"Lady Bird" and the hermit

From here in Dublin, it appears that a joyous kerfuffle is brewing across the Atlantic – a particular anthem from Songs of the Notre Dame Folk Choir has made its presence known in the new movie Lady Bird, with Saoirse Ronan in the title role.

For the record, I haven't seen this movie yet. So this post is generated based on rumours, always a somewhat cautious task. But this is what I've heard: that the NY Times is howling Oscar choruses for Ronan; that the Catholic Church, finally, is shown in a rather kindly fashion; that this coming-of-age chronicle nails it, in all its messy, vulnerable, grace-filled humanity.

On Thursday morning, November 23rd, I got a crazy e-mail from my dear friend and former president of the Folk Choir, Colleen Moore.  Have you heard?, she said, "Rosa Mystica" has made it into the movies! I just about jumped out of my chair. Steve, it's OUR version!

Hit pause.  Rewind to 1982.

That year, a bunch of us took a field trip six hours south, to the Abbey of Gethsemani, nestled in the knobs of Kentucky.  It was on that trip that I met a man who would become one of my closest friends, a mentor, a partner in the crafting of sacred music. It was the most unlikely of collaborations: he, a hermit and a Trappist monk, trained as an organist, composer and Cistercian scholar; me, a liturgist and guitarist, working almost exclusively with college students. For some inexplicable reason, we hit it off from the start.

Over the years, I grew to love and admire this man all the more. We'd talk often (How he was able to use the phone so frequently?).  At the outset, I'd always ask "how are you?"  "Miserable!" he would chortle.  And I knew all was well (as a matter of fact, it was only when he stopped this exclamation that I knew things were not).

His voice resembled that of a baritone, oversized Yoda; when traveling to Europe, somehow he managed to get a night in NYC, finagling standing tickets at the Metropolitan Opera; he found innumerable, creative ways to hide soda cans (and probably other stuff) in his monastic garb; one year, while at Notre Dame to participate in a recording session, he stumbled onto "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" on TV – and stayed up all night watching reruns.

And despite, or maybe because of, his extensive training in music, he had an ardent love for the length and breadth of sacred music styles, choosing no priggish attitude toward a particular genre, but unequivocally embracing all that was good and glorious – what Keith Kalemba would later, poignantly describe as "honest liturgical music."  It was, perhaps, one of the reasons why he dearly loved the diversity of the Folk Choir.

A joyous custom soon began, of sharing liturgical compositions.  We'd seal off the chapter room at Gethsemani and throw scores at each other. One fine spring day, he pulled out an old, weather-beaten manuscript. "I wrote this just before taking my vows," he said. The piece was called Rosa Mystica. He played the whole thing through, and I simply sat there at the end of it. I remember two things: the sound of a robin outside the chapter room window (joyous in ovation); and himself, staring down at the keyboard, almost embarrassed by what he had just shared. I was blinking back tears.

Years later, heading into Thanksgiving week, I got a rare phone call from Gethsemani. It was not from Chrysogonus; it was one of the brethren, Thaddeus, telling me that my friend had suffered a major stroke. "Steve," he said, "he hasn't much longer."

In desperation I called my publisher, Mary Prete, in Chicago. Her counsel: "Steve, you must write to him. Write to him now." And so I did. I called the Abbey, and asked if I could fax my letter, to which they immediately acquiesced. Closing my office door, I spent the next few hours crafting one of the most important epistles of my life.

I went to Gethsemani a few days later, arriving just hours after he had passed. Chrysogonus was laid out in choir, and as is the custom with the Trappists, all one hundred and fifty psalms were being proclaimed over his body, a monk seated on either side of him.

But there was a third chair, empty, placed there by the brethren. That chair was for me.

The blur of emotions, the requiem mass, the slow procession to the graveside, the empty hole, the slow lowering of his body into the earth (Trappists use no coffins) – all of it washed over me with deep and enduring power.

As we were walking away, Thaddeus came up to me quietly, and whispered in my ear.  "Steve," he said, "that letter you wrote to Chrysogonus....he couldn't talk after the stroke, but for those three days before he died, he used sign language to tell us that he wanted it read to him. Every day."

Fast forward to now. I weep – albeit with joy – as I recall the fullness of my days with this amazing friend. It is the most ironic thing that a movie depicting all the struggles and moral choices of a young woman (at least, so I'm told), has as its epilogue an anthem to the Blessed Virgin Mary, written by a Trappist hermit cloistered in the foothills of Kentucky. He would've laughed out loud (as he often did with me) over such a happening.

Oh, and there's one other thing.  Colleen notified me of Rosa Mystica's place in the movie on November 23rd.

That date was the anniversary of his passing into eternal life.