Christus mansionem benedicat

Monache Agostiniane d'Urbino

Yes, sorry. I know I've been away a long time. Just found this lovely little video from Italian TV series "I passi del silenzio" - Footsteps of silence. It's a series of one hour videos showing a single day in the life of a monastery, with interviews. Beautifully shot, and if you have even a little Italian, very uplifting. I was surprised to hear them chanting the Magnificat at Vespers in Latin using the Chant.

I actually went up to Norcia for the Christmas weekend. It turned into five days in all, and was wonderful, though at first very painful and difficult. It was the first time I've been up since going to the house to fetch out my belongings, and the first time since the quake that I've been there just to be there, and not for "business" reasons. I wanted to make a proper retreat of it, and the monks very kindly allowed me to attend many of the Offices, including the whole thing on Christmas eve. From 1st Vespers then a break for a quick bit of dinner and a couple of good stout coffees to fuel the marathon, to Matins that started at 8pm and went straight through to Midnight Mass, then Laudes afterwards. We few who made it all the way through were there until 2:30 am.

The glorious experience of the Christmas Eve liturgy also cemented something in my soul. I feel as though my lines had finally been re-secured, to use a nautical image, that had been flapping wildly in a storm for over a year. This was the thing that remains deep in my heart after everything; that particular form of intimate communication with God in the liturgy of the Office. At once so intimidating and so enticing, a paradox. The incredible intensity of joy and the enormity of the silence, the not-about-you-ness of it is something close to terrifying.

After I got home, the innernet was off for a week or so, and I was happy to let it stay off for a bit and have a little in-house retreat. I've been given Isaiah to read along with the Office, and it's dense and intense, like 70% dark chocolate. You have to read very, very slowly, and something strange starts to happen when you do. Your perceptions of things alters in ways that are hard to describe. After a week or ten days of not much more than Isaiah, the Psalms and some sewing and housework, the din and clamour of the world - especially the frantic yammering of the internet - seems to become mostly irrelevant. It was hard to put it back on again.

Suddenly being face to face with the Living God without distractions, made me start to understand why people often flee from their vocations. We like our lives to be trivial & superficial, unchallenging and "normal". But we are no judge at all of what "normal" really is.

This world, and this life, is what we know. It's what we imagine we can control & understand. But only because of how small and limited we are. That whole vasty reality of God's is something we just don't want in our little house. We fear He won't fit, like a lion whose nose barely makes it into the door and whose shoulders could shake apart the whole house. The merest whisper of this titanic reality is more than we can bear. So we retreat and run.

It's a terrible thing, but it's the reason why I would prefer to watch Big Bang Theory and Star Wars videos on YouTube than be alone with the Lord God of Hosts. Thank God He never gives up chasing us, no matter how hard we try to avoid Him.

O Lord, increase my faith in You.

~
Some Norcia holiday pics.


Dolcezze, everyone's favourite pastry shop, re-opened in time for Christmas after months of renovation. One of only about 30 businesses still open or re-opened in Norcia.


... including the blessed Norcia pizza take-away. Best I've ever had, and an immensely cheering and encouraging sight to see when almost nothing else in the centro was open.


Norcia cows.


From the agritourismo on the hill next to the monastery, looking down to town and toward the valley entrance. Weather was very changeable, sunny, foggy, raining, brilliant clear nights and some wind. Never dull.


There were mornings, especially in November, when you would look out the window and see the fog settled into the valley looking like a huge bowl of milk.


They don't see many people that high up on the mountain at this time of year. All eyes were on us on our little hikes.


The trail leading up to the road from the Tana dei Lupi agritourismo. Fun early in the morning, but too dangerous at night. Fallen oak leaves covering big loose stones, but also at night lots of wolves, wild boar and other night hunters and gatherers. Good fun early in the beautiful mornings though.


On the way to Terce, a good stiff climb first thing in the morning.


The new chapel in monte.


The monks' presepio on Christmas morning.


What "crollate" means. This was one of the fanciest houses in town, next door to the monastery on the hill.


For just a few minutes before I had to go get on the bus, it was nice to feel normal again. Thank God the Seneca was not damaged.


