ, who had given our retreat last year and was chosen as a facilitator for the Synod. She was delighted to see me and meet the brothers. Such a spark of optimism and joy! We were there for a good hour and then suddenly the summons came, and we were led in procession by about a dozen Franciscan acolytes and cross and candle bearers (it being the feast of St. Francis) out into St. Peter’s Square, where there was a huge crowd gathered, then down the main aisle and up onto the raised areas around the altar.
And suddenly the Holy Father appeared, pushed up a ramp on the far side in his wheelchair, and the Mass began. I must say, when the pope said the presidential prayers I noticed right away how weak and tired his voice sounded. But when he began to preach it took on life and energy. “The welcoming gaze of Jesus invites us too to be a hospitable Church, not with the doors closed. … The Church must be ‘an easy yoke’ that doesn’t impose weights and that repeats to everyone, ‘Come you who are tired and oppressed, come you who have lost the way or feel yourself far away, come you who have closed the door to hope.”’ He was referencing the gospel of the day, again in honor of St. Francis, Mt 11:25-30. “The Church is for you,” he said. “The Church with doors open to everyone, everyone, everyone.” That was the highlight, when he repeated that three times: a tutti, tutti, tutti, everyone, everyone, everyone.
I was surprised by how quickly the Mass went. At the end someone wheeled Pope Francis to the front of the cement platform and the crowd went wild with applause. I still get goosebumps remembering that. Afterward the crowd of us on the platform just kind of broke up rather unceremoniously.
We had some time to kill, so Fabian led us to the German seminary (and ancient fabled German cemetery) right there on the Vatican grounds, within sight of the walls of the basilica, a place that Pope Benedict like to slip over to every now and then. Fabian had a friend-schoolmate there, one Lennart Luhmann, a Protestant chap working on his doctorate at San Anselmo. Lennart treated us to cold drinks, coffee and fruit. He spoke Italian hesitatingly, so it was an interesting conversation, switching back and forth between German, English and Italian, something not at all uncommon at the Vatican I came to find out. We then headed over to the other side of the Vatican again where Matteo was lodging and waiting for us.
I should say a word about Matteo. He’s a monk of Camaldoli, the guestmaster, as a matter of fact. He’s also a friend of Mario Grech, the Maltese cardinal who used to be the Pro-Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops and then became the Secretary General of this Synod. Cardinal Grech asked Matteo to plan and guide all the liturgies for the Synod. It was he who recruited me to supply the English psalms and hymns, and the rest of us to come and sing each day, as well as recruiting the sisters of the Congregation of Pie Discepoli to animate the music for Eucharist each day (which we may or may not help with) at St. Peter’s in the Holy Spirit chapel behind the main altar. Matteo seems to know everybody and be doing everything, including helping the pope find the right page in his book and acting as MC for almost everything, quietly behind the scenes, running here and there.
Matteo was staying at the Domus Romana Sacerdotalis (you can look it up online) just a block or so away from the Vatican itself. He had made reservations for all of us for pranzo that day, and that was a fascinating experience. In the foyer, in the sala da pranzo itself, swarming with priests, bishops, cardinals, all in a very relaxed state. (I did see one Sister, most likely a lunch guest.) While at the lunch we got approached a number of times, as we did on the street, by people asking us what order we were, not recognizing the habit. (The cincture on the outside throws everyone off.) Some thought we were canons regular. A very friendly German-speaking man approached and wanted to talk and talk with me. I found out he was a Franciscan from Austria and knows David Steindl-Rast very well. Another theologian, a Fr. Giles from Ottawa Canada asked to sit with us since we had a space open at the table. They both spoke fine English but kept switching back to Italian, which I found interesting. Fr. Giles is in Rome as a theological consultant and had some very interesting insights into the intellectual background of the Synod. He also knows Bishop Barron quite well, having lived with him in Paris when they were both students there. We had not yet caught sight of Barron, though he was there in Rome somewhere.
Then we headed over to the Paul VI audience hall for our major contribution of the day, the real opening event of the Synod. We had a good long time to wait yet, and had all the usual problems with sound technicians and placement, etc. I walked around looking at all the names at the tables set up throughout the hall, which were on little computer tablets pads attached to a bank of headphones, I assume for instant translation.
But the surprising thing was that about a half an hour before we began, when there was hardly anyone in the hall, suddenly the pope got wheeled in and was being pushed around the hall, as if he was checking on all the preparations and greeting all the organizers. Of course, a line formed to greet him. I would have left him to his peace but the others wanted to greet him and so we did. He didn’t seem overimpressed with us, but at least I can say I have shaken his hand twice now.
