DEADLY TRANSLATIONS
SISTER MARY AND THE BEAST
Section 1: This week our story is progressed with a
MURDER IN THE SEMINARY.
Or was it something else?
...
And Section 2: A statement about why NOT to go to Mass.
Or should you?
1.3
In the summer, the peace of the St. John’s Roman Catholic Seminary grounds, buildings and staff, was usually kissed by warm, sweet light, especially in the late afternoon when the onshore breeze and mist from the vast Pacific nearby rushed up the rise to the quiet, protected cloisters of neo Spanish Baroque genius. This afternoon, the holy kindness sung into the ambience of this place was subtly disturbed by a darker flow, a determined drip as the blood of the old priest slowed to a congealed stillness.
Father Robillard had walked these graceful halls for nearly 50 years. He was the professor who taught Church History from memory, though all the students bought his famous double tomes on the subject. In his view, the Protestant Reformation had been the Great Rebellion or Revolution since it hadn’t reformed the Roman Church so much as it tragically split Christendom. Even so, he was an even-handed scholar. He also admitted that the Church overstepped its authority on occasion and had often been mistaken about important things-- But not nearly so much as her enemies would have it. Ascetically slender, he hiked the two-mile perimeter daily over his long tenure here—until today.
The blood not pooling from cruel slices along his lower forearm as it hung from the bathtub in the faculty infirmary, ran sluggishly along chicken wire patterns of grout that held in place the small white tiles of floor and walls of this otherwise antiseptic room.
This priest was an icon of the kindly seminary professor, ready with helpful suggestions or a sharp, witty quip to keep his students going. Though quiet, he was also a man of great presence—some said ‘power’ in a spiritual sense, a man of hard German discipline and soft Christian heart, a strong heart, quivering slightly now as it settled finally to stillness in a brave chest. The crimson flow from his other arm, submerged in the water, continued to darken his bath. A thin, red, beaded film swirled on the liquid surface.
Soon would come confusion and grief in this elite community. Soon would come the breathless intake of this horror from brother priests and teachers. Then police and reporters. Panic and inevitable mistakes. But now it was quiet for the old man’s passage. Solemn, so that one might just sense the invisible welcome of Angels, golden comfort in light and song…
It was twenty or more years earlier that Father Robillard had been summoned to the office of the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles. This office was the soul of rich simplicity. Dark wooden, paneled walls with sparely spaced European art masterpieces. Father Robillard‘s heart sank when the archbishop asked him to become the Exorcist for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, California. In those days, before Vatican II, every priest was ordained an exorcist. But there was always a special priest to face these special cases. Such a person had to be completely upright in faith and morals. Such a person had to be without stain or weakness—or at least to have reached a degree of humility so as to be empowered by the Holy Spirit not to be easily fooled by the lie of Sin or sins—his own and others. Such a person had to have personal, spiritual power: To have been chosen, to have taken-in the Spirit—literally to breathe in holiness with every breath.
Yet, Father Robillard had apparently killed himself. A mortal sin. Serious beyond measure. Sacrilege to kill an anointed being, sacrilege to take what God had given. How could this be? What moment of despair had driven this good, patient man to such an act? Had he harbored some spiritual deceit, secreted for years beneath the sharply creased, black folds of religious discipline? Or, by what wiles of vicious mischief had he been somehow possessed?
These were the seminal rumors and scandal that whipped through the small seminary community on this campus of grace and beauty- burning through this library of virtue and inspiration- and then out into the broad vineyards of a world’s Faith. No one suspected foul play. No one proposed it. Father Robillard was buried quietly in a Catholic cemetery, behind the old Franciscan Mission of San Fernando. In the ages past, in the long history of the Church that he knew so well, that he had embodied for so many, he would have been denied consecrated ground. But by the generosity of progress, such deaths were now given the benefit of the doubt about the state of a suicidal mind. Whatever had possessed this good man to such violence was left up to the power and mercy of God...
MORE SOON about this crime, Old Sister Mary, Jack Hartley and another young hero about to be introduced.
______________________________________________________
But Now, Section II: A Statement About
Why NOT to go to Mass-
I planned for this series of fiction, images, poetry and critical commentary, starting with our September, 2011 blog, to be 'a summing up' for the whole 40 year ‘NEPSIS FOUNDATION Project.’ It started with great and sure enthusiasm.
Now, I’m in the middle of it and I remember that I’ve already ‘summed up’ the Frost Nepsis project of self examination and cultural/religious commentary—using this same method of playing fiction against metaphysics and poetry, commentary with Abstract Expressionist images, and the whole with and against the parts!!
(See "Summations:" http://ecai.org/NEPSIS/NF%20sitemap.htm)
This process NOW seems to lead in a different direction. Here’s where it seems to be going:
In the 4th Century A.D., the Catholic Church, accepted the mantle of empire forced on it by the Roman Emperor Constantine. In a sense, though it claims a longer heritage, today's Church was created at that moment as a universal model influenced by the structures of the Roman military, economic, corporate interests and politics of the day.
Since then, the Catholic Church has accepted the task of helping to structure Western and World Civilization either by its teachings and practices or by its resistance to forces in human Culture. I still believe as I did nearly 40 years ago that the Church’s theology is for me the most complete and capable of absorbing all in its benediction. This is in spite of, rather than because of its patriarchal sexism and authoritarian, corruption-prone Latin systems. I still think it’s best if you are looking for a ready-made worldview and instructions on how you and other people are supposed to behave. (How else can one adequately deal with the gigabits of information involved in such topics but through inculcating one or more of these ancient traditions.) I can still affirm that in balance, for most, the Church is a beautiful system.
However, my interest in this blog series is other wise directed. Here, my attempt is to "render on to Caesar what is Caesar’s" and focus now entirely on the task of ENGAGING DEITY.
That is, how does the human body and mind experience the mysteries of universal origin and evolution.
THE SACRED LITURGY OF THE MASS is classic ritual and transforms pre-Christian insights about the efficacy of art and ritual into a system of liturgies and sacramental vision. Like really ‘telling’ dreams, the rituals of the Mass contain everything one needs to know. One's person contains the latent capacities such that attendance at Mass 'recognizes' the essential nature of being as an interaction between temporal and non temporal concerns.
If one is truly in a State of Grace (necessary for full communion)- that is, fully engaged in the liturgical dance of Matter and Spirit- scientist or pilgrim, one is already in attendance, wherever one might be, with the character of what the Mass offers.
That’s where I intend to ‘be,’ and as a Catholic priest and fellow being in creation, I can recommend a like pilgrimage for you.
NILE POEM
Stephen Frost © 1997
God is smiling
His rapture through
Undulating waters
In
Dark and crystal
Waves behind our boat.
God is whispering (her)
Sweet kisses
In tiny breezes across my ear...
God is chattering
en
*
thus
*
i
*
asm
By
Our friendly talk
Sailing past sunset
Down the Nile,
through the arms of life,
and the embrace of stars!
___________________________________________
ALTERNATIVE ENDING TO “NILE POEM”
...
sailing past sunset
down the nile
through the arms of life
and
the embrace of star
encrusted
black
and
empty space
Steve Frost ‘97