And back at home, Pippy enjoying the wood stove in the kitchen in his inimitable way.


And over the front door. I've never done it before. Thanks Jamie for such a good explanation.

Christus mansionem benedicat.



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Nuns in the Umbrian hills

These are the nuns I'm going to go and spend a weekend visiting week after next. June 10-12.

They're a new thing, and normally I don't approve of new things, but they're trying to revive an old thing, and have done so quite successfully. The Sisters of Bethlehem were founded in 1950. They ran into a rough patch - as you do - a few years ago, but as far as I can tell they've got it sorted. They have a house in the middle of nowhere near Gubbio, which is a short train ride from here. They're having a group visit this coming weekend, so I'm in for the weekend after.

They don't do the Novus Ordo or Gregorian monastic chant as far as I've heard, but apparently do some kind of Byzantine thing. I'm game. I just am finding it nearly impossible to get my head to accept living disconnected from monastic life. I'm the worst Oblate in the world, but there was an interior connection with the monastery that everything in my life was founded on. Now that it's gone, no matter how well things go, I have a weird sense of being unmoored. Like a hot air balloon in danger of just drifting on the winds.

But I hope I can talk to them. Of all people, followers of St. Bruno (who use the Rule of St. Benedict, I've just learned) will perhaps be best able to tell me what I can do to learn to discipline myself to a regular life while staying at home.



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Church of Babel

These nuns live not very far from here and have a business manufacturing and selling herbal remedies that are very popular. "Produtti monastici" is a Thing in Italy, and the Orte nuns sell their products all over the country, including in the shop at our monastery.

I am thinking of going there to make a little weekend retreat soon, and was pleased to find this video to know what sort of liturgy to expect.

But it's a rather depressing video, in many ways. First, there seem to be almost no Italians in the group, that appears to be made up almost entirely of Asian straniere. There is nothing wrong with the solemnity with which they recite the Creed, but... but...

I don't know the liturgy in Italian. Frankly, because no parish in Canada ever uses the Nicene Creed at Mass, I don't really know it in English either. I only know it in Latin. And this is kind of the whole point.

The abandonment of the universal language of the Church has splintered the entire Church into national enclaves. No one belongs any more to the universal Church. We belong to the British Church or the German Church or the Italian Church, and very little crossover is possible.

Now that we have the German bishops and others clamouring for the local national conferences to decide matters of doctrine according to local fashion, the final manifestation of this appears to be ready to launch, and the notion of a Universal Church united by belief will finally be dead. Divide, confuse, scatter, then pick us off one by one.



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Nun campaign

Dear Miss White,

Thank you for posting the link to my begging page. I'm a regular reader of yours, and was just tickled to death to see it up there. It's doubly helpful in that it gives me an excuse to tell you how much I enjoy your writing, in terms of both style and content. I doubt you've read anything of mine, but I've had a few pieces on OnePeterFive, and I must give you credit for helping me continue to develop my style. And on top of all that, your insights into Benedictine spirituality have been such a help to me in my discernment. Words can hardly repay my debt of gratitude, but thank you, thank you!

Truly,

J. Kidwell

... sigh...

Well now I have to do something for her... dammit! And while I'm all jealous and envious and stuff about her being young enough to apply to this place that didn't even freaking exist when I was the right age. How come she gets good nuns and all I could find was poxy old lesbian peace activists in polyester mumus?!

I'll help, but danged if I'm gonna be gracious about it! I suppose I could take it as a kind of penance for having frittered away my stupid youth going to punker gigs and watching John Hughes movies.

Ugh. I hate being good.

We're going to re-post every few days about Jessica's campaign. I notice that though it's been going for three months, nearly all of the $3000 worth of donations have been in the last five days. So, if you can, do help a girl out. I've replied to her email above and said that if we manage to make this work and she gets in under the deadline, she can be my nunny proxy.

