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.

Asking to be confirmed

Last night, I had my second meeting for the preparation for the sacrament of Confirmation.  It coincided with the Junior High's night, and so Charlene, one of the candidates for the sacrament got confused and so didn't come for the preparation.  Simon, on the other hand was there.  Son of a very pious but internet-savvy couple, Simon's interests include comic-book writing and zombies.  Truth be told, I wasn't expecting Simon to really follow the program.  He wasn't even in the original list of candidates.  But this young man had shown unusual interest.  With him is Nadege, whom I knew only through a few exchanges of emails that we had recently.  She has stopped coming to the Aumonerie since 2011 but surprisingly, she showed up and asked to be included in the program.  She was of Portuguese descent, she's already in her senior high but she looked unusually young for a typical French youth.
We began our meeting with the lighting of the vigil lamp, which is nothing more than a saucer with a few drops of olive oil and a spindled cotton as wick.  Simon gladly demonstrated to Nadege how it worked, and our improvised lamp actually stay lit for more than an hour.  With my broken French and a bit of enthusiasm, we explored the meaning of faith, the importance of trusting, believing and putting one's faith on something. Videos and other things to animate came handy, while our little vigil lamp shone before us.  We were surprised after on how the time flew, and so we immediately and a bit hurriedly made our prayer.  I asked them to draw, and the two, completely different yet in many ways similar, huddled over sketches their made.  The pencil drawings of Simon and Nadege struck me hard, as they happened to be the most honest and most revealing prayers I ever heard from a French teenager.
We said our Notre Pere, holding each other's hands and then stood up to join the Juniors with the prayers I prepared for them.  The words of Timothy Radcliffe rang well in our experience that night:  Prayer is an act of friendship with God.  It's not about thinking about him but rather being with him.


The pages of the Sacramentary had traces
of panic and forgetfulness at its crease and tears.
Drops of candle wax dot the Easter prayer
while regularity sullied the Ordinary Times.
Spines are broken and leaves are folded
and somewhere, pieces of paper marked
a hope or a plan in a priest's mind.
Grime and sot is today's monastic illumination
on the Second Eucharistic Prayer, imitating
the familiarity and haste of every presider
who knew each of these words by heart.

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.

Baptism of Nathanael

Nathanael is the son of Mark, a physician and Therese, a music teacher.  They've been married since 2008 and after a long wait, and almost at the verge of giving up, they finally had a son, born August last year. They weren't even expecting it, and Therese only found out about her pregnancy when she was already well in her second trimester.
The couple was actually expecting that Fr. Manuel be the one to officiate the baptism, but since this Italian priest had to take his sabbatical, almost in a hurried way, and Fr. Armand, peeved that he was only a second choice, decided to passed it to me three weeks ago.
I know the couple well, they're regular churchgoers.  Therese sings and plays the violin during Sunday Masses while Mark, who is under formation to become a deacon, is our new sacristan, a role which he shares with two other men.  While I'm not exactly the chatty type and I totally abhor small talks, Mark and Therese aren't fazed at all in striking a conversation with me, although most of the time, I really don't know what to say and I nod myself out of a dialogue, because frankly, my French still isn't that good.
When I met them, however, for the preparation for the baptism, our conversation was a bit perfunctory and clinical.  Not that I mind it, but I can sense a very palpable disappointment from the couple. Later, that night, Therese emailed me and told me that she was in fact sad that Fr. Manuel couldn't be there for Nathanael's big day.  She said that he is her best friend and spiritual father.
During the ceremony this noon at the Chapel, I tried to keep it simple. The only reason for this is that one of the sponsors, the godfather if you will, is actually a priest, ordained on 2001 and the family had known him for three years since they met at Rome.  He knows the tool of the trade, so to speak, and so, he'd see if I'm just trying to add theatricals to the rite, a cheeky liturgical trickery I have learned from Armand to spice up the celebration.  At the end, the simplicity actually worked, and we had a very solemn baptism, attended by a few friends, most of them I personally know. At one point of the ceremony, Nathanael cried his lungs out but at the moment when I poured the water on his forehead, he became quiet and gave me a quizzical look.
What made the celebration special is the music.  We actually sang during the celebration, which is rare in baptisms here in  this country.  They picked well the hymns and the responses.  In fact, the litany of the saints was chanted (a first time!) in a manner that made me recall my ordination to the diaconate.
My homily focused on being a poet.  I told them, if they wanted Nathanael to grow up and be a priest, prophet and king, like Christ, they should make him a poet first, and these munus triplex will naturally follow.  A passage from Homer's Odyssey inspired me here, the one that recounted the killing of all the suitors of Penelope until only a priest and a poet were left.  Ulysses killed the priest but spared the poet because the poet is blessed to speak the language of the gods.


Some dinners are made of glass wines
lined up to great vintages, while others
are series of fancy desserts,
cute little cakes and heavenly pies.
Others are spartan, functional,
while there are those that are made
of stories, told and retold at occasions.
At each of them, I always ask
God to help me survive.
For cutleries glinted at epic wars
that end not with a truce
but with a cup of coffee getting cold.

