Monks of Tamie

Last 2013, I programmed my GPS and went to the monastery of Tamie.  Suggested by a friend, I first looked them up in the internet, and through their website, I was able to contact Br. Didier through e-mail and make a five-day reservation.  The abbey was just two hours drive from La Mure and so I packed a valise and headed there.  Just to be sure, I bought some snacks I can hide at the trunk of my car, if ever the food they offer isn't to my liking.
When I was but a mile away, my GPS brought me to a hill-side village and I got lost in its narrow alleys.  I parked my car and started to reprogram my GPS when an elderly lady smilingly approached me and tapped at my wind-shield.  Smilingly, she offered to give me directions to the abbey.  Apparently, she's been helping lost visitors to find their way on a daily basis, and like me, we had but one culprit for the misdirection: the GPS.
When I arrived at Tamie, I really don't know what to do.  I just found myself wandering around a big gift shop.  The bearded man behind the cashier didn't look friendly so I tried approaching one of the monks.  It turned to be Br. Didier, the one I contacted through email.  He told me to bring my car to the next building, just over the hill that blocked it.  When I drove to it, I was surprised how beautiful the monastery was.  The spring-time flowers covered a field sprawling before it and the towers looked old and imposing (Later I learned that this was only a 19th century construction).
Most of my days in Tamie are spent wandering at the woods, identifying beech, oak, poplars and evergreens.  I felt the cold rush of water by cascades and falls around the monks' property and had known how it is to be mildly brushed by the leaves of poison ivy.  I walked miles to see blooms and greeneries and cows and all the elements of spring.  I visited the monks' bookshop and even bought some souvenirs.   With the zoom of my camera, I spied on monks by my window and saw the abbot, dressed in a blue over-alls and a woolen lumberjack shirt, preparing a big wooden post, the purpose of which, I would not know for certain.  I also admired the way the building furniture were arranged by someone who has, no doubt, a flair for ikebana and interior design.  But what marked my stay are prayers, the monastic prayers. Most of the time, I would just be listening to them, along with other pilgrims and visitors who are as mesmerized as I was by the singing of the monks.  Psalms after psalms, the hair at my arms and at the back of my neck prickled at the haunting beauty of their voices, interpreting age-old chants in a rehearsed but still prayerful pace.

Lord, I am deep within your heart,
as dark as the night
and million times as lovely.
I sat by my window,
 your forlorn lover,
for I often mistook your silence
as a painful absence,
an emptiness other than
that which you are, that sweet
expanse of a space that breeds
love.  Yes, I am
in that place where you
embraced me and assured me
that I, your beloved,
am truly profoundly loved.

Remembering Dublin

Last December, I went to Dublin for a three-week "vacation."  It's not exactly a vacation because I just couldn't imagine myself, doing nothing for 21 days.  But, truth be told, it was the best three weeks of my life since I arrived in Europe.
I arrived to a community that has experienced a bit of a storm lately and I'm just lucky to be there during the quell, on a sort of ceasefire that accorded me a bit of a space to put myself in.  Actually, every member is just nice and lovable in own way, with ticks and a charming quirkiness or two, enough to keep them interesting but not too much to scare me away from them.  It's a bit like living in a sitcom, really, where each has a personality that isn't at all one-note and is downright punchline worthy.  My favorite is of course, Father Raphael which is in many ways my best friend in Europe. He's the most Irish person you'll ever meet in Dublin, but at the same time, he's never a stereotype Irish.  At all our travels, he sang me nationalistic songs that always involved a story of a very specific woman, which I find very fascinating because, embarrassingly, the only traditional irish song I know is Cockles and Mussels, which I only learned later to be a song about a prostitute. We went to pubs, the proper Irish ones and was introduced to hot toddies and dark beer.
At other times, when Fr. Raphael couldn't accompany me, I never ran out of people to help me go around. Thanks to Renoir, Ben and Mary, I was able to go to Duleek, to Galway, to Drogheda....  With them, I scoured museums and parks and churches and theaters.  We watched the traditional Christmas concert of Handel's Messiah and were among those who stood up while the choir sang the composer's trademark Halleluiah. I walked the length of the river Liffey.  I hang out with Filipinos, too, who, despite the years of staying in Dublin have stayed Filipino by heart.  In fact, on my last night, I was with them till dawn, belting out Pinoy standards on karaoke machine.  But what marked me well was the spiritual side of my vacation.  For the first time, since I arrived in Europe, I felt truly a priest.   I celebrated Mass (the new translation which really sounded unelegant, if my opinion matters) and heard confession and prayed and shared tea with the local Catholics, like a true pastor would.  I guess it helped that I can speak a bit of English.
Truth be told, Dublin haunts me even until these days.  The seedy pubs, the crumbling monasteries, the moldy tombstones, the ubiquitous Celtic filigrees, the medieval melange with the cosmopolitan feel of the city, the charming accent and the ready smile of its people.  But most importantly, the Irish Catholic faith, a faith that knows how to forgive and to ask forgiveness, a faith that is alive and well and is practiced in every aspect of life, a faith that is homegrown but well-informed and well-worn by countless prayers of novenas.  It suffice to say that when I went there, a place which is way much nearer to the North Pole than La Mure, I have never been more warm, I have never been more blest, I have never been more at home than any other place in Europe.


