Historical setting: 602 C.E. Luxeuil
My boys had a long day. Before I left our camp I looked on them sleeping like a nest of baby bunnies, so innocently curled up on the fluffy fleeces we brought for these nights camping with the pilgrims. Even as we took our time, the walk here was short for us, only a half day. But Gabe and Greg were so swept up in the power of it all, the tales of journeys of so many pilgrims, the whole wide expanse of God’s kingdom on earth, the psalms they’ve learned with language itself, now chanted in unison by uncountable voices; no wonder it is overwhelming for them. They’ve never seen any crowds of people before. And now they see people in throngs, moving toward a single goal, all arriving at these gates after journeys while fasting, exhausted from travel, longing for mystical empowerment mingled into the great unison of prayer.
Here it is said that there are so many monks and nuns in the community of Luxeuil that the Father has ruled for ceaseless chant continuing at all hours in the grand oratorio. It is indeed like waves on the sea, first the elder monks are the choir, then washing over that, the nuns are processing through the halls and into the choir stands, then it is the novices, and on and on one choir after another, prayer without ceasing. All of this like a beating heart in the center of so many Easter pilgrims. They are here finding ear for confessions, or blessings for healings at the waters. Empathy has worn my boys to exhaustion.
I have this appointment to keep with Brother Servant at the gate so I make my way through camps in the dusky light where now there are two here waiting for me – Brother Servant and a nobleman.
My perspective, “I come here to pray on earth as it is in heaven. But petty squabbles over earthly power – politics – hardly seem a worthy cause for breaking the silence of the vigil.”
While I am arguing the need for solemnity Brother Servant and this other fellow are hard set on the politics of Gaul. Brother Servant reminds me of the grief of earth, the broken heaven, and the torn cloth of the holy is the fear and lust for earthly power. It was the fears of Rome’s most powerful that had Jesus crucified. True, Holy Week is all about the politics.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 