Then came the opening prayer, which we led musically––the Veni Creator Spiritus, “Let the Word Make a Home in Your Heart” to introduce a liturgy of the Word, a psalm in Italian between the readings, and a closing hymn. There was some trouble with the microphones at first (there is no acoustic whatsoever in that hall), so the first verse of “Let the Word” was a little muffled, but it picked up after that, and it was very moving to sing it and to hear it being sung back by the Holy Father and the rest of the assembly.
The other guys left after the service, but Emanuele and I stayed on because Matteo wanted Emanuele to play the organ for the closing Marian antiphon. That was the only time we will be allowed into the assembly after we sing, and we heard them begin their work. They were addressed first by the Holy Father himself. He was sitting at the head table with five others. He had three quotes from Maximus the Confessor printed up and had had them passed out to everyone. Other than that, he certainly seemed to be speaking without notes, very spontaneously, about what he hoped for from this synod. We then heard from Cardinal Grech, then from another rather jolly German Jesuit bishop, giving some marching orders. The latter mentioned the elephant in the room when he said that the bishops who had not taken part in the synodal process thus far in their own dioceses (and there were undoubtably a few in the room) might have a hard time with the process in the next days, the process of listening with open minds and hearts, without preconceived responses. We then heard from a Polish bishop about his experience with the synodal process in his diocese, and then, interestingly enough, from an Indian lay man, a catechist, I believe, from the small community of Catholics in the United Arab Emirates. What a unique voice to hear!
There was a break between the opening prayer and the general assembly, during which time I met several people, including our Austrian Franciscan friend again. That’s when I discovered he was actually the archbishop of Salzburg. I also took the liberty of introducing myself to Cardinal Wilton Gregory with the excuse being that we know people in common, our Br. Hugh, OCSO, and Sr. Barbara Long, OP, about both of whom he was delighted to hear. (Sr. Barbara had been his seventh and eighth grade teacher.) I was walking back from the bathroom at one point right behind Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who I admire greatly, and I took the liberty of speaking to him too. I wasn’t sure how to call out to him, so I just said, “Fr. Sean!” And he turned around and we had a really nice conversation. He’s taller than I thought, and he has very intense kindly eyes with which he is not afraid to hold your gaze in the silence. He was in his cardinal-red finery that day, but he showed up the next morning back in his Franciscan habit.
What else can I tell you? After the event broke up for the night, Emanuele and I made a mad dash across the piazza to the Metro station at Ottaviani a few blocks away to catch the train home. Running through the streets of Rome and riding on the super-crowded subway in full white habit may not be the most unusual sight there, but it was kind of madcap funny anyway. The nuns had put something aside for us for dinner and then it was time to pack up and get ready for the next day. All in all, though I was soaked in sweat and pretty tired, it had been a glorious day and I feel so honored to have been a part of it.
The next day, Thursday, the four of us packed into a car this time and assisted as we could at the early Mass in the Holy Spirit Chapel at St. Peter’s. Kind of an underwhelming affair, not many were there, a long line of bishops and cardinals far far away from the assembly in the presbytery, music from another Mass resounding through the cavernous building. Matteo again had led us through to a parking place right by Paul VI hall and then through the labyrinthine halls of the sacristy building and out into the church itself. (He told us he had been there in the basilica early that morning all by himself! That must have been an interesting experience.) And then we led the first of many morning prayers to come (actually Terce) back in the audience hall. Everyone was a lot more dressed down now, even the bishops and cardinals in plain clerics instead of the purple and red. Thomas acted as spokesperson, explaining to the assembly how we would sing, and then we sang, my hymn “O Breathe on Me O Breath of God” from “Lord Open My Lips,” then two psalms in Italian and another in English. I must say, it’s a pretty moving experience to have one’s own music there in the heart of the church sung by these representatives from all over the world.
After that another mad dash to Roma Termini to catch a train since Emanuele and I were heading back up north to Arezzo, then he to Camaldoli and I to Poppi where I am currently giving a retreat at our nuns’ monastery. I can write something about that later. I have some more notes about Wednesday, but I left them back in Rome. Maybe I’ll add something more later. For now, I’ll post this and I’m off to give a conference. Tomorrow we head back to Rome.
Every blessing from the Casentino, where the view out of every window looks like a painting.