Nursing a mug of the dark brew,
I am reminded by the West Liffey wind
of how I traded hops and malt
with Mass bread and wine.
I held much of my dignity, however,
announcing with a borrowed accent,
my love for all things green and medieval,
only to be reminded that a year ago,
the closest I can get to Dublin experience
is buying a bar of Irish Spring.

Remembering a Childhood Friend

The other day, I learned about the death of my childhood friend, Noel.  His body was found washed ashore the beach, around two kilometers from his mom's house, wrapped in plastic bag.  No one knows exactly when did he die, but according to neighbors, he was shot several times and that his motorcycle is missing.
It was his birthday last March 31, and I remember leaving a generic greeting on his Facebook account and then he replied a couple of days after.  I didn't even suspect anything, like how he changed his profile name and picture and how his status updates since the beginning of February were all about being bullied, stalked and verbally abused.
I checked the internet for news but nothing was ever published.  It was from Chie, a common friend in Italy, that I learned all about it and when I asked my sister to check on the details,  all that she got was that Noel was robbed and shot to death.  Nothing about the gory details that Chie recounted.
Noel was already my friend even before I started to go to school.  He was adopted by an elderly couple who owned a tailoring shop and who lived right next to our house.  He was the only flat-footed person I know.  They weren't very rich, but he had the coolest toys: Matchbox cars, GI Joe action figures, Lego blocks, Justice League playing cards and whatnot. And what's more, they've got colored TV.  I was practically in their house every afternoon to watch the Three Stoogies and Batibot and then later, Voltes V, Bioman, Shaider and Daimos, and would stay there until my parents came to drag me out of their living room.  During play, we never spoke much, but our imagination ran wild:  the rubber tire swing at my father's backyard was our galleon tossed by tempest and the high seas; the aratiles and the guava trees were already our Pandora even before James Cameron envisioned it;  we drew treasure maps that would lead to toys we buried by the walls of our homes; though we never went beyond a mile, we made quests to forests and vacant lots and hunted for ghosts or monsters or dwarves until we, ourselves, would be too scared of our own imagination; we bruised each other trying to recreate the fight scenes from the TV show, The Kung Fu Theatre but we never held grudges for hurting one another, we retold for the Nth time the last episodes of a cartoon we watched until they were so embellished, they no longer resembled the original plot....
Then, next thing I knew, school started and we just got separated.  Although sometimes, I would invite Noel over and by our porch, we will talk about our life until it's dark.  But those times were very far and few. Until the time that we just lost contact of each other.  Then, years after, his mother told me Noel entered the seminary.  I was secretly envious, because I was thinking of the very same thing, and because of my timidity, he beat me to it.  When I announced to my family that I wanted to enter the seminary too, they thought I was just copying from Noel, and that peeved me.  That actually stalled me from bringing up the topic of priesthood with my family, for the fear of being unoriginal.  Later, I learned that Noel left the seminary and it was a surprise because Noel was seen then as a sort of prodigy by his formators.  Apparently, one of the priests hinted about his being adopted and poor Noel, he didn't know about it.  In fact, everybody knew except him.  Even I, on the first time I met him, knew that he was adopted, but I guess no one bothered telling him because it doesn't matter anyway.  This accidental revelation by some imprudent priest actually broke Noel and he felt betrayed by all, including me.
Noel had a natural talent for music and so, later, he learned piano from a local music teacher in our town, and went to become one of the regular church organists during Sundays.  Every summer, during my college days, I would join the choir and every after practice, we get to talk a bit, but other than that, we just went on each other's ways.  With no nostalgia for our childhood memories, we just drifted so far apart that we no longer have much in common to talk about with.  Later, after my mother's death, my father sold our house in the countryside and with no home to return to, I no longer had reason to go back to that neighborhood, effectively cutting all communication with Noel.
The last time I saw Noel was two years ago, on the afternoon after I celebrated my first Mass.  My sisters and I decided to visit our old house, and we were surprised that nothing much has changed since it was sold.  Then, I went to check out the neighborhood and, next thing I knew, I was at Noel's.  He was there and he embraced me with joy.  Until the time I had to leave, he kept on repeating to all the people around us, "Look, everyone! Here's my best friend, here's my best friend."



As children, we tore up
our treasure maps and tossed
the pieces to an open fire,
and so today, some cherished toys
are still buried somewhere in our mind.
Whatever we imagined as our boat,
a spaceship, or a time machine,
tossed hard by every quell and tide,
now lies quiet and worn at the backyard.
The trees that used to shake
under our weight no longer cast
cool shades on childhood,
browned by dirt and sun.
But we were never bothered
by the passing of time,
until now that it is too late to say,
"Thanks, I had so much fun."

