Monday, September 9, 2019

not even a drop

September 8, 2019

This Self, which is dearer to us than anything else,
Is dearer indeed than a child, dear than wealth,
dearer than all beside.
Let one worship the Self alone as dear,
for if one worships the Self alone as dear
the object of one’s love will never perish. (Briharanyaka Upanishad)

I’m in Phoenix now, actually Paradise Valley, staying at the Franciscan Renewal Center (better known as “the Casa”), and spending as much time as possible with family and also a few friends. Will try now to finish up the conference if not the rest of the time in Sicily.

I knew Fausto, S.J. from our mutual love for and study of India. His own connection there led to him having a close friendship with an Indian Jesuit named Ravi, and Ravi in turn has a close connection with a group of classical Indian dancers––Bharatanatyam, a very stylized symbolic type of sacred dance that originated in the temples, particularly in the south, in Tamil Nadu. (It was banned by the English colonialist missionaries for a time in the 19th century, accusing it of being harlotry, etc., typical dualistic anti-incarnational prudery (“he said, dismissively”).) Talk about sparing no expense: somehow Fausto and Eraldo managed to bring five dancers from a troupe called the Kala Darshini Dancers from Andhra Pradesh in south India. These dancers are a cultural center there that was established by the Jesuits of the Andhra Loyola Institute. We were back at the Palazzo Branciforte for this mesmerizing performance, which was ticketed and open to the public. The local commune had definitely helped with getting these six young women there. Besides the classic Indian dances, they have also choreographed some modern dances based on Gospel stories. When Fausto introduced this event he pointed this out as a prime example of inculturation, taking what is already there in the native spiritual and cultural genius, and employing it as means of expressing the gospel.

One anecdote from that afternoon… I wasn’t getting much exercise outside of sweating and walking, so I took to going on foot to the conferences with the student participants as often as possible instead of driving with the Jesuits. That day they all wanted to stop at a BAR for a cold drink on the way, and I sidled in and asked just for a glass of acqua frizzante, which I find very satisfying and thirst quenching. When the barista gave it to me I started reaching for my wallet, and he said to me, loud enough for all to hear, “Non siamo nel Nord, Signore, siamo nel Sud adesso. Non si paga per acqua qui––We’re not in the north, sir, we’re in the south. You don’t pay for water here.” I clapped my hands and laughed out loud as did the kids.

We were all quite wiped out after that performance and the concomitant trek across town and back by the time got back to our residence. The Capella delle Dame was not available to us that evening for our evening prayer, so we were supposed to use the sanctuary of the huge Jesuit church at the Casa Professa instead. That was also closed and no one could be found who had a key, so we were scrambling around searching for a place to hold evening prayer. I was advocating for us to do something simple and informal, and it was conceded to me, perhaps somewhat grudgingly, by my Jesuit colleagues. We finally found a bland little hall upstairs in the dorm building, and it seemed as if Fausto and Eraldo just turned the thing totally over to me, presiding from my chair with the guitar. I had brought some of the charming music from South Africa that I had fallen in love with some years back, some of which is featured in GIA’s Gather. That was the music and culture I was featuring that day. I don’t have the references with me here but I believe it was compiled and recorded by a Swedish group named Ultryck, based on the transcriptions of a white South African Catholic priest named David Dargie. One of the more popular pieces is called “Thuma Mina,” translated into English as “Send Me, Lord.” I in turn had translated it into Italian. It’s very simple with a single lower harmony. That in addition to a simply chanted psalm, a short reading (read twice) and some intercessory prayers, wound up being for me the most memorable of our prayer services.

Part of the scope of this conference is to introduce the young people into liturgical spirituality. Yet for all my love for our liturgical tradition, I am no big advocate of always doing things exactly as they are laid out in our official books. There is a time to be creative, and that time is whenever we are not compelled to do something official. I always advocate this as well when trying to introduce folks into the Liturgy of the Hours, that the main purpose is not to pray these exact psalms and read these specific reading at this exact hour of the day, as the Church obliges religious and priests. The purpose is actually and above all to pray without ceasing. But “because we are not given to pray as we ought,” (John Cassian) we stop at certain times to renew prayer. And the best thing to do with that pause is to spend some time with the Word, scripture. And pride of place is given to the psalms as it has been from the beginning. But that leaves us lots of room. I think most young people are pre-catechetical and even pre-liturgical. It would be better to form them into the larger spirit of this, and toward that end to “pray as they can, not as they can’t.” If I do work for this conference again, as the Jesuits have asked of me, I think I will push toward something a little lighter for our liturgies of the hours.

