walking adventures: Henry C. Palmisano Park

The guesthouse manual wrote, “There is a nature park a short walk away, … with a walking trail, a jogging track, and a fish pond.” So after mid-afternoon prayer, I thought, why not?

This water feature was next to a children’s playground, which I thought was the whole park. Little did I know…

Potato rings? I snapped this picture as these were hanging off a cart. I was about to leave.

Until I found a trail up a hillock…

…that led to this.

I looked behind me…

… and went down the trail again to another part of the park. The promised fish pond!

And ducks geese. I have a long video wherein I call them ducks. To no end. (Plus, goose butt!)

And some shots from another park:

This morning’s misadventures included MassTimes.org’s not being updated with Chicago’s latest parish closures, and two grocery store workers being strangely friendly. Funnily enough, the unbelievably high concentration of ethnic Chinese in Chinatown and Bridgeport means that there are terribly few to spare for the rest of Chicago, so I look like a weirdo walking around here. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just different. I’ve lived the minority life before.

But! As I was walking back from the grocery store, I caught myself singing Rent. Not that that’s a bad thing — it was hilariously relevant, ‘Every time I walk down the street…’ — but it sounded good to me, which it didn’t the day before. And I just couldn’t get the sound of modes back in my mind, so now I’m back on a diet of the Monks of Norcia and the Dominican Sisters of Mary. There’s something to be said here about how even I, enthusiast and dabbling musician, need this kind of continual refreshing to be able to retain an appreciation for sacred music. This music is otherworldly (to us today, at least) and it’s going to be a bit of a slog bringing it back to its rightful place.

It’s actually quite like most other things of God — is it easier to talk about how much we all like to get along, compared to how much we all need God and may have to change? It is. Is it easier to be selfish and mean than to care? It is. Is it easier not to drop everything and follow Him? Sure it is. But we know which is good and true, and blessedly that goodness and truth can speak for itself. We just have to cooperate with grace to get there, and at times it won’t be easy.

Crisis Magazine: ‘A Model of Spiritual Courage for Our Time’

Quanto plus afflictionis pro Christo in hoc saeculo, tanto plus gloriae cum Christo in futuro. (The more affliction we endure for Christ in this world, the more glory we shall obtain with Christ in the next.)

inscribed by Saint Philip Howard on the wall of his cell in the Tower of London

Regis Martin’s latest for Crisis Magazine is about Saint Philip Howard, English martyr for the faith.

liturgia horarium

The monks here sing all the hours of the Divine Office, beginning with Matins at 3.30am, and ending with Compline at 7.15pm. Not a single day of the three I’ve been here have I made it up in time for Matins, nor do I know if I ever will. As it is, I know I will miss it here so very much.

Growing up, I had never really liked the Psalms. That isn’t to say that I didn’t think they deserved to be in the Bible, or anything like that, but I didn’t feel any kind of connection with them. They weren’t particularly poetic–okay, yes, good imagery but such drab tones and colours–and I never quite forgave them for that, although realising that they’re translations into a quirky mongrel language (read: English) helps. It’s not their fault at all.

But two things have happened, and I think I can say that I like them more now. At least, I can feel the beginnings of an appreciation for them. The first is that I learned Latin, and psalms in Latin, being able to take advantage of the freedom of word arrangement, read better and more beautifully. Plus, if you use the Ecclesiastical pronunciation, basically it all sounds lovely. Just read it – caeli enarrant gloria Domini vs. See how the skies proclaim God’s glory!

The second is that I discovered Gregorian chant. One of the biggest annoyances that I had with the psalms and reading them in the Divine Office–whenever I could get to it, because I’m a lazy bum, so don’t think that this is me saying I’m all high-falutin’ and good at praying–was that it was just words upon words upon words. They weren’t terribly mellifluously arranged to begin with, and good imagery for me needs time to steep before it effects anything, and so all in all, I’d read a psalm and promptly forget most of it, with my mind itching all the while.

Granted, I have issues with attention span and impulse control, having spent just about half my life now glued to the Internet. (That’s terrifying.) But I still struggle with that whenever I get the chance to sing the Office, so I don’t think that impatience is really the itch. Rather, as I once heard someone say, chant is both weightless and heavy at the same time. It draws your mind up, but centers you at the same time. I have to listen to sing with everyone else, to begin with, which makes me pay attention, and disposes me to the active listening that prayer, basically, is. And in a church with good acoustics–I don’t know how to say this well–the voice parts of the singing recede into the distance compared to the ringing overtones, which the acoustics amplify. As a result it feels like I imagine being suspended in the river of time must feel like. Water and sound are swirling around, gentle and mystical, and everything is new and old at the same time.