July 11 I’ve just come to the church now at four in the afternoon. This morning I went to Mass at Basilica di Santa Maria in Ara coeli. I got there early. A very rotund man who looked like a guy you might see on Shakedown Street outside a Grateful Dead show was lighting candles. I sat down. There was only one other person there, a woman sitting in the front row, waiting for Mass to start. The man reemerged as the priest. It was just the three of us. Fortunately, I was sitting a little behind the woman, so I could stand when she stood, sit when she sat. Later, when we rose to take communion, a voice I thought had been an echo turned out to be a man in brown Franciscan robes. Taking communion with these few people felt tender and intimate — that anecdote about Merton serving Mass to his friends at the hermitage before leaving for Asia, never to return. How he called each of them by their first name. During Mass I let my feet slip out of my sandals. The cool stone floor felt delicious. There was a pigeon up near the ornate ceiling. It was like being in a fantastic house that had been abandoned, and we could do whatever we wanted. I figured that the woman probably lives near by, and comes to Mass every morning. She probably thinks of it as hers, which she should. Who else’s would it be?
The Cerasi Chapel (July 11)
The Cerasi Chapel (July 11)
The Cerasi Chapel (July 11)
July 11 I’ve just come to the church now at four in the afternoon. This morning I went to Mass at Basilica di Santa Maria in Ara coeli. I got there early. A very rotund man who looked like a guy you might see on Shakedown Street outside a Grateful Dead show was lighting candles. I sat down. There was only one other person there, a woman sitting in the front row, waiting for Mass to start. The man reemerged as the priest. It was just the three of us. Fortunately, I was sitting a little behind the woman, so I could stand when she stood, sit when she sat. Later, when we rose to take communion, a voice I thought had been an echo turned out to be a man in brown Franciscan robes. Taking communion with these few people felt tender and intimate — that anecdote about Merton serving Mass to his friends at the hermitage before leaving for Asia, never to return. How he called each of them by their first name. During Mass I let my feet slip out of my sandals. The cool stone floor felt delicious. There was a pigeon up near the ornate ceiling. It was like being in a fantastic house that had been abandoned, and we could do whatever we wanted. I figured that the woman probably lives near by, and comes to Mass every morning. She probably thinks of it as hers, which she should. Who else’s would it be?