Now that you know the basic community prayer schedule at the convent, let me tell you about my first experiences while joining the Sisters in the chapel.
The Sisters and I generally enter from the outside “rear” of the chapel, that is, from behind the altar, since our living quarters are back there. Any people coming to Mass or other liturgies enter from the “front” since they drive down the long gravel drive and park in the gravel parking lot in front of the church.
The Sisters, though, enter from the Gospel side, while I enter from the Epistle side. I was escorted through the Sisters’ door only once, as I was getting the grand tour, and was shown that the Sisters have, for lack of a better term, a locker room on their side. When the bell rings for prayer, they stop whatever they have been doing and come running. They have a private place where they can take off their galoshes, aprons, hats, coats, or any other work clothes that have been covering their habits, and hang them up before entering the main body of the church through a door just outside of the altar rails.
My door simply goes directly from the outside into the sacristy, and from there I can either get vested for the various liturgies and enter straight into the sanctuary or, more often, go through a small hallway on the left and enter the church opposite the Sisters’ door just outside of the altar rails.
For the first few days of praying the Office, I was watching intently, trying to figure out what they were doing so that I would know what I was supposed to be doing. They, on the other hand, kept strict custody of their eyes and didn’t look around at all. They each have their own spot in the pews, and each Sister has a container with her own necessary books in front of her kneeler. In the pew directly behind the Sisters on the Epistle side, I have my own prie-dieu (pronounced pray-do, which seems to be a Frenchicized Latin word meaning: where we “do kneel” is where we “do pray”!).
When the Sisters first enter the chapel, they bow down and place their foreheads on the floor and offer a wonderful prayer of Adoration. On leaving, they do the same, thanking God for allowing them this time together with Him. It is a beautiful tribute to their love of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
While this may come as a shock to those who can’t tell a man from a woman, women, as a whole, are much more elegant than men in all of their movements. Aside from an incredibly gifted man like Gene Kelly (if you young ’uns don’t know who he is, stop reading this right now and go watch a few of his clips on YouTube), who might pull this off, men would look ridiculous if they tried to imitate this move. A group of men, kneeling to pray in such a fashion, might manage to have their toes, knees, and foreheads touch the floor, but they would have to have their backsides sticking straight up in the air to do so. The Sisters, on the other hand, gently fold up like an accordion, gracefully placing themselves into something like an upright fetal position before Our Lord.
As they started their chanting, I couldn’t figure out who was leading the chant. It seems that two, or maybe three or four, Sisters lead different parts of it before the rest join in. But most of the time, the most I can figure out is whether the “leader” is standing on the right or left side of the church. Since the Psalm verses are sung alternating from side to side, that is important, so I have at least figured out the most important part. From my vantage point, they all look alike and they all sound alike. Euphonic. Melodious. Mellifluous. And maybe some other big words.
I had to learn to stand when they stood, bow low when they bowed low, sit when they sat, and kneel when they knelt. That was usually pretty easy. Until they tried, purposefully, it seemed, to throw me off. Every once in a while, one of them would jump up from a sitting position and kneel, or kneel from their standing position, hoping that I would follow suit so that they could enjoy their prank. When that didn’t work, another would try. Then another. Then a bunch at the same time. I couldn’t figure out what was really happening. They would kneel for just a few seconds and then resume their former position, and none of it interrupted the chanting.
It turns out that, just as the St. Dunstan Schola members would strike their chest if they sang an incorrect note or missed a pause, or made some other slight mistake, so it was with the Sisters and their kneeling. It’s a good thing I am not bound by that rule, or else I would never get off my knees!
There was also another mystery which I could not figure out. One of the Sisters in front of me had, next to her kneeler, a homemade wooden “thing.” During the construction of the chapel, cottages, and hall, the Sisters saw that a lot of material scraps were just being thrown away. They started collecting discarded wood pieces, and one of the Sisters acquired basic construction skills so that she could make things with them. She made several benches, for instance, to sit on in the Marian Garden. It was obvious that she had made this “thing,” too.
It looked similar to the kneeler it was sitting next to, but had no padding. 2 two-by-six pieces of wood made up the outside legs. A one-by-six piece made up the part that one would kneel on. The legs, though, were cut at an angle so that one long side of the top piece was higher than the other by a noticeable amount. It looked to me like an instrument of torture, for kneeling on it, whether sloped forward or backward, would be excruciating. I wondered just how bad her singing must be before she would have to put it to use.
And then, one day during a Holy Hour, Sister got off her prie-dieu and, kneeling on the floor, placed that “thing” behind her over her calf muscles or ankles. I would not have been able to flatten my feet and legs enough to do that, but she managed. Then she [gulp] sat back on it without screaming in pain! Knees, legs, tops of her feet, all flat on the floor under this makeshift kneel/sit thingy. She spent the rest of the Hour in that agonizing position. Guess what else? Now it seems that at least half of the other Sisters have one of those barbaric contraptions next to their prie-dieus as well!
That’s more than enough for this week. Next week, maybe I’ll highlight my own chapel foibles...
