Soliloquy in an International Cloister

Countdown clock updated

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 10:14:00 +0000

In the immortal words of John Denver, "my bags are packed, I'm ready to go." Well, they're not quite packed, and I'm not quite ready to go, but they/I will be soon. I reset the countdown clock on my blog to 18 September 2018 at 10:20, the scheduled time of departure of the flight that will take me back to the U.S. for perhaps the last time. Yes, "I'm leaving on a jet plane. Don't know when I'll be back again."

Speaking of John Denver, I am destined for his namesake city, to do what, I don't know. Maybe I will post an update once I find out. Stay tuned.

Poetic musings

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 23:19:00 +0000

I love this statue, located on the grounds of La Casa in Scottsdale, Arizona. It brings to mind Robert Browning's "Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister", which inspired the title of this blog. Part of that poem goes thus:

Saints forsooth while brown Dolores

sits outside the convent bank

with Sanchicha telling stories

washing tresses in the tank.

Blue-black, lustrous, thick as horse hairs

don't I see his dead eye glow

bright as 'twere a Barbary's corsair.

That is, if he'd let it show!

My muse

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Mon, 12 Oct 2015 16:23:00 +0000

must have taken up permanent residence in Ireland. I was there for two weeks, and heard two blogworthy stories.

One of the brothers is part of an organization that serves to help religious congregations of women work together to solve issues that are common to them all. The job allows him to hear about the various odd customs that became traditions in some of the congregations. In one congregation, he told me, the sisters were taught that whenever they met one another, they were to use the following cheerful greeting:
Sister A: Die we must, sister!
Sister B: And we know not the day nor the hour!

One of the brothers is famous for asking questions during meals. He is particularly delighted when there are visitors because it provides him with an endless source of new questions. However, he will happily grill the brothers he has known for decades, as well. On one occasion, while seated at table with a professor of philosophy and a professor of psychology, among other, he asked, "Which is more important, philosophy or psychology"?
Quick as a flash, the philosophy professor responded: "Don't answer that! A fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer!"

Brolo the grammarian

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 10:29:00 +0000

As I see it, the fact that English is not one's mother tongue does not excuse that person from speaking and writing correctly. This is in contrast to German, which is so devilishly convoluted and difficult that no one could possibly be expected to speak it correctly. Back to the subject at hand, however. On a recent Swiss Air flight, I noticed that the sandwich packaging had a grammatical mistake.

This is a case of the misuse of the transitive verb "Enjoy", which is altogether too common among those with a poor command of English. Although one is tempted to let the error slide, that does not help the person in the long run. I feel it is my duty, therefore, to explain to them that transitive verbs, such as "enjoy", require a direct object. That is, you must put a word or phrase after the verb. In this case, I helpfully supplied a corrected version that I hope will be used on future flights.

You're welcome.

Physician, heal thyself

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 21:09:00 +0000

One of brothers, let us call him Brother Veneficus, has made a second career out of offering medical advice to the other brothers. He convinced two of them to join him in a strict, liquids-only diet for the whole of this week. To another brother, he prescribed a purgative of Epson salts (which, by the way, are called "English salts" in Italian), which backfired - quite literally - and kept the poor patient in bed for a day.

I predict he will bring out the leaches before too long.

High Expectations

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 09:23:00 +0000

Brother Tandoor, who recently joined one of our American monasteries, wanted to get an American driving license. He passed the written test with flying colors. Then he took the driving test, going through the usual routine of parallel parking, merging into traffic, driving on residential streets, etc. Eventually the instructor said, "You've done very well. Now take me back to the office." On the way back, Brother Tandoor came up to a stop sign and, after checking both left and right for traffic, coasted through the intersection. Back at the office, the conversation went like this:
Instructor: "You failed."
Brother: "What? But you told me that I had done well!"
Instructor: "Yes, but then you went through that intersection without stopping."
Brother: "But you told me that the test was over!"

Now that's a vocation story!

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:57:00 +0000

I am indebted to @RevRichardColes for this story of how St Enda was called to the monastic life.

"An Irish warrior, [Enda] was rebuked by his sister, the Abbess Feancha, for rattling his sword and dripping blood everywhere. She promised him her prettiest nun if he mended his ways, but took him to see not a bride but a corpse. He immediately became a monk and founded the great monastery on the Isles of Aran, where the jumpers come from. St Brendan gave him a nice magic stone."

So much more interesting than, "I felt God was calling me to help people."