About Bread

There are about seven bakeries in La Mure.  For a village of a population of 4000, that's not too bad.  But if you consider other shops, you'll be surprised:  five pastry shops, three driving schools, 15 bars, three pizza takeouts, two decent restaurants, a barbershop, two florists, a greengrocer, four banks, two butcher-shops, two sporting goods store, six bookstores, a pharmacy and two tobacco-and-newspaper outlets.  The fact that there's almost as many bookshops as bakeries and bars are twice as many might make you rethink the priorities of this little commune.
Buying bread is one of the few reasons why would I dare go out on a street with at least ten centimetres of snow.  French people can't have a meal without their baguette.  A curious thing, baguette, which is an average size of bread to be consumed by three persons on a normal meal, baguette literally means a stick. The smaller version, ficelle, means a string, while the "family"-sized ones are called flute, which means, well, a flute.  The huge ones, the size of a body pillow are called boulot, roughly translates in English as "the works."
Curiously, bread here only lasts a day, not because they spoil easily but rather, they become rock-hard and uneatable if they are left exposed in air. They can become so dry and hard that you can seriously hurt someone if you hit him with a day-old baguette. (note to self: keep one by the door, for self-defense). Thus, bread has to be bought daily (now the idea of a daily bread makes sense!), freshly baked and carried home under one's armpit.  Which brings my compatriots here in France to call them pan de kilikili. Which brings me to another trivia.  Monay here in France is actually called brioche.  And brioches are eaten like desserts or snack.  In fact, in the expression, "Let them eat cake" wrongly attributed to Marie Antoinette, the cake in question is none other than our humble monay.
Baguette however have no Filipino equivalent and I don't think there will ever be a local version.   It's not the kind of bread that you spread coco jam on.  It's more like rice for French meals.  But the real purpose for baguettes is for wiping.  Yep, wiping.  A spoon rarely appears on a French table, and it is only used for soup.  So the bread is usually used to drain sauces on plates and then to wipe them clean afterwards.  If in my home country, wiping one's plate almost equates to being patay-gutom, here in France, a picked-clean plate after the meal is a must.  And the best tool for the job is a slice of a crusty baguette.
By now, I know which bakeries serve the best bread and which ones give out the crappy kind.  Each baguette roughly costs 80 cents (roughly 40php) and we consume about two and a half baguettes a day, so that means 3 euros worth of bread is eaten in my community daily.  I buy them usually at l'Anthracite, which is not a name you usually associate with freshly baked bread.  Anthracite is a rock-like but shiny kind of coal mined here in La Mure until the early 90s; it is so hard, it's almost like diamond.  One fist-sized rock can last a month, burning on a fireplace.  The bakeshop used to belong to my very good friend, Brigitte, until, in 2010, she decided to sell it to a younger couple.  They used to have a saleslady who was fired for regularly stealing from the cash register.  Ironically, the couple who bought the bakery re-hired this saleslady and Chantal is still there, everyday, smiling behind the cash register.



(while at the young priests' gathering, listening to Armand's rantings)

Huddled under the warm yellow light,
our eyes shone brighter at the background
of black coats and heavy air.
We broke barriers without lifting a finger
in declaring who are those at the margins
and that we owe them a welcome.
The unfortunate bottom line is that,
under this same yellow light,
we conveniently labelled him who hides
at the periphery's shadow.

On my 37th birthday

I just turned 37 last week and truth be told, for the first time in my life, I felt I really grew up.

I admit that at each birthday, I can see things that changed in me.  My appearance, my voice, the fact that I moved from year to year to different levels of education... I had celebrated my birthdays in weirdest places, often hung-over by new year revelry, or just at home, or in my apartment, or in my seminary room, or in front of the computer answering emails and private messages.  Last week, I was just in my room, almost two years as a priest, who before Christmas was in one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been, and, as always, since my participation in Facebook, looking over the messages of many people, most of whom, I only met once somewhere in my past and now, our only interaction is the rare "likes" we give at each other's posts.

But as I said, suddenly, I felt that I had grown up.

It might sound a bit late, especially for a 37 year old, to say these thing, but frankly, I have no excuse whatsoever.  All I knew is that the world around me has suddenly changed and I felt its weight bearing on my soul.  I no longer doubt the power of hushed prayer and the importance of silence while looking at the window with a cup of cheap tea.  I give more respect to the written and spoken words and bow down to appreciate the lyric touch they give in my adult life, but more importantly, I realised that I have a new friend, wordlessness, an ominous being that loomed over me as a ghost, but now, she holds my hands with such warmth, that I am assured that it is her that I need, here and now.

As I turned 37, I have learned to lay down my imaginary sword and surrender to my long-time enemies, uncertainty and subtlety. And while they leered in delight to my defeat, I somehow feel that I earned their respect and will one day be there with me on the streets, offering me cigarettes or helping me with my groceries or picking up my fallen ego from the floor.

As a 37 year old, I am confident that I've grown wiser, more cynical, more dark, more compassionate, more nuanced, more adventurous, more careful.  At 37, I am now much closer to knowing who is the real me.

Here's another free verse, during the time the parishioners gathered to reflect on the letter of our local bishop:

We read the letter, but our hearts drummed hard
on the questions that seemed not to rhyme
with the superlative generalities
that rose and fell like a heaving chest,
short of air, peppered with nominal gasps in risk
of reducing the Word into something proverbial,
or painfully parochial. We pulled our vests,
in a church that is becoming more and more
Cold.  Hope is the word
we all desperately want to touch and hold.