Cecilian Vespers (2 page)

Our choirmaster joined us. Burke did not allude to the stranger in our midst, but proceeded to open the rehearsal as he always did with a Latin prayer. He then announced that the choir would be joining the schola group for solemn vespers on November 22.

“As the boys from the choir school know, vespers is the church’s evening prayer of thanksgiving. We chant or sing hymns, psalms, and antiphons. This will take place on the feast day of Saint Cecilia.”

Burke looked at a little fellow named Richard Robertson, who was a bit of a rogue, which may have been why Burke was particularly fond of him. “Who is Cecilia, Richard?”

“The patron saint of church musicians, Father.”

“Right. Now, we can’t have the service here at St. Bernie’s because there’s a wedding that evening, so we’re going to Stella Maris. A great old stone hulk of a church.”

“It’s spooky there, Father!” Richard said. “Me and my friend snuck over to that church one night because we heard there were rats there, and we wanted to shoot them with a BB gun. We didn’t see them but we heard noises.”

“Well, you’ll be hearing the ‘Magnificat’ at vespers. About as far as you can get from the squeak of rodents. But you’re right. It’s quite deserted around there; the church is scheduled for demolition. I guess there are no parishioners nearby. All right, now, open your books to the ‘Sanctus XVIII.’ This probably dates back fifteen hundred years; some say longer than that. I’d like the full choir to sing it just to the ‘Benedictus.’ I want you young fellows in the front row — you’re supposed to be in the front row, Richard, get down here — to carry on from there. The words are among the most beautiful in the Mass:
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini
. What’s it mean, Ian?”

“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”

“Precisely. Let’s hear those clear, young voices.” He raised his arms and conducted the piece. The little boys sounded like angels as their pure voices soared to the heavens.

“Lovely. A little lighter on the higher notes. Let’s hear it again.” It was even more beautiful the second time. The priest favoured us with a rare smile, and gave credit where credit was due:
“Deo gratias!”

When the rehearsal wound up an hour and a half later, Burke and I retired to the Midtown Tavern on Grafton Street. At the Midtown you got draft, you got steak, you got fries; nothing came with, say, a light mango-chutney mayonnaise on the side. The priest had shed his clerical collar, as he always did when we headed out for the night. He lit up a cigarette and sucked the smoke deep into his lungs.

“Big day for you, Brennan,” I said. “How’s it going so far?”

“O’Flaherty was right,” he said. “How did he know all these malcontents would show up?”

“Monsignor O’Flaherty is a wise man. But, really, what’s surprising about it? Ever since the Vatican Council wrapped up in 1965, preconciliar and postconciliar Catholics have been squabbling about whether it was good or bad for the church, whether it modernized things too much or not enough. Some of the more authoritarian aspects of the church needed reform. And surely not all the music composed in the past twenty-five years is bad.”

“Of course not. I’ve heard some compositions and some choirs that are excellent. But there’s an overwhelming amount of rubbish as well. If we don’t do something about it, generations of Catholics are going to grow up without knowing anything better.”

“Well, try not to fret too much about the students at the schola. There are just a few grumblers. And they’re not all of the same stripe. You’ll be attacked from the conservative side when they find out how liberal you are about everything except music and the Mass.”

“This is about the sacraments, not politics! It’s about beauty: the beauty of music, of language, of ritual. I’ve wanted this for so long and now …” He drained his beer and signalled for another. “What have I got myself into?”

I felt a bit guilty thinking it, but this was going to be fun to watch.

II
Et antiquum documentum novo cedat ritui
O’er ancient forms departing newer rites of grace prevail
— Saint Thomas Aquinas, “Tantum Ergo”

“‘The most beautiful thing this side of heaven,’” Burke said to his class the next day. I had a chance to drop in to the schola between an early morning court appearance and my first appointment of the day. “That is Father Frederick Faber’s timeless description of the traditional Latin Mass.”

“So why did Vatican II outlaw the Latin Mass?” The voice was unmistakably American.