Hail to the mischief

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 17:07:00 +0000

Miss Chief

Several of my brothers and I attended the Installation Mass for Pope Francis last week, along with about 200,000 other people. When the date of the Mass was announced, it was said that no tickets would be issued so the first to arrive would get the best spots. For whatever reason, the Vatican reversed course and did offer a certain number of tickets—free, as usual—and we managed to snag ten of them. (As an aside, this is not the first time I have heard from the Vatican that no tickets were available, only to have them magically show up a few days before the event. Do they do this to throw off the scalpers? Who knows?) The people with tickets were seated in the front half of St Peter Square, while those without tickets stood in the back half.

A short time after we were seated, a religious sister walked over and greeted us. Then she asked us for a favor: she came here from Sicily with a group of her sisters, but they didn't have enough tickets to get them all in. Would we be so kind as to give her our tickets so that she should get the rest of her sisters in? As a law-abiding American, I resisted at first, but when she batted her baby-blues and promised to bring our tickets back, my ethical inhibitor crashed and I handed it over. Fast-forward half an hour. Sister was now surrounded by a group composed mostly of people who definitely were not sisters (note the two priests in the foreground of the picture). Also, notice that the scarf around her neck clearly reads "Croatia". So Croatia is now in Sicily? Finally, she was still holding my ticket when this photo was snapped. To paraphrase Sir Thomas More to Richard Rich: "Why Sister, it profits one nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for a papal liturgy?"

I should point out that sister was not the only one trying to recycle tickets. We were also approached by a priest for the same reason. In the end, no one was deprived of his or her seat because of this. Our section was only half full so they filled the rest of the seats with people from the standing room section. Oh, and after signaling to sister, she finally did return my ticket.

This incident reminded me of another legendary sister in Rome back in the 80's and 90's. This one was elderly, about 5 foot-tall and had a sweet smile. She would regularly attend the Pope's Wednesday audience, but had a difficult time seeing over the people in front of her and had little chance of getting close to the railing if the Pope happened to go by in his Popemobile. She eventually developed an effective technique for getting up to the railing: she would prick the butt of the person in front of her with a hat pin. He would naturally turn to find the source of the pain, and she would take advantage of the situation to get in front of him. This would go on until she reached the railing. Rumor has it that this dear sister was eventually invited not to attend any further audiences.

Papal etiquette

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 20:43:00 +0000

I'm attending the installation Mass of Pope Francis tomorrow, and I am unsure what to wear. Should I wear my habit with the thick cord? Or would it be better to wear my habit with the thin cord? Isn't there some rule about "No thin cords before Easter"?

Also, am I expected to bring a housewarming gift? Maybe a cake or a casserole or something? I guess I could play it safe and just bring him a nice potted plant.

An America hermeneutic

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 07:45:00 +0000

I called my mother last night to see if she had heard about the election of Pope Francis I, and was telling her about his simplicity.

Me: Even as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he took the bus to work each day, and cooked for himself.

Mom: Oh good, he's a Conservative!

Idle speculations

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 19:29:00 +0000

Now that the shock of the Pope's resignation is wearing off, many have turned to speculating on who the next Pope will be. I find it much more entertaining to speculate on what name the next Pope will choose for himself. I am hoping for something with a little more pizzazz than the dreary old names of our recent pontiffs. Here is my top ten wish list of papal names:

10. Pope Dwayne I
9. Pope Sicle I
8. Pope LeRoi I
7. Pope Tex I
6. Pope Alfalfa I
5. Pope Elton I
4. Pope Darth I
3. Pope Shaquan I
2. Pope Elvis I
1. Pope Thor I

Christmas in the monastery

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 16:46:00 +0000

Christmas was a little different for the brothers this year. First, we have temporarily relocated while our monastery is under renovation. Secondly, the ruling junta made a conscious decision to be present for Christmas this year. Usually most of the priest-brothers scatter at this time of the year to various parishes in Italy or their home country "to help with confessions and masses" (I always suspected they were less than completely sincere about their motives). This left four or five non-ordained brothers in the monastery and one disgruntled priest-brother assigned to celebrate our masses. Needless to say, the services were not exactly inspired.