~

My name is Jessica Kidwell. I’m 22 years old, a recent graduate of the College of William & Mary and hail from Fairfax, Virginia. I have heard God’s call, and I would like to serve Him by joining the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles in Gower, Missouri. I have been admitted to enter there this fall, but that offer is contingent upon me paying all my educational debt first. All told, my debt totaled about $60,000 when I left school. I’m writing you to ask for your prayers and your financial assistance. Even though I have a full time job, a part time job, and take on odd jobs whenever I can get them, it could be years before I have paid off these loans by myself. My goal with this campaign is to raise $30,000.

~


Hey, did I ever tell y'all the story about the time I met the prioress, Mother Cecilia?

I and some friends were going to the evening Mass at our parish in Rome, Santissima Trinita, and when we got there, the doors were locked (they're terrible slackers at that parish and often just don't care at all about opening up on time.) There were these two Benedictine nuns, both Americans, standing on the steps waiting to get in. They had come a little early so they could sing vespers in the Church before the 6:30 Mass. It turned out it was Mother Cecilia and her subprioress (whose name I forget.)

I introduced myself and my friends and we tried to raise Fr. Kramer (parocco) on the phone to get someone to come down and open the doors, but as usual no one was answering either the cell or the parish landline. So, we gave up and chatted instead. I mentioned that I had wanted desperately to be a Benedictine nun when I was younger, but that there simply were none left in the 80s that weren't completely ruined. She was very sympathetic, and seemed quite sorry that now that I was 48 it was far too late. But as a consolation prize, she pulled out her Antiphonale and I got out my Monastic Diurnal, and we sang the Office hymn for Vespers for the day on the church steps in the little piazza with the people in the coffee bar across watching rather bemused. It was great.

After Mass, my friends and I took them out to the local Chinese place to get some dinner. We had a great time, and I learned that they're totally and completely onside.

I must say, this is about the only time I've ever wished to be 25 again (a thought that normally fills me with horror).



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Vocation shortage?

One of the biggest problems in the Church right now is not lack of vocations, it's lack of support for them. And student loan debt is near the top of that list. Add to that the time pressure; nearly all religious orders for women of any reputation at all have an upper age limit. If you don't pay off your student loans before you hit the ceiling, you can forget it.

The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles is perhaps one of the most painful examples; they're possibly the only viable Benedictine monastery for women in the English speaking world that has retained the traditional Divine Office in Latin and the traditional Mass, but their age limit is one of the lowest: 28. If you have loans in the tens or hundreds of thousands for your (unemployable) arts degree in academic navel-gazing, you're pretty much out of luck.

A very large number of people are not in orders right now because of this.

Go help this lady, if you can find a few extra bucks. But do remember, if you can't pay your kids' way through university, send them to a community college to learn an employable trade. Teach them to love learning, get them addicted to books by all means, turn them into civilized and educated people, but for heaven sake, unless they're natural engineering or math prodigies, help them find a way through life that doesn't start with a crippling lifelong insoluble debt.

My name is Jessica Kidwell. I’m 22 years old, a recent graduate of the College of William & Mary and hail from Fairfax, Virginia. I have heard God’s call, and I would like to serve Him by joining the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles in Gower, Missouri. I have been admitted to enter there this fall, but that offer is contingent upon me paying all my educational debt first. All told, my debt totaled about $60,000 when I left school. I’m writing you to ask for your prayers and your financial assistance. Even though I have a full time job, a part time job, and take on odd jobs whenever I can get them, it could be years before I have paid off these loans by myself. My goal with this campaign is to raise $30,000.

I’m asking for your assistance to pay off my student loan debt. Please consider my situation, and decide if this something you feel you can support. It’s difficult for me to ask others for help, but I realize that I have gotten to this point in my life with the love, support, and kindness of many people.

I’ve wanted to be a nun since I was in the second grade. In school, we were assigned a book report on Saints, and were then to dress up as the Saint and give a presentation about their life. My Saint was St. Clare of Assisi. The more I learned about this holy woman and religious foundress, the more I grew to admire not only her as a person and great Saint, but the concept of contemplative religious life itself. This wasn’t a detached admiration, either; I was utterly taken with the idea and wanted to live it myself. Throughout the rest of my childhood, this desire grew, taking something of a dip in high school, with the realization that not many people become religious nowadays. I earned my bachelor’s degree from the College of William & Mary, a state school, and was on track to graduate with a minimal debt load, but for various reasons, I had to cover a far higher percentage of tuition in loans my last two years. I took a semester of graduate classes, with God pulling at my heart with greater and greater intensity as time went on, before I finally surrendered. I left my Master’s program, threw myself into work, and I am dead set on entering the monastery this fall.