“Vatican II did no such thing,” Burke replied. “Many changes were made, which were in fact not promoted, authorized, or envisioned by the Council. The only things that are official are those contained in the Council documents. Here’s what the documents really say, and I’m quoting from
Sacrosanctum Concilium
, the
Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy
: ‘… care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing…. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.’ Vatican II made that point in a paragraph all by itself. There is a subsection that opens the door to local languages in some parts of the Mass, but it is worded with great caution. Latin is the official language of the church. It is the sacral language of our faith, just as Hebrew is the sacral language of the Jewish faith. Active participation in the Mass was considered back in 1903 by Pope Saint Pius X to mean the congregation should be singing Gregorian chant. Subsequent popes agreed. Now let us observe two versions of the Mass.”

The room darkened and a screen lit up before us, showing the exterior of a building shaped something like a saddle. The scene shifted
and we were inside the low-ceilinged structure. A spindly cross was the only evidence that the place was a church. Two giant quilts depicting wheat sheaves hung on either side of what must have been the sanctuary. An earnest-looking man and woman stood at a microphone with guitars. A third woman raised her hands and urged everybody to sing the “gathering hymn.” Few did, but the words came through loud and clear from the leaders of song:

Come into the love! Come into the new day! His room is for all, a true meeting place. We are the ones He has called to the new way, We bring our light to the whole human race!

All we in the love, all we in His peace, Will shake hands today with a peace that will bind All brothers and sisters. Divisions will cease. We are the light of all humankind!

Well, that wasn’t going to get anyone inducted into the song-writers’ hall of fame. They’d have to come up with something better than that if they wanted to be seen as light to the whole human race. But my attention was wrenched from the music to the centre aisle of the church on the screen, where I saw a procession of … clowns! Everyone in the procession, including the cross bearer and the priest himself, was, incredibly, dressed in the red, yellow, and green costume of a clown. They were carrying balloons and stopping to pass them out to children in the pews. We all sat, stunned, as the elderly clown-priest read the gospel, gave a sermon, changed the bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ. Every one of the priest’s gestures reflected excruciating embarrassment.

Then I heard the ancient tones of Gregorian chant, and the screen was filled with the rich blues and golds of a magnificent church, with marble floors and stained-glass rose windows. The priest approached the altar wearing gold-trimmed white vestments and a biretta, a square black cap with three ridges and a tuft on top. He looked very European, yet familiar. A younger, somewhat heavier Brennan Burke without a trace of grey in his pitch-black hair, his handsome face less
hawkish than it was now. In the film he followed a procession of altar boys dressed in black cassocks under lacy white surplices. One carried the crucifix; the others brought candles. In the priest’s hands was a chalice covered with a cloth. I should have remembered the names of the items from my days as an altar boy. Purificator? Chalice veil?

When he arrived at the foot of the elaborate high altar, the Father Burke on the screen removed his biretta and handed it to an altar boy. He prayed
sotto voce
, then made a profound bow and recited the “Confiteor,” striking his breast three times at the
“mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”
Incense rose to the heights of the vaulted ceiling, and bells rang out at the consecration. In a universally known ritual essentially unchanged since the days of Saint Gregory in the year 600, the Mass proceeded to the sound of Latin prayers and solemn chant.

When the morning class was over the present-day Burke stopped to chat with me in the corridor before the schola’s next session began. The composition-by-committee woman, whose name tag read “Jan Ford,” came up to him with a question: “Am I right? Were you the presider at the liturgy we just saw on tape, Father?”

“I was the priest singing the Mass, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Right,” Jan Ford said, nodding, and she moved off down the hall. “As if I’d sign up for a life of celibacy to be a
presider
,” Burke remarked to me.

“I didn’t see anyone leap to the defence of the clown Mass, Brennan. I’ve been to a lot of very beautiful and dignified Masses since the Council, so I assume you’re using an extreme example of post-Vatican II experimentation.”

“An abomination. Shows how far things can go if unchecked. It happened on more than one occasion, believe it or not. There were basketball Masses, cowboy Masses, all sorts of liturgical chaos.”

