Archive for July, 2011
The Mass on the 14th for the Virgin Mary
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The sky at 4 a.m. was nothing short of swimming-pool blue and I wondered if I should both to wake up my son Mack, who was only 13. Since we had met Sister Mary Pastry last month at the European Market in Chesterton, IN, he insisted he wanted to attend the mass of the apparition. After a few moments of thinking about it, I knocked on his bedroom door and whispered, “Do you really want to go to the Mass?” half-thinking he would roll over and go back to sleep. But he woke up and dressed and we were in the car by 4:40 driving to the Austin neighborhood in Chicago. It was eerily silent as we drove, increasingly moving into what I would call the ghetto area of Chicago, blighted and scary, black men standing on corners with no specific purpose. As we pulled into the parking lot, it was just as Sister Mary said — police officers patrolled the lot and we slid into a parking spot, escorted into the church for the Mass of the Apparition.
As we entered, a nun in full habit handed up a head set and I asked her what it was for. She looked quizzically at me and I realized she spoke only French. “Pour quoi?” I asked her and she only pointed us toward the pew. My friend Gloria was already waiting for us in the pew and Mack and I silently slid in toward her. We gave each other the “eye”. What were we in for?
St. Mary de Frechou is the mother house of Fraternite Notre Dame in a dicey area of Chicago. Across the street from a hospital, it seemed imposing with an iron gate enclosing the parking lot. As Mack and I sat with Gloria, we took in the church. The ceilings were low but dressed with religious murals and a massive set of organ pipes. Soon, no less than 18 men in religious vestments entered the church in a processional. Jean-Marie, the bishop, entered last with an elaborate peaked hat.
The mass began in Latin and I gasped. This was the traditional Latin mass. I made a mental note — I had grown up and been married at St. Michael’s Church in De Pere, Wisconsin via Father Hector Bolduc. My children were baptized there as well, as much for convenience as the fact that a family member had started the church amid a great deal of Vatican II controversy. I was not prepared for this.
It soon became apparent that the headphones were for simultaneous translation of the Latin and French mass into Spanish and English. As I looked around, the predominant attendees were Hispanic with a high proportion of Filipino’s. This was one organized Church.
Personally, I like to think that I come to religion from a wide variety of spiritual traditions. Raised as a Catholic, I have studied Buddhism, Judaism, spiritualism and a wide variety of approaches. I’ve come to believe that we are a conglomeration of experiences and that there is no right and wrong in belief, which would probably excommunicate me from the Catholic Church, particularly the Tridentine Mass I was currently experiencing.
As I looked in front of me, I saw at least 20 nuns in full garb — white for a high mass and the black habit. It was something of a culture shock to witness and as much as I searched for Sister Mary Pastry, I could not differentiate her from the others lined up in front of me.
Mostly what I thought about as the Mass progressed was the Bishop. If he had truly seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary and been guided by her, what did it take to do a Mass of this magnitude every month? To commemorate the apparition? It was impressive.
As Mass concluded, two nuns appeared with hundreds of white and yellow roses — roses being the sign of Mary. Bishop Jean Marie gave a rose to every one in attendance, including Mack and me. I kissed his ring as he offered me a yellow rose, so schooled in Catholic tradition was I. We looked up and it was already 7 a.m., two hours since the start of the mass. Mack nudged me and asked if we could leave as the Bishop began the rosary. We had already been there 2 hours and we were ready to go.
It was not at all as I expected in that the Mass was a high ritual, the kind of service where you get lost in ritual. It was a meditation on a grand level, but maybe Mack and Gloria weren’t there as I was. For me, it was a place to lose self and commune with a larger purpose. I had to pull my awareness back to the church, if that makes any sense at all. “Yes Mack, let’s get going I said as I came out of the trance.”
For one of the first times in my life, I understood the rapture. It could have been a yogi meditation as well. It was a moment of leaving time and space, and spending time with a higher power. Sister Mary Pastry told me that the Virgin Mary is there for these masses and I felt the presence in the quiet space of meditation. If there is a power beyond us, it was here.
I thought of fruit tartes and the Chesterton European Market where this all began. Maybe there is magic to their pastry. I’m okay with that.
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Moving to the State of No Karma
0When I met my yoga teacher Cynthia at the local Starbucks on Sunday, it was ostensibly to help her start her blog on yoga and meditation (www.thespiritedcorner.wordpress.com). Nagging in the back of mind however was her comment during Saturday’s yoga class a couple of weeks back about reaching a state of ‘no karma’. Good karma, bad karma — those seem straight-forward but I’d never thought about “no karma” and hadn’t the foggiest idea what it meant.
As she sipped on her shake and me on my non-fat latte, I asked if she had a minute to explain the concept. Her eyes sparkled as smiled, sighed and said, “How much time do you have?” We laughed.
