Okay. This has been a very interesting day. It was the first day of the General Chapter, and lots of things happened. It was probably providential that I awoke at 2:58 AM, with all kinds of thoughts running through my mind. After an hour of just laying there, I decided to simply write down all the things I was thinking about (most things to do) and see if that worked. Around 4:30 AM or so I fell asleep again and got up around 7 to get ready for the day.
The first major thing was the Opening Ceremony at 9:30 AM. The night before, Ferdinand (by liturgical committee partner) went outside on the front steps to make an Indian symbol with sand - one that would insure that only good things would pass that way. He and a couple of sympatico Brotehrs worked on that into the night. The next morning, even though it was cloudy, the design remained and was a fine multi-cultural element in the opening ceremony.The closer it got to 9:30 AM, the more things I discovered that needed to be done (move the books to the foyer, get the new "staff" to its right place, arrange the sanctuary for the choir, etc.). At the same time, I had to make sure that the workers' cars that were parked in front of De La Salle's statue (where the French group would meet) were changed, that Br. Rodolfo knew about the last-minutes changes to the music plans, and that the Superior General knew that we
had made a couple adjustments to the plans.But 9:30 AM arrived, and the language groups went to their area to "journey" in reflection to the front of the Motherhouse, where they ascended the steps and were individually greeted by Br. Alvara, after which they received the Indian sign of welcome (sandalwood paste on the forehead, along with being sprinkled with rose water). The group gathered in silence in the foyer. After a
ll had arrived, Br. Alvaro took the staff made for the 44th General Chapter, raised it up high, and then turned to lead all into the Chapel, singing Laudate Gente Omnes from Taize.Within the chapel, we had a series of readings, songs, and reflections, ending up with a rousing version of "Honneur a Toi" in honor of the Founder. Then there was the first meeting in the Aula Magna - the large room in the Motherhouse built just for occasions such as this (and rented out to other religious congregations for the same purpose). The meeting lasted until past noon.
In the afternoon, the Superior did his official welcome, and others
made various speeches. This was one of the few formal occasions of the Chapter, so you can see from the picture that everyone was dressed quite formally. This session lasted about two hours. At the end of it, we had a bit of time before the opening liturgy. I ran around making sure that servers, the set up, the ministers of the cup, the lights and microphones and so on were all ready for the liturgy. Br. Lorenzo, the elderly Italian Brother in charge of the sacristy, was quite helpful despite the fact that he did not know any English. Through gestures, smiles, hand gestures, and grabbing me by the arm to show me something, we managed to communicate enough to set things up correctly.The fun began when Archbishop Michael Miller showed up. Since this was the weekend of a
holiday, traffic had been light from the Vatican, so he was there about 45 minutes ahead of time Folks were scrambling to make sure that he wasn't left alone in the room that would used for him to get ready. I got there soon after, and had a very nice conversation with him. He's a Basilian priest on the fast track at the Vatican, obviously very smart, and quite charismatic as a personality. When I showed him our program, however, he immediately saw that he had prepared his homily based on different readings. Big problem!After talking about it for a bit, I decided that it would be best to simply change the readings. So I had about 15 minutes to go to the computer, find online the NT texts that he was using, in Spanish, and get them to the Spanish reader. (Of course, my computer and the printer decided to have problems just then, so I had to go to another Brother and unceremoniously kick him out of his computer station in order to get the job done.) Then there was a bit of running around and looking for the reader in the church, etc. It was determined that two of readings in the program would be changed. And so we had to change the lectionary, find the readers, and generally get a little hot and bothered just 5 - 10 minutes prior to the start of the Opening Mass. When we did get to 6:30 PM, I was sliding into the choir area in the front of the chapel, the bishop and the procession were starting to come down the aisle, and the Brothers were bemused at the fact that the music had not started. Soon, however, Br. Rodolfo kicked in and we sang the first song. (I'd have pictures of this, but my mind was on other things.) When the Kyrie happened, I was searching through my binder for the right music, finding it just in time. Then for the responsorial psalm, I again had to go to my backup binder to find it. Anyway, the whole Mass was a combination of little changes and last-minute adaptations. Nevertheless, it went along pretty well, and the Brothers seemed to appreciate it. When it came time for the closing song, I nodded to the organist and he started on the postlude (?). The bishop gave me a quizzical look, I nodded to him with a gesture to start processing out, and like a good trooper he did, looking at dignified as I'm he always does in situations such as this. All in all, the Mass lasted 90 minutes (a long 25-minute homily and a 15-minute ceremony of accepting the credentials of the Capitulants).
You can imagine that at the end of all this I was a bit tired. However, dinner was a great affair, with the Brothers in fine spirits. I sat next to Aad van Bentem, the Visitor of Holland, and we had a great conversation about Holland, with him speaking Dutch most of the time and me switching back between Dutch and English, depending on the topic and the difficulty of the ideasw that I was trying to express.
This wasn't all. Towards the end of dinner, a huge cake with th
e seal of the 44th General Chapter was brought out, and we sang "Happy Birthday" to one of the young Brothers. Afterwards, there was a meeting of Central Committee at which lots of issues were raise - some liked the liturgies, others thought that we sang too much, etc. (the usual liturgical suspects).Now it 11:30 PM and I'm ready to turn in. Tomorrow morning we will have an all-day Mass as part of the presentation on multi-culturalizm. I'll provide the details later.
Conclusion. Lots of work, lots of activities, lots of surprises, lots of worries, lots of interesting things. I'm glad it happened and I'm glad it's behind me.