I must confess I was once again wiped out and dehydrated by the end of all that on Satruday, and took the evening off again as the participants went for yet another major conference back at the palazzo, entitled ‘Sconfinare nello Spazio e nel Tempo’ offered by a highly acclaimed composer named Roberto Cacciapaglia––roughly translated “Crossing the Frontiers of Space and Time.” But I did go to the last talk on Sunday morning, offered by a professor of Musicology and Music Education from Rome named Raffaele Pozzi. He and I had spoken briefly at dinner the night before, and it seemed to me that he was going to be the bookend to my own opening presentation. And so it was in his talk entitled “Music and Spirituality in the Global World.” He decried how the Church has eschewed great sources of music in favor a banality in modern liturgical music. I was afraid at one point we were going to get an Italian version of “Why Catholics Can’t Sing” (Thomas Day), but he was much more nuanced.

Prof. Pozzi was annoyed that the great modern day Italian composers had not been asked to contribute to the new musical repertoire, and he gave us an example of an Our Father by Stravinsky, which was indeed simple and sturdy, in 4-part harmony. But he also gave us examples of music from Africa, some he had filmed and recorded himself, including the fascinating practice of ululating, which he found fascinating. Interestingly he thought we had not availed ourselves of pre-recorded music enough––something which I have been very much against––saying that recorded music “would be better than four out-of-tune guitarists.” He was dismayed at the Church’s reluctance to use purely instrumental music, and chalked it up to the fact that is escapes the control of the rite (and the censors). He thought that there was too much of an avoidance of expressing the ugly and the dark in our modern liturgical music when 187,000,000 people were killed in wars in the 20th century alone, which needs to be expressed and grieved. One word that he coined I will certainly use again: just as there is pornografia–pornography, so there is pornofonia–porno-phony, ugly, abusive, lewd, exploitative sounds. It was all pretty heady and I thought out of range for these students, not because of their limited musical abilities or intelligence, but because of their limited liturgical experience and post-conciliar history. But they stepped up to the plate with very incisive questions again at the end, though I must say two or three looked a little worse for the wear. I know for a fact that several of them had been up all night, being typical college-aged young people on holiday, because when I got up at 4:30 AM I overheard and them talking on the balcony below mine. And I am pretty sure it wasn’t because they had gotten up for Vigils.

We parted ways there, bidding our goodbyes and thanks in the foyer. I was quite touched when one of the young guys came up and hugged me and held on, and then someone called out (in English) “group hug” and the bunch of them surrounded me and held me for a good minute.

That’s all for the conference, except for this: Eraldo and Fausto and I had a little time together on Sunday afternoon finally, de-briefing and celebrating. First we had Mass at the Jesuit residence and liceo where Eraldo lives and teaches, joined by three other scholastics and a deacon. Fausto asked me to preside and preach. And then they took me to Eraldo’s favorite local restaurant, a little family owned place called simply Pizza e Pasta, where Eraldo knew everybody and everybody knew him. They ordered up three delicious antipasti, one of which was the kind of caponata that Grandma Luci used to make all the time and I simply have to learn to make. The waitress came by to collect our little plates but I said, “No, voglio pulire il mio piatto prima––No, I want to clean my plate first” and reached for a piece of bread, as my Dad would have taught me. They burst out laughing. Then at the end we ate granita, which I also remember as a child; we used to call it Italian ice. This one was with fresh anguria–watermelon. After eating it all I picked up the glass and drank what remained and said, “Non voglio perdere neanche una goccia––I don’t want to miss even a drop!” And they burst out laughing again. I finally asked Fausto what was so funny, and he said that there couldn’t have been a greater compliment to the restaurant than that a foreigner would say something like that. By that time I was laughing too, with delight at the whole ambience.


I’ll pick up with the rest of my Sicilian adventure later. Non voglio perderne neanche una goccia!