The Funeral of a War Hero

I left early to be at Pierre Chatel, a village about 7 km from the rectory.  I had with me my black bag containing just about everything I'll need for a celebration of a funeral rite.  It's actually an overnight bag, practical, elegant and spacious.  The church was closed but there are already a few people by the front steps.  As I made my way to the back-door, I passed by an old man and greeted him bonjour but he seemed lost in his thoughts and didn't reply back.  As I entered the building, I was greeted by the comforting warmth of the thermostat and the dim silence of the sanctuary.  I set up my CD player by a side altar, at a piece of instrumental music, Gabriel's Oboe which I have used as entrance song to practically all of my funerals since last June.  I donned my robes and was greeted by a war veteran.  He said he'll be saying a few words during the celebration and that three other war veterans will be there to carry flags.  You see, our beloved deceased, Georges, has participated in the battle of Montfroid in Savoie on a  resistance against the Germans, during the Second World War.  Apparently, he received many medals for for his courage, leadership and patriotism.  It should be noted though that while he's a local hero, he's not French.  He belonged to a family of Italian immigrants who escaped Mussolini's regime and settled in the mining community of La Motte d'Aveillans.  Foreigners were viewed with contempt those days and Georges worked hard to belong to his new country. From the number of people who went to his burial, I can say his efforts paid off.

The funeral service was just like all other funerals in Matheysine:  quiet.  The congregation, when greeted, would respond with nods and a mumble.  To songs and prayers, they join me by mouthing the words without producing any sounds.  Their lips would enunciate the difficult French words but you'll not hear a single squeak.  If some person would dare to sing any louder, he will be hounded with stern stares and well-placed nudges until he'd step back and sing the rest of the song in awkward silence.  I thought at first that it was only in my funerals that the people are like that.  It turned out, my confrères have the same experience at all funeral services they made.

The coffin was covered with the tricoloured national flag and is flanked by two candles lighted by the grandchildren of Georges.  At the song, Ave Maria, the deceased's daughter trembled with emotion and sobbed in a peculiar way: it had all the trappings of a full-pledged sob, with all the shoulder and head motions, but none of the sounds.  It actually impressed me:  an all-out cry on mute.  

We all went out at the song, Amazing Grace and went to the cemetery.  The high noon sun is melting last night's heavy snow and there's water and mud everywhere.  The three war veterans, these fully decorated flag bearers were cautious to walk over the melting snow while balancing their flags.  The coffin was placed near the mouth of the tomb which Georges shares with his wife, Simone.  I made a reference on how he died on a Valentines day, and how these two, separated by death, are now reunited in death and in the life after, and then everyone lined up to bless the coffin with holy water, a simple gesture of solemn goodbye to a beloved friend.

Tree branches looked

like lifted hands holding up snow

towards the high heavens.

As the first signs of spring begin

to bud on the leafless twigs,

the white icy holocaust melted

and dripped, the sun trapped

at each crystalline drop.

Lifeless, but we know it isn't

true, because days from now,

all the snow will be gone,

and these branches will again

be furiously teeming with life.

It's been a while

It's been so long since I wrote in my old blog and I just decided to make myself a new one.  Nothing fancy.  Just trying to find myself an outlet.  Or rather a drainage for my clogged thoughts and feelings that haven't seen the light of day, but rot nonetheless at stagnancy of wordlessness.

To you who somehow found my blog, I wish to introduce myself.  I am Fr. Utoy.  Five years ago, as a seminarian, I have a blog at Wordpress that I just got tired of keeping alive.  I got busy with studies and also, Facebook came along and so divorced me from my once exciting love affair with words.

And then I became a priest.  A week after my ordination, they sent me to a small country village in the Rhone-Alpes and I'm here since 2012.

I'm not claiming to be a good writer.  I never was.  I don't even speak English that good.  But the English words are my best friends and have kept me sane when I am confronted with another language that never seemed to love me back: French.  The English language is the one that consoled me when la langue francaise just treat me as a stupid and awkward foreigner that does not even merit pity or politeness.

For today, I just want to share a free verse I doodled while attending a diocesan clergy retreat in Annecy.

Knitted jumpers heaved at each breath,
the spoken words flowed like a sinuous serpent,
or perhaps, it is the solemnity of this air
that declares each moment a verdict,
a law spoken by angels, carved on rocks.
We stared ahead, an illusion of attentive gaze,
but our mind raced for something witty,
something cliché to blurt out, in hopes
of breaking the heavy atmosphere of boredom,
or just an attempt, a misguided wish
to funnel all attention to one's levity.
White hair that shouted haughtily of cynicism,
low-key snobs on faded jeans,
the current and the retro collide
and not a rat's behind was ever given.