“We are all here traveling through time in the dimensional world, having experiences as spiritual beings in a human experience. We all work on our life lessons due to the karma we brought with us. The idea is to have no karma so we can evolve away from the physical plane. When we get to no karma, we have no need to return and we reach the 8th limb of yoga called Samadhi, which is bliss or enlightenment.”
“This seems perfectly understandable but how do we get there?” I asked, feeling that I had a few lifetimes of good karma and bad karma that needed to balance themselves out.
“When you finish with life’s lessons, then you are finished with karma. That, of course, is the difficult part for us,” Cynthia replied, which instead of ending my inquires only made me think of another set of questions. I was feeling very Socratic with it all.
“Well, then how do we know we have learned any particular lesson?” I asked. “Like burning my leg. How do I know that I’ve learned whatever lesson I’m supposed to learn? Did it mean something I missed?”
“What if it doesn’t mean anything?” Cynthia socratically replied. Then she paused. It added a dramatic effect to the conversation and helped me not to wonder why Starbucks keeps their stores ridiculously cold. My fingers were starting to feel like ice cubes.
“It can mean everything and nothing. It can spark something positive or something negative. It’s all up to you. What helps us evolve helps us grow,” she continued.
I thought quietly for a minute, rubbing my hands together for warmth. “I think I”m fine with it, have always been fine with it. But then I still feel compelled to write the story of it.”
“You think it’s enough but the question is, do you feel it. To learn any lesson you have to connect the thinking and feeling. The bridge between the two is the throat, or the 5th chakra, called vishuddhi, which is our communication chakra. If we are holding back in some way, the gate is closed. when you open up the energy in some way, it brings the energy from the mind to the heart.”
Vishuddhi Chakra
“The fifth chakra (Vishuddhi) is the chakra of diplomacy, of pure relationships with others, and of playful detachment. It removes all our guilt and remorse when it is opened by the Kundalini, and gives us a kind and compassionate voice. The tendencies to dominate others or to feel dominated by others, the feelings of superiority or inferiority and all jealousies are removed when this chakra is nourished by the Kundalini.”
“So, are you saying that for me, I have to write about the experience to complete the lesson of it?” I asked.
Only you know that but it could be the case. There are all sorts of ways to process an experience, to get to the heart of the matter so to speak. I will tell you it’s okay to be stuck on the bridge. While you are there, be sure to look out and enjoy the view. You may see and discover something you didn’t expect so don’t be so quick to get off the bridge. Sometimes we are where we are because that is where we need to be.
When I am experiencing something, I am immersed in it and can’t make sense of things. That’s when I know I need to be there because I am learning to be there. When I am aware and awaken to the lesson in it, I am no longer attached to it. Non-attachment lets the feelings flow and with it, the lesson. And when we start to see the lesson, we don’t have to have the experience again because we have grown from it.”
I looked up as Cynthia talked, almost forgetting I was sitting in a Starbucks. She had the ability to package my very situation with a bow on it, even though I had not told her all the details.
“How does meditation and yoga fit in to this all?” I asked, glancing at the clock and knowing I had to leave shortly.
“Through yoga and meditation, we get a glimpse Samadhi, of bliss. This is where hope lies. When we meditate we find ourselves immersed in feeling and no thought, we are in the no karma zone. Yoga means union, and when we do yoga we bring the body, mind and spirit together. Said another way, we get little sparks of what it is like beyond the earth plane,” she said.
It seemed to make sense. My own experience of moving from mind to heart is indeed stuck in the communications realm — the writing of it all. If nothing else, our conversation confirmed that I had to continue to trickle along the path of writing and be content to see where all of this goes.
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Intra-Library Loan Time
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Most of my research for Anne on Fire is now complete. I’ve spoken with willing relatives and friends who knew details from my burn accident years ago or who knew my parents at the time. I’ve requested as many medical records as possible, learning that there are some that simply are gone. I’ve contacted doctors who worked on my case. All in all, it’s been a fabulous and enlightening process where I’ve tried to cover the proverbial waterfront of information for clues and insight. I was going over my findings with my friend Gloria when she said, “Gallagher, have you looked in the newspapers from that time to see if anything was published? You know, a fire call, a news item.”
I hadn’t. It was a great idea and prompted my call to the Brown County library (pictured here as is the interior of the Harold Washington Library) where of course they have old editions of the Green Bay Press-Gazette. In our techno-driven age, most newspapers before the mid-1990s are not searchable online but preserved on micro-film. Another call to the Harold Washington Library to request an intra-library loan…..and a stash of micro-film is on its way to Chicago.
My gut tells me there will be nothing useful for me in these newspapers. At the same time, I can’t wait to wade through them on the micro-film machine. You never know what you might find unless you look. The process also brings about a sweet sense of closure to my search for information. It motivates me to get back to the business of writing up the story.
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The Evolving Volunteer (golibrarians.wordpress.com) How I started writing (showard76.wordpress.com)