Hey Hey We're the Monks

Last night, Eleanor and I finished one of the quietest, and yet most well-spoken, pieces of cinema we've ever seen.

The priest who did last Saturday's funeral mentioned it during his homily. The deceased was the regular organist at his parish, and Father Bob spoke of how important the liturgy was to George, both as a means of projecting grace to the rest of the sanctuary and as a means of receiving it himself in his own life. He then told of this film- called Into Great Silence- which follows the daily routines and rituals of the community of monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery, all of whom have taken a vow of silence. It is only broken during services, by a select group of elders who get a weekly conversation, and, with permission, by a few who were permitted to be interviewed for the film. These moments take up perhaps a dozen of the 162 minutes in the film. The rest is broken only by the sounds of their comings and goings, by the occasional pealing of church bells, and by sounds of nature.

As the Father predicted, it was not the least bit boring. There's always That Moment for me, anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour-and-change into a film at home, where I quietly check the timer on the DVR to see how far it's come, and the lower the number, the lower my interest. This one, despite its near-silence, didn't have that moment until well into the second hour.

Among the rules set by the monastery for permission to film: no soundtrack music. It took them 16 years to respond to the filmmaker's original request to come in and do the movie. All things considered, it was more than worth the wait.

You notice the strangest things.

The road from home to my sister's is actually many roads. Depending on when and where I'm leaving from and what stops I have to make en route, I can get here the quickest via the 90/63/390/17 east set of connections; the safest, probably, via the 90 to 690 to 81 and then coming in the other way on 17 west; or via any number of different tentacles passing through my own former home in Ithaca, my most common being NY89 down the lake and then NY96B/96 to Owego to pick up the Southern Tier Expressway from there.

So it was this afternoon, with the radio and iPhone regaling me with tales of unreasonable idiots negotiating in bad faith over the imminent destruction of our economy, along with stories unrelated to the NFL lockout, as well. The lakeshore leg takes me past a virtual liquor store section of wineries, old and new (and there will be representatives of each making their way to Moosemont in less than 48 hours), but it's the South Hill And Beyond trek that brings back far more memories.

Danby- home of "the Sunshine School," the Ithaca elementary which I covered the closing of in 1980 with much local agitas. The turnoff to Buttermilk Falls, with the squat brick building at the turn that had long been a Ziebart, and before that a Somebody and Somebody's Small Auto Repair (with Large Auto Bills passed on to me around that time). Wilseyville, home of many doublewides that are, in turn, home to many low-level menial Cornell employees named things like Lester and Willis, who can't afford to live in anything bigger or closer thanks to the faculty and student bodies monopolizing the far nicer parts of the town proper. Eventually, Candor- immortalized in the Harry Chapin song "The Mayor of Candor Lied" and still one that I slow down to 29 mph in due to its 80s rep and rap as a hideous speed trap.  Yet saddest, on this journey in between my attendance at sacred services and just after my viewing a film of sacred people, was my short drive through the strangely named hamlet of Catatonk.

Much as I always expected to see zombie-like residents along the shoulder there, I was somehow always comforted by the sight of a totally utilitarian Catholic chuch on the east side of the road as I headed south- St. Somebody's R.C., Masses Sunday at something and something, no more than two. Rural upstate, as opposed to its once-great cities, has always been much more Protestant, so this always seemed out of place and yet perfect for its place.

No more.  The building's the same, the sign likely the same as well if whitewashed, but a new name and no masses.  I suspected the local diocese had engaged in a similar Journey of Faith and Grace to the one in Buffalo that has cruelly forced the closing of centuries of sacred places and resulted in many of them being stripped down to their bare walls and foundations.

Yup:

Masses in Polish. Numerous social events, including a big annual barbecue. The comfort of being surrounded by many familiar faces each Sunday at the small church along Route 96B.

All the goodness of Catatonk's St. Francis of Assisi Parish was honored at a closing Mass Oct. 4, the feast day of St. Francis. The pews were packed as, for the final time, congregants celebrated the special connection that permeated this central Tioga County farming community for eight decades.

Christina Homrighouse, who is among descendants of a large family with St. Francis ties, said she was overcome with emotion by several people singing in Polish at the closing liturgy and knowing all the words. A post-Mass reception at Candor Fire Hall, featuring many photographs from St. Francis' history, stoked those feelings even more.

"(It was) kind of going back in time, reflecting on the impact this small little site, these people, have had on you and your life. It feels like what you had was very, very unusual, a small parish like that, literally growing up there with your whole family," said Homrighouse, 41, a lifelong St. Francis parishioner who served as lector and organist for the final Mass.

"It's your rock," she added.

St. Francis of Assisi was founded in 1929 due to an influx of Polish Catholic farming families in the Tioga area. Its church building -- with a cornerstone containing the inscription "St. Franciszka 1930" -- was dedicated Nov. 1, 1931.

St. Francis never had a resident priest, mostly sharing a pastor with St. John the Evangelist in Newark Valley, a bit more than 10 miles to the northeast. Portions of the Mass were regularly said in Polish throughout the church's early decades, and many parishioners' homes featured Polish as the main language. A strong sense of volunteerism helped keep the parish's close ties intact, and in 1996 an extensive renovation project on the church was completed.

But, as of October 2010, it no longer held that consecration.  I was especially saddened to see the connection to that particular saint, for earlier today, at the funeral we attended right before I left, Pastor Carmen quoted him in describing the ways that her funeral service's particular honoree had expressed his own Christian faith:

Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.

Tomorrow, in a parking lot in Queens, I have been asked to do a reading from one of Dana Brand's books. If it is even considered preaching at all, it will be something not literally the Gospel truth, and words will be necessary. But the sadness of the occasion, amplified by this morning's ceremony and the unexpected loss of perhaps the smallest R.C. sanctuary I ever saw, will be part of the weight on those words.