“The Latin Mass was magnificent, of course, as I well remember from my altar boy days.”

“You still have the look of an altar boy, Montague. The blondy hair, the boyish face, the baby blue eyes. You don’t always behave like one, of course, but …”

“Yeah, yeah. I nearly didn’t recognize you, though.”

“It was a few years ago. When I was doing my graduate work in Rome. I’ll be teaching the rubrics of the Latin rite to the younger
priests who missed out on it; no doubt it will be a refresher for some of the older fellows as well.”

“
Buongiorno
, Brennan! I am sorry to have missed this morning’s sessions. I would explain but I do not wish to be indelicate. It is enough to say I was not feeling well.” The man spoke with a strong Italian accent. It was the elaborately attired priest I had seen in the church just before the choir rehearsal. He and Brennan exchanged a few words in Italian, then turned to me. The stranger extended his hand, and Brennan made the introductions.

“Monty Collins, meet Father Enrico Sferrazza-Melchiorre.”

“
Piacere, Signor
Collins.”

“My pleasure. I saw you in the church. Where are you from, Father Sferrazza-Melchiorre?”

“Mississippi.”

“
What?
Forgive me. I don’t speak Italian so whatever you said sounded like —”

“You heard me correctly,
signore
. I live in rural Mississippi.”

“Impossible!”

“Yes. It is impossible and yet,
è vero
, like the resurrection. It is the truth.”

“You’re not native to the southern United States,” I insisted to the flamboyant European. “Surely I haven’t got that wrong.”

“I am a native of Rome. My mother’s family is from Sicily.”

“And what exactly did you do in Rome?”

“I worked for many years in the Roman Curia — the bureaucracy of the universal church — and taught at the Lateran University also.”

“My question remains: what did you
do
? To get posted to the American south?”

“It is such a long story.”

“I’m sure. Leaving that story — whatever it is — aside for now, what are the demographics down there? I wouldn’t have thought the Catholic population was very large.”

“Oh! You are right, of course. Only five percent of the entire state is Catholic. Even less so where I work, in Mule Run. Eh! What can you do?” He shrugged.

“Fit in well with the locals, do you?”

“Let us say there was a process of adjustment. There was, I recall,
some confusion at the first seminar I conducted in the church hall. I thought it might be helpful to give people a little history of the Catholic Church. To dispel some false ideas. Striving for a popular touch, I advertised it as ‘Introduction to AAA.’ I was encouraged when I peered outside and saw many large vehicles roaring up to the building. But my set piece on Augustine, Aquinas, and Abelard was not well received by those assembled.” He sighed. “I hope we shall meet again,
signore
.” He turned and was off in a swirl of luxurious fabric.

I raised an eyebrow at Burke.

“Later,” was all he said.

III
Great was the company of the preachers.
— Handel, “Messiah,” from Psalm 68

“This is some information the insurance company requires,” I told Brennan when I returned to St. Bernadette’s rectory after work that day. “You’re already covered, but they need this form completed and signed.”

“Why? In case somebody arrives home and claims he wasn’t taught the difference between a
punctum
and a
podatus
in chant notation? He’s going to sue me for failure to deliver the goods?”

“No, it’s in case somebody
doesn’t
arrive home. Never makes it out of your course alive! Or goes home on crutches because you didn’t clear the steps after the first snowfall. Typical liability insurance.”

Burke scribbled his answers on the insurance form.

I was stuffing the paperwork back in my briefcase when Monsignor O’Flaherty came in and announced that he was going to the airport. “To pick up our final guest. Student, I suppose I should say, though it seems odd to apply the word student to people in middle age!”

“We could call them scholars but that sounds a little grand,” Brennan said. “Or disciples, but I wouldn’t presume …”

“Good of you, my lad.”

“So, who is it you’re picking up?”

“A Father Stanley Drew. Do you know him?”

“No.”

“He’s an American, apparently. Working overseas. That’s all I know.”