I celebrate Mass for the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration almost every Monday at their monastery on Ashbury Street in San Francisco. They came from Mexico during the Cristiada persecutions in 1926, along with the Carmelites of Cristo Rey (viva Cristo Rey!) a few blocks away. The Adoration Sisters serenely regarded the “Summer of Love” in 1967 from their perch in the Haight-Ashbury District, and they will continue adoring Love Incarnate, in great serenity and joy, through the next few cultural revolutions. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.
And forever is what these contemplative sisters understand better than most, spending many hours a day looking into eternity as the world turns around them. Their invaluable service to humanity is to offer our spinning world a refuge of peace and goodness within their chapels. They are not in a hurry, and the first time you hear them singing the Mass, you are shocked at how slowly they chant the Kyrie. One of my Jesuit friends once shook his head in benign annoyance during a Carmelite Mass, whispering “can’t they speed it up a little? These women sing every Mass as if it were a funeral!”
In addition to Masses at the Cristo Rey Carmelites in San Francisco, I offer a monthly Mass at the Monastery of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, situated in a grove of redwoods far above the University of California at Berkeley. These Carmelite nuns are the slowest of them all, taking a full five minutes to chant the Gloria, and even longer to sing the Salve at the end of Mass. It’s sometimes quite challenging to pray that slowly with them, and it seems a bit contrived to linger over every syllable in the sacred texts. I also offer a weekly Mass for the sisters of Mother Teresa, who described them as “contemplatives in action,” and these nuns run a bit faster. They must get out into the streets to serve the poorest of the poor, but even the ever-active Missionaries of Charity pray five hours a day. They pray the Mass more slowly than most of us, even though they know the poor are waiting on them. Mother Teresa knew that the poorest of them all is He to whom they sing at Holy Mass, and without a reverent Mass at 6am, there would no fruitful apostolate in the streets at 8am.
The Adoration Sisters’ nine-minute Gloria this morning brought to mind the nine months a woman spends contemplating the mystery in her womb. My dear Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have never had a child, but they know what it means to wait, to be patient, and to receive God’s gifts in chairos rather than chronos. We men wear “chronometers,” harsh taskmasters that tell us when to jump and how far. Women, you will notice, seldom wear watches (try asking a women what time it is), or, if they do wear timepieces, more as things of beauty than as timekeepers.
Men are by nature action-oriented, and women by nature more thoughtful. Men accomplish projects, and women build nests around human relationships. In general, men operate with ideas, and women with intuitive feeling. Men are active, and women are receptive. One cannot work well without the other, of course, and the two sexes can either fight or collaborate. Most of us do a little of both. But for us men, who are often frustrated by the “slowness” of women (especially, in my case, when a minivan full of children, piloted by their mother, gets in front of me in the parking lot), we should give a thought to things eternal. Our accomplishments, our machines, and our grand ideas will not last. Revolutions come and go, but God remains the same, yesterday, today, and forever. In many ways, our female counterparts have chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from them.
And forever is what these contemplative sisters understand better than most, spending many hours a day looking into eternity as the world turns around them. Their invaluable service to humanity is to offer our spinning world a refuge of peace and goodness within their chapels. They are not in a hurry, and the first time you hear them singing the Mass, you are shocked at how slowly they chant the Kyrie. One of my Jesuit friends once shook his head in benign annoyance during a Carmelite Mass, whispering “can’t they speed it up a little? These women sing every Mass as if it were a funeral!”
In addition to Masses at the Cristo Rey Carmelites in San Francisco, I offer a monthly Mass at the Monastery of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, situated in a grove of redwoods far above the University of California at Berkeley. These Carmelite nuns are the slowest of them all, taking a full five minutes to chant the Gloria, and even longer to sing the Salve at the end of Mass. It’s sometimes quite challenging to pray that slowly with them, and it seems a bit contrived to linger over every syllable in the sacred texts. I also offer a weekly Mass for the sisters of Mother Teresa, who described them as “contemplatives in action,” and these nuns run a bit faster. They must get out into the streets to serve the poorest of the poor, but even the ever-active Missionaries of Charity pray five hours a day. They pray the Mass more slowly than most of us, even though they know the poor are waiting on them. Mother Teresa knew that the poorest of them all is He to whom they sing at Holy Mass, and without a reverent Mass at 6am, there would no fruitful apostolate in the streets at 8am.
The Adoration Sisters’ nine-minute Gloria this morning brought to mind the nine months a woman spends contemplating the mystery in her womb. My dear Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have never had a child, but they know what it means to wait, to be patient, and to receive God’s gifts in chairos rather than chronos. We men wear “chronometers,” harsh taskmasters that tell us when to jump and how far. Women, you will notice, seldom wear watches (try asking a women what time it is), or, if they do wear timepieces, more as things of beauty than as timekeepers.
Men are by nature action-oriented, and women by nature more thoughtful. Men accomplish projects, and women build nests around human relationships. In general, men operate with ideas, and women with intuitive feeling. Men are active, and women are receptive. One cannot work well without the other, of course, and the two sexes can either fight or collaborate. Most of us do a little of both. But for us men, who are often frustrated by the “slowness” of women (especially, in my case, when a minivan full of children, piloted by their mother, gets in front of me in the parking lot), we should give a thought to things eternal. Our accomplishments, our machines, and our grand ideas will not last. Revolutions come and go, but God remains the same, yesterday, today, and forever. In many ways, our female counterparts have chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from them.
Mass at the Cristo Rey Carmelite Monastery in San Francisco on August 15. Photo by Karolina Zapolska.
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