Our celebrations this year began with solemn vespers and a Christmas party on December 20 — because many of the student brothers were leaving the next day for various parishes around Italy. Our founder, usually a stickler for austerity, felt that Christmas was so important that we should "smear the walls with meat" so Christmas dinners tend to be among the most lavish of the year. This year's did not disappoint, with various kinds of appetizers, a pasta dish, and a main course of roast beef. Afterward, we played Tombola. Many of the prize packages looked suspiciously like large books, presumably the unsold (and unsalable) copies from our print house. One of the lucky winners received an elegant red bathrobe — most useful for walking the two meters between his bed and bathroom each morning. At the interludes between games of Tombola, perhaps to take our minds off the dwindling pile of prizes, groups of brothers came forward to sing a traditional Christmas carol from their region of the world. The evening's unofficial "Irony Prize" went to Brother Otto. With this year's confused organization, he thought they had forgotten to include his traditional rendition of "O Tannenbaum", which led him to grouse, "This is more like carnevale! Where is their Christmas spirit?"

The English-speaking brothers were also expected to contribute something. My suggestion was very swiftly and disrespectfully discarded. I happen to think that "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" is a perfectly acceptable Christmas carol.

With all the prizes handed out and the caroling finished, the brothers drifted off to their celibate cells and went to sleep with visions of sugar-plum angels dancing on the head of a pin.

Andomray oughtsthay onay atinlay

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:13:00 +0000

Pope Benedict XVI recently created the Pontifical Academy for Latin, whose job is to promote a wider and better knowledge of Latin in the Church and beyond. I wish them all the luck in the world, but frankly I think the effort is doomed. Progressives in the Church suspect that this is just another step toward reintroducing the Latin Mass and further undoing the changes of Vatican II. Traditionalists may have been happy with the move, at least until its new President, Cardinal Ravasi, suggested that although they like the Latin Mass, they don't know the language very well. That won't exactly endear him to their hearts.

I was actually a little put out when they changed the language of the Mass from Latin to English. I was learning to be an altar server at the time and had studied hard to learn all the Latin prayers. Suddenly, just before my big debut, I had to re-learn the prayers in English. It annoyed me that I had wasted so much time studying something that I would never use.

Since I had thoughts of becoming a priest, I was told that I would have to study Latin in high school. After studying it for two semesters, the requirement was dropped. Burned again. I should have continued to study it anyway because a knowledge of Latin is useful in so many ways, even today. At the time, however, after realizing that "hey, pulchra puella" wasn't a very effective pick-up line, I decided to cut my losses.

The Cunning Linguist was a good Latinist, and he taught me the meaning of a few common Latin phrases, such as:
"in loco parentis" = "my dad's an engine driver"
"Sic transit gloria mundi" = "Gloria Mundi fell sick on the bus"
"semper ubi sub ubi" = "always wear underwear"

I'm sure Cardinal Ravasi would be impressed.

I, along with most of my peers, am ambivalent about this renewed interest in Latin. Twice bitten, four times shy. The younger brothers are enthusiastic about learning and using Latin, but I doubt that most of them have the dedication to learn it well. I think it is time for the Vatican to face the fact that Latin's day has come and gone. Sic transit gloria mundi, after all.

What's in a word? Apparently, a lot!

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:40:00 +0000

Those who complain that their government never does anything have probably never had to write legislation through a committee process. 171 delegates of the Order are currently trying to rewrite our Constitutions. A Constitutional Committee worked for six years to produce two drafts, soliciting comments from the grassroots several times along the way. Relatively few comments were received; the most common complaint we heard was, "I cannot evaluate the work because I have no expertise in the material." Now that we are trying to produce the final draft, it seems that everyone is an expert, and they want to change everything. We've spent half an hour arguing over whether the Gospels are the "source" or the "principle" of our life. One group spent 30 minutes trying to decide whether the text should say "Martha and Mary" or "Mary and Martha".

We are only three days into the process, but nerves are already beginning to fray. Each morning I look out the window of the chapel and think to myself, "We should probably lock the door of the stairs leading up to the bell tower."

Words that hurt

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:55:00 +0000

We sat for three hours today as one of our brothers read the entire forty-some page report that we were given a week ago to study beforehand. Another brother quipped, "The Americans may have perfected waterboarding, but the Italians have perfected wordboarding!"

Countdown is reset

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:45:00 +0000

As you can see by the countdown clock below, BroLo has been "granted" another six years in the international cloister. He now has 2191 days left in exile.

Legenda fratrum, pars XXIII

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 13:16:00 +0000

Another true (or only slightly embellished) tale of the brothers.

Brother Gabriel was phoning the other monasteries to inform the brothers that Brother Alphonsus passed away during lunch that day.

Brother Taciturnus: Had he eaten his dessert yet?

