Lauds in Ordinary Time
Joining Two Dominican Sisters for the Daily Office in Vence
To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
Language of the Heart
Two Dominican nuns and I had the Matisse Chapel to ourselves this morning at 9.
They sat in the choir. I took a seat in the second row of simple chairs arranged for the congregation.
The sisters work dark skirts and colorful blouses, one green and one rose colored. No veils, no wimples. I wore long pants and a dress-white shirt my sister Stephanie gave me for my birthday.
I stood when they stood and sat when they took their seats.
They read the psalms from thick breviaries, reciting softly and not in melody. They alternated verses, one reading a verse and then the other, from different sides of the aisle. I caught enough words to know they were speaking French, not Latin.
Of the 30 minutes we were together, nearly half were in silence.
At the end, they stood and bowed toward the altar without crossing themselves or genuflecting, then walked out the back door of the chapel. I did the same.
I felt privileged to return to the Matisse Chapel before the public would arrive at 10. I wanted time to stop. I wanted to remember every moment.
I noticed that my left palm was resting on top of my right hand, between my knuckles and below my wrist. I made a note of how I was feeling and thinking, in hopes that by repeating the gesture of my hands I might in the future recall the setting.
Most of all, I knew I wasn’t alone.
My imagination filled in the empty seats next to me and behind me with family members who have passed.
Next to me was Tommy, my brother. He was born the day after my fifth birthday and died three days later of a heart defect. His loss still reverberates in our family.
Next to him were Mom and Dad. Behind us were their parents, and their grandparents, and generations reaching back into the unknown.
At the big gate in front of the convent, I couldn’t figure out how to get out.
I rang the call button, and one of the nuns appeared at the front door. She gestured to a button I’d overlooked and told me to press it. She made it very clear that I was to make sure the gate locked behind me.
When I pressed the button, the lock buzzed, and I was able to pull open the gate.
We waved at each other as I headed out to Avenue Henri Matisse for the drive back to my friend’s villa in La Colle-sur-Loup.
A friend the other day quoted the ending of a prayer by Thomas Merton. The prayer, often referred to as the “Prayer of Trust,” is how I’d like to conclude today’s newsletter from France, where Merton was born in 1921:
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
So glad that I was with you there. xox