Live as though God is real

Live as though you're really going to live forever.


Live for eternity. Start now.



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Is this the Faith you'll die for? - Grooving with the Dominican Greyhead Sisters of Swing

I just can't imagine why they don't get vocations... can you?

~

I'm working on a thing about how failing in my vocation led to becoming a Trad. There's bits about gardening in it for some reason I can't yet quite figure out.

Did I ever tell y'all about the time I almost wrote a book about women's religious life?



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Away for a few days

This is the interior of the 12th century monastery church of the Benedictine nuns of Our Lady of Rosano, an ancient Benedictine house near Florence. I'm going there for the weekend to have some quiet time.



Some few months ago, I visited some nice American nuns who were making a foundation here. During one of my chats with one of these very friendly sisters, she asked, "what is stopping you from saying the full Divine Office every day?"

The only possible answer to that question is, "Me".


As far as I can figure, these nuns in Rosano, whose community has been there since AD 780, are the only ones in the country who do the full Monastic Office in Latin. It's also the place where Cardinal Ratzinger liked to take his retreats. Everyone says it's very nice. They are also one of the most invisible sets of nuns I've ever seen. They have no internet access, no computer, no email address and no website.

Perfect!

So, I'll be away for the weekend. You may all talk quietly amongst yourselves until the bell rings. Dale, you're in charge. Please take attendance. If there's any noise from you lot, I'll know about it when I get back on Sunday afternoon.



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Nope, no vocations crisis over here...

There are a lot of reasons I live here and not in Angloland. One of which is the superabundance of monasteries, and the fact that the Italians retain the faith that includes an appreciation of the worth of monasticism.

Imagine any of the state broadcasters in the Commonwealth countries doing a series, consisting of dozens of episodes, on "a day in the life" of every monastery in the country. Well, TV 2000 has been doing it for years, and it's pretty popular.

Maybe one of the reasons there isn't much of a "vocations crisis" in Italian monastic life? People see it, on tv, all the time.

Well, now that we've got YouTube, so can you.

I passi del silenzio



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The thing with Catholic monasticism is

it just can't be killed.

The Emperors tried. The barbarians tried. The Calvinists tried. Napoleon tried. The anti-clericals tried. The Modernist heretics tried.

And they just keep coming back.

Almost like there's something non-terrestrial driving it.

Almost.




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Found some new nuns

So, I've been feeling the urge for a while now. Been looking around locally for some nice Benedictines to go visit and I've found these guys.


Benedictine Daughters of Divine Will
Might be an article in it.


And they're on Facebook, and are pretty friendly. I just sent a FB message and said, "You seem nice, can I come to hang out?" and they basically said, "Sure." I've got a couple of things on for the next few weekends, but I figure I'll take a train around the first weekend of Oct. Nearest town is Rimini, and I've never been to the Adriatic coast before, so that'll be cool.


They live in one of the teeniest towns I've ever spotted on Google Earth.

Every town in Italy seems to have at least one little odd thing they do that is their very own, unique tourist attraction. Talamello's seems to be a cheese pit.


Yep. It's exactly what it sounds like: a pit where they keep cheese.

Gonna go check it out. I'll report back later.



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The Red Pill

This is interesting. I remember being very curious about this project many years ago. By the time I discovered Sr. Irene and her lonely struggle, she was almost done, though. I'm trying to track her down and ask her how things are going now. Anyone know how she might be reached?

The moment when the "scales fell" from her eyes I thought particularly poignant. I remember the pain of Tradding. It was awful, because one of the things I was forced to realise is that there is no "revival" going on in the Church, particularly in the religious life. Everything in the Church is gripped with the same deadly error. Everything. The novusordoist disease is everywhere. It was horrible to realise that there was nowhere to go.



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Real nuns!