Brother Gabriel (slightly puzzled): Well, yes, I guess he had.

Brother Taciturnus: Trust him to get every last bite out of the Order!

Days of wine and robes

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 09:54:00 +0000

August 18, 1980 was the hottest day of the year in Kansas. I remember this because it was the day I became BroLo by professing vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Brother Party Pooper never fails to remind me how much he suffered through the long, hot ceremony. It seems that Mother Nature is celebrating my 32nd anniversary of profession by giving us the hottest day of the year in Rome.

I am not one of those people who have their whole lives planned in advance—I prefer surprises to disappointment. Still, I certainly never expected that I would spend 16 years of my religious life living in Rome and six years traveling around the world. In fact, before entering the novitiate one of my confreres and I took a road trip to see something of the world before being locked away forever into a monastery. Our Grand Tour consisted of driving from Kansas City to Chicago. I then took a train from Chicago to Washington, DC, while he drove back to Kansas City. Such an adventure!

Life for these past 32 years has not always been a bed of roses, but I have no reason to complain. I have many good, supportive brothers. There is no doubt that I have had opportunities to see places and do things that would not have been possible if I had chosen a different path in life. Overall, the positives have far outweighed the negatives.

In the old days, on the vigil of one's birthday or patronal feast, you ate your supper sitting on the floor. The idea was to prevent you from becoming proud. It seemed like a silly tradition and I am glad it was discontinued. Still, I am beginning to see the sense of it—sure, life seems goods right now, but don't get used to it!

My other generation

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:24:00 +0000

Years ago when I visited the Tower of London, the tour guide mocked the Americans as having come "looking for history". For the record, he mocked everyone—the Australians who came looking for culture, the Europeans for something to do with football, and the English for not having self-identified themselves as Europeans. There was probably some truth to what he said, at least in the case of Americans, which is probably why so many of us are obsessed with genealogy.

My interest in genealogy began when I was in high school. One of my grandmothers had immigrated to the U.S. at the age of eighteen or so, and she used to tell me stories about life in "the old country." The thought of leaving behind almost everything and everyone you knew to move to an unfamiliar place fascinated me. I started asking questions about the family, and looking up records at the county courthouse and parish. I recently discovered that the Czech Republic has made available online all the parish baptism, marriage and death records they had in their archives, which has re-ignited my curiosity. I can now name almost all my ancestors going back at least six generations, and in some cases up to ten generations.

Someone once told me that priests and religious have a greater interest in genealogy than the average person. Maybe it is our way of compensating for our lack of contribution to the future survival of the familial genes. In my experience, however, the brothers are only interested in their own genealogy. Oh, they acted interested the first time I excitedly mentioned my latest fantastic discovery. The next time, I received a half-hearted "Hmm". After that, they started walking the other way when they saw me coming. No one appreciates great research any more.

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 20:31:00 +0000

The countdown clock says that I have 61 days left in Rome. Of course, that depends on whether I am re-elected or not. I should know that by the end of August.

Furious preparations are underway for our sexennial General Chapter. Our translators are ready to revolt as during the last few months they have had to translate hundreds of pages of the most boring reports ever committed to paper. Once the Chapter delegates receive the reports and realize that they are expected to read all of them, they'll be the ones ready to revolt. Many of the brothers did as they were asked and kept their reports to two pages, but you can always tell the ones who have an inflated sense of their self worth. They are the ones who list everything they did for the past six years, no matter how insignificant —

attended quarterly planning meetings (24x);
put new ink cartridge in pen (6x);
refilled the sugar bowl at the coffee station (2x);
refilled paper tray in copier (including opening the package and riffling the stack) (3x);
etc.

Other than elections, the big topic at this year's Chapter is the proposed revision of the Order's Constitutions. Our first set of Constitutions was written in 1536 and remained nearly unchanged until 1909. They were completely rewritten in 1968 to reflect the changes introduced by the Second Vatican Council. Those were considered experimental. A new, "definitive" version came out in 1982, largely based on the 1968 version. Several minor changes were made several times since then. The Chapter of 2000 voted to re-write the Constitutions again, but the version proposed in 2006 did not pass. In its infinite wisdom, that Chapter reconfirmed the decision to revise the Constitutions so we have been working the past six years to come up with something that will meet the approval of the delegates.

