This morning started out with a good wake-up call; Br. Joseph from Thailand had us start the 7 AM language group mass with a Thai dance (!) involving a series of hand gestures as we sashayed around the altar to the accompaniment of a Thai musical number. I could see the wide eyes of concern on most of the Brothers as Br. Joseph explained and demonstrated the movements. These mostly Western Brothers were not very agile when it came to early morning dancing. But we all held up well and it all ended up being prayerfully done. It was certainly memorable. Father Dennis wove the theme into his homily, talking about how our experience mirrored the experience of establishing a new process of having a General Chapter.At 9:00 AM we were all in the Aula Magna, and I began the prayer with the sung "Let us remember..." followed by Br. Donal Mouton reading a wonderful little reflection on the Exodus theme as it related to this phase of the Chapter. Before the prayer began, I invited the Brothers to volunteer to lead these morning opening prayers in the next couple of weeks, and I hope that they will do so, since they should really feel that the Chapter is theirs, prayers and all.
The consideration of the details of Phase 4 began and, as expected, there were many questions and clarifications concerning the details of the process and its contents. But the moderators did a great job of answering all the questions and addressing all the concerns. It was particularly interesting to note how well they avoided the tendency to let the discussion drift into areas that wouldn't be helpful. It's clear that almost everyone in the room was an expert when it came to meetings and they knew how to keep the process moving.
By the time that we broke for coffee many issues had been resolved, and the ten original themes were on their way to being reduced to a more manageable number. Nevertheless, the break was abuzz with conversations and perspectives, which of course was all to the good. It's the kind of thing that leads to positive movement. The Brothers also went into the hallway to place three round stickers on their preferences for the theme groups that should be created, based on the cards and topics that had been raised during the discernment phase. Efficient as ever, the Brothers took about 6 minutes to place their stickets on their preferred topics before they went off to the break.
During the break, Roch and I went out to the new statue area to take some pictures of a class of kids from our school next door who were sitting in front of the statue getting a lesson on De La Salle, we believe. Great pictures, anyway. On my way back in, one of the Brothers commented on the fact that his experience with the water these past few mornings was the same as I had experienced and related in the blog, and he said: "Forget the statue, do the pipes!" This may perhaps be a sentiment shared by others, but then this is Italy and everything doesn't have to be understood, just accepted.Then it was back to work. This time the session went into further clarifications and the final theme groups began to emerge. There was concern that the report from the Assembly on Mission would receive appropriate consideration, a topic came up several times, as did the point that the Brothers were now 3 % of those involved in Lasallian education and we should keep that in mind as we moved forward. These conversations lasted into the afternoon session and were all quite productive. By the end of the afternoon, it was clear what the theme groups would be and how some of them might proceed.
I had been trying to figure out what kind of prayer service the Brothers might want for their theme group meetings later today. In the morning, I had been told that the Central Commission wanted something for the theme groups to be able to have their own smaller prayer session at the end of their first meeting today. So I spent a while putting together some suggestions along with some specific examples that could be taken from the Liturgy Resource. I ran them off and set them out in the Aula Magna. When I told the Moderator about them at the end of the morning session, he said that they had wanted me to provide a ready-made prayer service for the theme groups to use. Okay. So off I went to make one up, taking about an hour to do so while they were in session. I ran it off, found out that parts of it wouldn't work, redid it, ran it off again, and went up to my seat in the Aula Magna to see where all this would go. By the time the afternoon session ended, it was clear that we would have to reassembly tomorrow morning before starting the theme groups. So the Moderator announced that we wouldn't have the theme group meetings or the prayer service within them but would instead meet in Regional groups. Okay, another change. Maybe I can offer these prayer service to the theme groups tomorrow. We'll see. The idea is to be flexible, so I'm told.
Since these Regional meetings would go on until dinner, I went to Roch and invited him to join me in investigating a candle factory in the Trestave area of Rome, since I wanted to take those candles people brought and perhaps turn them into a set of fused candles that the Brothers could take with them at the end of the Chapter. We made our way to the bus stop and caught a fairly crowded # 46 down past the Vatican. I almost felt like a veteran on the bus, hardly clutching my shoulder bag at all, but still wary of the people around me ("I wonder which one is the pick-pocket?"). We walked down to street to Trastever and ran into one of the Guadulapanas sisters coming back from some errand or other. The world is full of small coincidences - or is it Providence?
At the candle place we made our inquiries and found out that we should make some phone calls to the factory associated with it in order to see how much a little project like this would cost. They did, however, have candle wicks, so if I can secure an old coffee urn we may yet be able to do something. If it will take too much time, however, then I'll forget it. But the story isn't over yet.
Going back on the 46, Roch and I got off the bus early to walk back to the Motherhouse - traffic was so slow that we could make better time walking. We stopped at a ba
kery for some cookie-like pizza things (I didn't like it, but he did) and also checked out a store features all foreign foods (French's mustard for 3.90 Euros) - but didn't buy anything. Coming into the Motherhouse garden, we noticed some Brothers near the Persimmon trees. Two of the Brothers had taken a nearby ladder and were liberating the ripe Persimmons from the top of the tree - just the thing at the end of some vigorous exercise. With others joining us as they came back from jogging at a nearby park, it turned into a Persimmon fest. Then all ran away. I walked.Back inside, I joined a couple of Brothers in "The Den" for some conversation and socialization before dinner. Then dinner followed by a practice with the guitar of the Bhanyan that Freddie will do tomorrow morning to start the morning session.
Finally, it was good to find out that the laundry had be
en done. Every Wednesday morning we drop it off down in the basement near the laundry room and a week or so later we go and pick it up in another room, where it's laid out on a long table, neatly wrapped in plastic, folded and ironed. The thing is that when you get back to your bedroom and unwrap everything, you find out that each piece of laundry is stapled (three times!) with tiny staples and a little piece of paper that has your room number on it. I suppose that it's only practical, but it does mean that you spent the subsequent twenty minutes gouging around with whatever pointy thing you can find to remove the staples without tearing the fabric too badly. Even every sock had a thrice-stapled tag on it. I'd leave all of them in except that the idea of having staples in certain places on certain pieces of clothing is a scary thought. I'd rather take the risk of tearing the fabric by maneuvering them off.On we go into tomorrow.
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More pictures may be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/gvangrie/ItalyMay16