Doing real nun-work! Who knew?

I suspect there are actually quite a few real nuns left in Italy, quietly and un-glamorously doing the Master's work

and not appearing at all on Oprah.



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Norbies

Got a lot of time for Norbertines



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"Last one out turn off the lights."

I read a piece today in the NYT about the death of active religious orders in the US.

Some of it is pretty poignant with this standing out:

Sister Mary Jean’s order has dwindled to about 100 from a peak of more than 500. Most moved out of their convent last year and into a retirement and nursing home. There has not been an initiate for 25 years, and several years ago the sisters reluctantly stopped looking.

“It was painful,” Sister Mary Jean said in an interview in her modest apartment, “but I think it was also courageous to say we’re just not going to recruit any more. Let’s just live out the rest of our lives to the fullest that we possibly can and thank God for what we’ve been able to do. And when the time comes, as they say, the last person turn the lights out.”

But the thought occured, why haven't they had a vocation in 25 years? What could it be? Sunspots?


Well, here they are, in all their reformed glory. And we've got to love their courageous stand "that bottled water, however convenient to tote around, is environmentally, economically and politically wrong".

We commit ourselves to:

* promote the sacredness of life through all its stages and expressions
* support legislation to curtail the availability of weapons
* oppose military aggression and the continued build-up of nuclear weapons and promote economic conversion
* support legislation and other advocacy efforts which provide protection, safety, financial assistance to survivors of domestic violence and child abuse
* speak out against the use and glorification of violence in our media and culture
* work for just and human solutions in criminal justice and oppose the death penalty
* reverse the waste and destruction of our natural environment

Any more questions?

Well, yes, actually. I have a couple.

The NYT solemnly rings the bell for religious orders administering Catholic health care in the US, asking "Why did they disappear?"

But I have a slightly different question: "Why were they in administration in the first place? Is that what they were founded for?"

I have spent a few years studying the history and development of the active religious life in the US and Canada (almost wrote a book) and came to a few unorthodox conclusions.

When they came to the US in the 1870s, these ladies, pictured at the top, took care of the sick in their own homes, "sheltered single mothers-to-be, protected young working women and embraced the care of orphans".

Then comes the slide. "As years passed, the sisters increased their knowledge and skills, developed technology and established institutions."

This was the same story with nearly all the active religious I looked at. They started with a few saintly pioneers who braved nearly everything the 19th century had to throw at them, from cholera to Wild Indians to Know-nothing anti-Catholic bigotry to lawless gunmen. They always started small and ended up after 70 or 80 years with huge establishments with hundreds of lay employees in gigantic hospitals around the country. It was argued in one book I read that the entire establishment of institutionalised health care in the US was the result of the work of Catholic sisters.

And that was when it all fell apart for them. The sisters, even when they were still in the habits, had turned to the work of maintaining this institutionalised health system, leading them inexorably into administrative work that became the sole focus of the communities' efforts.

But I ask, aren't nuns supposed to be religious specialists? Isn't it their focus in life to be religious? We all know the story of how the communities started focusing too much on the works and not enough on their own religious lives. The un-reformed constitutions of more than one of these groups stated that the first purpose of the community was the sanctification of its members in prayer, penance and the practice of the sacramental life. Only secondarily was it to perform (mainly corporal) works of mercy. We all know by now that the downfall of these orders was to abandon this primary purpose, to invert and eventually completely pervert the reason for their existence.

And of course, in these times, as the "progressive" sisters will always tell you, no woman in our modern enlightened world needs to join a religious community in order to get an education or enter a profession. So the question that should have been asked, "What do we have to offer as religious experts within the modern, secularised health care institutions?" was replaced with "How can we become 'relevant' in this world in which religion is getting squeezed out of health care?"

But what if instead of abandoning religion, the sisters had instead said, "It's OK that we can't keep up with the secularisation of the institutions because that really wasn't our main purpose anyway. Why don't we go back to the founding charism of our commmunity and start offering our religious, our spiritual expertise to the sick and needy?"