Of course, revising one's Constitutions is no easy task. In order to have enough time to deal with the inevitable proposals for amendments and sub-amendments, we lengthened the Chapter from its usual three weeks to five weeks. Naturally, there is wailing and gnashing of teeth about that. There will be a presentation on each of the Constitutions' twelve chapters, as well as a presentation introducing the work as a whole. On top of that, there is a 40-some page introduction to the introduction, whose purpose we have yet to ascertain. The Cunning Linguist bitterly joked that we should have a Preface to the Introduction of the Explanatory Notes of the Foreword to the Preface. So you can imagine the joyful atmosphere that awaits us.

The great adventure begins in four weeks. I am hoping that in the meantime a better offer will come along — such as cleaning Calcutta's sewer system.

Not quite fully Italian yet

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 16:56:00 +0000

Brolo is very happy whenever the European or World Cup games are being played. It gives him more time to do useful things, like work on his genealogy, or catch up on all those episodes of "Downton Abbey" that he missed. Obviously, it still doesn't give him enough extra time to blog more often. Ahem.

Hall politics

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:32:00 +0000

I have written before about a confrere and co-worker that we nicknamed "the cunning linguist" for his translation skills. Besides his linguistic skills, he is also a good thinker and has a lot of good ideas about the Order, especially on issues that are close to his heart. As an interpreter, however, the only way he can promote his ideas at a Chapter is to talk to delegates during the breaks. Watching him do this led us to bestow on him a new moniker — "the Hobby Horse Whisperer".

Organizational cheerleading

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:39:00 +0000

The Roman Catholic Church in the United States is now in the third week of using the new translation of the Roman Missal. In Australia, they started using it earlier so I was able to practice the new responses when I visited Down Under in November. Many people had called for a new missal to correct some of the former translation's deficiencies, but along the way someone in the Vatican decided that the translators could no longer use the tried and true "dynamic equivalence" style of translation, but had to adhere to a slavishly literal translation of the Latin original. Thus "Et cum spiritu tuo", which the old missal translated as "And also with you", is now "And with your spirit". Even Fr. Reginald Foster, formerly the Vatican's chief Latinist, was somewhat annoyed by the literalness of the new translation.

Somewhat off topic, but I am old enough to have attended Mass when it was still said in Latin. I remember hearing "Et cum spiritu tuo" and thinking that it must have been God's phone number. Now back to the topic at hand.

I am not a huge fan of the new translation, but as a part of the organization, I feel I need to defend, or at least not detract, publicly from the organization's decisions. So I have developed the following set of responses to use when people ask me what I think of the new translation:

1. It's Latin-icious!
2. It's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
3. I only notice the difference when I am paying attention, which is not often.
4. It's better than nothing.
5. If you don't like it, join the Episcopalians. And take your spirit with you.
6. Whatever.

Ponte fixed maximus!

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:39:00 +0000

In what has become a staple of my Sunday mornings in Rome, I bicycled northward along the Tiber River last Sunday. When I reached the ill-fated bridge over the ravine, what did my wondrous eyes perceive but that the bridge had been repaired, a little less than a month after it was damaged. In Roman terms, that is the blink of an eye. Mira culo!, as we would say. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the freshly repaired bridge.

Most Sundays, my goal is to reach the Ponte Castel Giubileo, which is almost exactly 18 km from the monastery. It isn't easy to see in this photograph, but there is covered bicycle path on the side of this bridge that shelters riders from the elements while giving them a wonderful view of the river valley. While it is true that there are many cities in the world that have a much better infrastructure for bicyclists, it isn't as if Rome has done nothing for us.

Tales of a city priest

noreply@blogger.com (BroLo) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 16:58:00 +0000

So this couple comes to see one of our brothers, the pastor of a large, city parish in southern Brazil, and asks to have a Medieval-style wedding. What could possibly be wrong with that, he thinks. Then comes the day of the wedding — everyone, from the wedding party to the guests, shows up wearing Shrek costumes! There was even someone dressed as a donkey (unfortunately, it was not Eddie Murphy).

To make matters worse, a journalist from the local newspaper was on hand to cover the wedding, which was given coverage, including photographs, in the following day's edition. That resulted in the priest receiving a rather unpleasant call from the bishop.

I get the bishop's point about movie-themed weddings in church. Today you allow Shrek, and tomorrow it's Planet of the Apes. On the face of it, however, if the newspaper had not reported that this was a Shrek-themed wedding, it is possible that no one would have given a second thought about the choice of attire. Have you seen some of the outlandish things people wear to their weddings these days?! In fact, this wedding party is dressed quite modestly, although their color coordination is somewhat lacking.

All in all, it could have been worse: