Dispatch From Mariannhill, Monday, May 10

We find that each community that we visit deals with us in somewhat different way as guests. Often this is a question of how close we are physically to the community. Southern Star in New Zealand was a very small community, and the guests stayed in very close proximity to the monks, bringing not only more contact, but also a greater sense of participation in the community’s life. In the Philippines the guesthouse was situated further from the actual monastery, but we had lots of contact through the Guest Master who practically lived at the guesthouse. Here at Marianhill we are living not so much at a monastic guesthouse but a retreat house run by the Sisters of the Precious Blood. Tre Fontaine caters to retreat groups from parishes and other visitors who come through, especially Germans and Austrians, harking back to the Austrian, German-speaking founder, Franz Pfanner. So, while we interact regularly with the sisters, it’s more as guests in a hotel rather than as guests of a community.
I don’t mean to make it sound as though it’s less than friendly and inviting. We are invited to join in their morning and evening prayers, which we do. The prayers, strangely, are in English (that’s also true of the their monastic brothers at the other end of the complex) even though the majority of the community is black African, and the minority is German-speaking. It was surprising this morning to find ourselves in the convent chapel in South Africa singing "Take My Life and Let it Be," and "O Jesus I Have Promised To Serve Thee to the End," one at least to the tune we use in the Psalter Hymnal. Don’t worry; I didn’t bellow it out over all the female voices.
Sunday we went to the Mass at the Cathedral which is part of the large complex, about a two-block walk from Tre Fontaine. The large red brick church was probably built in the late 19th century in the typical cruciform structure. The inside is rather elaborately decorated with paintings on the walls of various scenes in the life of Jesus, stained glass windows, and Latin inscriptions. Pfanner might have had a vision of an indigenous church, but he couldn’t imagine a church looking other than traditionally western. What a contrast then, to find ourselves the only white people at a Zulu language Mass in this ornate cathedral.
The whole liturgy was fascinating. When we came in the church was about half full, and all the people were standing, being led in prayer by an older man in a suit at the pulpit. I assumed from then repetitive nature of the prayer that it was the ‘Hail Mary" though there were no rosaries in sight. After a while the man led in a couple of songs. All the singing for the whole service was seemingly spontaneous. The leader of the priest would start a song and the congregation would immediately join in, with the rich harmony and insistent rhythm so characteristic of Zulu music. The congregation was standing during this whole time, and we were sitting about half way from then front. At the end of this preparatory time for worship, this elderly gentleman, obviously the lay leader of the parish, started from the front and began to move everyone forward to fill in all the seats. (This is what we need on Sunday mornings.) By the time he was finished, the place was packed with people. I had noticed that there were few men around me, but when I looked back after the great migration, I saw that those seated at the back of the church were mostly men—some cultural thing I suppose.
The priest came in unobtrusively, following the acolytes, all teenage boys, and the singing began, and there was lots of it, all from the store of songs in the people’s hearts in wonderful harmony. The songs now started from up in the balcony behind us, where the choir sat, in the familiar call and response style. Often a single voice began a song, and after a few words the whole congregation joined in. Sometimes there was rhythmic clapping, and some bodily movement. For one song, a number of the older women (there were groups of them wearing similar color clothes or ribbons very much like the "sisterhoods" typical African-American church) did a kind of dance in the center aisle. All of this took place in the context of the liturgy of the Mass that was clearly followed; it did not have the freewheeling spontaneity of a Pentecostal service.
After the gospel reading the young black priest seemed ready to begin the homily but instead he started singing, and all the people quickly joined in. After that he seemed to be ready to preach, but looked up and began another song, this one very lively. Soon he was out in front of the altar, leading the congregational singing with swaying and clapping. Now we were ready for the homily. Again, I was struck by the similarity of his style to that of typical African-American preachers. He began in a rather low-key manner, reading his text and only occasionally looking up. Gradually the pace and volume increased, the gestures became more dramatic, and he began to move away from the pulpit. Low murmurs of response echoed from the audience, sometimes laughter, as he worked steadily up to the climax. We didn’t understand a word, of course, and hadn’t looked up the gospel text for the day beforehand so we had no idea what he was talking about. But I agreed with every word, Amen!
There was a candle on each side of the pulpit. One was the traditional Paschal candle, the other, slightly smaller, was decorated with a large red ribbon, like the yellow, pink and other color ribbons people wear for various causes; this one for victims of AIDS. South Africa has one of the highest percentages of people with HIV/AIDS in the world-- about ten percent of the population is infected. This may also explain the sense we had of a tone of somberness, even heaviness in the Mass, despite the lively singing, and the fact that I saw a number of people quietly weeping during the service. No doubt many of the people there were either infected or were close to people who were or remembered family members who had died.
After the homily came the offering, and we all went to the front where two boys stood with large wooden boxes with slots on the top to deposit your offering. That movement made the offering feel much more like an act of dedication than our typical practice of dropping the offering in a basket as it gets passed around. We also noticed that there were few children in attendance. But that changed right after the homily. Evidently they were in some kind of "children’s worship" or Christian education class, but just before the Eucharist, they came into the church and filled in the space all around the altar. So when the communion liturgy began, there was a sea of children’s faces around the altar. It was delightful. And they were the first to receive the communion too. "Let the children come to me…for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven." Soon the whole congregation came forward singing and swaying down the aisle.
After the Eucharist, but before the service ended, a woman got up to speak. Again we didn’t understand what was going on, but after the Mass we asked someone who explained that this woman was the head of the local Catholic school whose children needed help to participate a traditional Zulu dance competition among the schools. Again the people went to the front with their offerings, this time not all at once, but here and there someone went forward, and then more and more joined in, as though the momentum was building for what was to be a really sacrificial gift. When everyone was back in their places, the sounds of a whistle and drums came from the back and about two dozen kids about 10 to 13 started from the back and came dancing down the aisle in what must have been a traditional Zulu dance in traditional dress (not very much of it either). I wish I could have taken a picture. The mass is nearly over, the priest is sitting in front of the altar surrounded by the children, while the dancers ducked and swayed and kicked their legs high to the whistle and drums. The whole congregation clapped along, people craning their necks and standing in the aisle to see. They were Roman Catholics, but the school was also going to teach them to be Zulu Catholics. We learned later that all the schools, even private or church run schools, are now under government supervision, and the government can dictate the curriculum.
Soon the Mass was over. As we walked out, no on talked to us, the proverbial elephants in the room. Sometimes there is a smiling welcome, and sometimes there is a kind of cautious reserve toward whites here. I’m sure it has something to do with the years of oppression. They are the majority, and have positions of power, but the real power, the power of money, is still largely in white hands. More on that later. This is getting too long already.