When I was in the hospital for the first chemo, I was expertly cared for physically by a team of highly trained professionals and I felt quite safe and looked-after. But everyone who was doing the medical work was far too busy to sit with me, to stop and pray a Rosary with me for 20 minutes. That work was left largely to my little band of friends (and a fine job they did). I asked for a visit from the chaplaincy and in due course, was visited by three Franciscan priests (in habits) who blessed me, heard my confession and brought me Holy Communion.

People in hospital are often frightened and depressed, or confused or simply bored and lonely. Wouldn't it have been lovely if there were someone there whose job it was to offer spiritual solace? To just sit and chat, pray the Rosary, listen to fears and lift depression. Sisters in habit who would come to see you each day, when friends couldn't be there, to wheel you into the chapel for a visit or a Rosary.

Wouldn't it have been lovely if these sisters above, instead of focusing on gathering professional credentials, on going to conferences, on establishing themselves as big-time professional players (with seven digit salaries) in the American Health Care Industry, had focused instead on their religious contribution.

What would the world have looked like then, I wonder.



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Well, Chickadees,

I'm off again for a few days. I'll be in Dublin til Mon.

No comments like, "Wow, Dublin. That's cool" if you please.

I would rather gnaw my own leg out of a steel trap than get on a plane right now. Just at the moment, I'm more in a mood to hide under the bed, so really...

Don't know how much posting I'll be doing, so play nicely.

Anyway, here's a few random pics to amuse you.

Finished my second Bargue drawing today. It didn't take nearly so many hours to finish this one as the last and she was more complex. It's going well, I think.

From this


to this


to this


to this


e basta.


So I started on the Horse head right away.


Found this neat store that sells and repairs casts of famous things. Just up a bit from Piazza della Republica, on the way up to Santa Susanna.





Visited the nuns at San Vincenzo last weekend.


They have donkeys. They loved to be petted. When you go up to the fence, they come right over to have their ears rubbed.



Got along with the cat pretty well too.


The "new" monastery is fully restored. Built in the 11th and 12th centuries.


Little bits of the old monastery of San Vincenzo can be seen all over,


as well as plenty of old Roman columns from the Roman villa the first foundation was built on.


This thousand year old stone lion still guards the front gate.




along with a slightly newer friend.


When the nuns (from Regina Laudis in the US) first arrived in 1990, a lot of it was in ruins. It had been abandoned for 200 years.


The nearby towns, this is Rocceta al Volturno, were all built in the 9th and tenth centuries after the Saracens destroyed the old San Vincenzo monastic city. The people all literally took to the hills in a process called "encastellation".


Then... the "new" Romanesque church of San Vincenzo, built in the 10th century. The old one (8th century) was burned by the Mohammedans.


...and now


The church as it has been restored since the nuns arrived.


A bit austere for my taste.


The stones, still being recovered, from the old San Vincenzo, some of them still bearing the faint traces of the frescoes for which the monastery was famous.





From the olive groves. The nuns have over 400 trees, and could use a little help in harvest time.

As I was walking through the olive groves, I was wondering if I ought to have been wearing boots, against snakes.


Sure enough...

We also heard wolves at night, and I was told that since the population has been falling, the wolves are getting bolder. The monastery lost a sheep one day some years ago, right out of one of the front fields in broad daylight. I was told not to take walks at night, or even go out into the courtyard.


The newly restored church, behind the apse, with some of the ancient masonry.


Another nearby encastellated town.


One of the monastery's old outbuildings. Restored to serve as the nuns' pottery. One of the sisters,


Mother Philippa, is an archaeologist and she was fascinated by some of the ancient Samnite tombs they found while digging in front of the Church. They date to the 6th century BC. She started studying the pottery techniques and has made a lot of Samnite pottery.


Mother Philippa, the potter, in a rare moment when she was not smiling.

And the fruit...


I picked and ate a lot of figs.


And took home about 5 pounds of crab apples.


As well as about the same of rose hips.


They said I could come back and pick sloes. They're best for gin if you wait until the first frost.


And I said I would come back and help with the olive harvest.


The dogs and I went for a walk along the ridge, and came across this hut. Something to do with sheep, perhaps? Heaven only knows how old it is.


"Listen my son, and incline thine ear..."



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