Cecilian Vespers Read online

  Other books in this series

  Sign of the Cross

  Obit

  Barrington Street Blues

  Cecilian Vespers

  Children in the Morning

  Copyright © Anne Emery, 2009

  Published by ECW PRESS

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  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Emery, Anne

  Cecilian vespers: a mystery / Anne Emery.

  ISBN 978-1-55490-344-3

  Also issued as: 978-1-55490-861-5 (PDF); 978-1-55022-861-8 (PBK)

  I. Title.

  PS8609.M 47C44 2009 C813’.6 C2008-907549-8

  Cover and text design: Tania Craan

  Cover image © Vincent Ricardel / The Image Bank / Getty Images

  Typesetting: Mary Bowness

  The publication of Cecilian Vespers has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, by the Ontario Arts Council, by the OMDC Book Fund, an initiative of the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and by the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Pange lingua gloriosi

  Corporis mysterium

  Sing, my tongue, the Saviour’s glory

  Of His flesh the mystery sing

  —Saint Thomas Aquinas, “Pange Lingua”

  I

  Father Burke appeared ready to burst into song, or at least into chant, as he tacked Saint Thomas’s words to a bulletin board at the entrance to the building. He said, simply: “Let our work begin.”

  “Our work” was the inaugural session of the new Schola Cantorum Sancta Bernadetta, under the directorship of the Reverend Father Brennan Xavier Burke, BA (Fordham), STL (Pontifical Gregorian), STD (Angelicum). The schola was a kind of choir school for grown-ups, who would be learning or relearning the traditional music of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant and Renaissance choral music had been largely shunted aside over the past thirty years. For the church, the cataclysmic event of the 1960s was the Second Vatican Council, popularly known as Vatican II. It was a meeting of bishops and theologians from around the world, called together by Pope John XXIII for the purpose of opening the windows of the church to the modern world. When you open a window, fresh air may blow in, but something else may get blown out. In the opinion of Father Burke, the great musical heritage of the church went out the window after Vatican II. In setting up his schola cantorum, he intended to do his part to recover what had been lost.

  My law firm, Stratton Sommers, had done the legal work for the schola, but my involvement went far beyond that. My family and I — my estranged wife Maura, son Tommy Douglas, and daughter Normie — had been privy to Father Burke’s anticipation, his anxiety, and his all-night planning sessions as he worked towards the realization of his dream. It was a lot of work but we were happy to assist in any way we could. We knew that if he succeeded in establishing the school, he would be making a permanent home in Halifax. Burke had spent much of his childhood in Ireland, most of his adult life in New York, and the past few years here in Nova Scotia. By this point we felt wedded to him, for better or for worse, and I know the lights would dim if he walked out of our lives. Not surprisingly, then, I was on hand for the introductory session.

  “Now, Father, be mindful of the possibility that others in the group may have, em, views that differ from your own.” The gentle warning came from Burke’s pastor, Monsignor Michael O’Flaherty, a slight, white-haired priest who spoke with a lilting Irish brogue. “I know this is your show, but a bit of advice from your elders may not go amiss. Just remember to be patient, forbearing, courteous, and open to the variety of—”

  “Michael,” Burke interrupted, “when have I ever failed to be patient and forbearing?”

  The older priest — who really was patient and forbearing, and who answered to “Michael” or “Mike” as cheerfully as to “Monsignor” — sent me a knowing glance, which I returned. He knew as well as I did that when the meek inherited the earth, Father Brennan Burke would not be among those on the podium taking a salute.

  “Besides,” Burke was saying, in a clipped Irish voice that could never be described as lilting, “these people know what they’ve signed up for. The fact they are here says to me that they have certain views on the Mass and on music that accord with my own.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t make that assumption now, Brennan. Not necessarily. Just keep caution in mind, my son.” Michael turned to me. “Any advice for him, Monty, before he goes up there?”

  “Somehow I suspect my words would be wasted, Michael,” I answered.

  We had reached the gymnasium of St. Bernadette’s choir school, where the schola had its headquarters and the students were already gathered. Monsignor O’Flaherty and I took seats in the back. Burke went to the front of the gym and took his place at the lectern. Tall, with black eyes and black hair threaded with silver, Burke was a commanding figure in his clerical suit and Roman collar. He faced his inaugural class of just under sixty students. They were priests, nuns, friars, and a smattering of laymen and women from all over North America, Europe, and Japan. The term was originally intended to begin in September and wind up before Christmas. But, owing to the meddling of the priests’ housekeeper, Mrs. Kelly, the notices and registration forms were several weeks late going out. The housekeeper, who had never quite approved of the worldly Father Burke and was not skilful enough to mask her disapproval, wrongly believed the papers had to be seen and endorsed by the bishop. By the time Burke discovered the error and set her straight in a blast that nearly blistered the paint off the walls, he had missed a number of publication deadlines. The first session had to be delayed, throwing the whole year’s schedule off.

  But the big day had arrived. It was Monday, November 18, 1991. Burke began his opening address: “Welcome to the first session of the schola cantorum. I am Father Burke, and I look forward to meeting each of you when we begin our work this afternoon. Your presence here suggests to me that you are looking for something deeper, something richer, something more, shall we say, mature than the liturgy and music you may be encountering in your home parish. I have heard the term ‘do-it-yourself Mass’ and that pretty well —”

  “The phrase ‘do-it-yourself’ raises a red flag to me, Father! It suggests that you disparage anything but the old, conservative liturgy that held sway before the Second Vatican Council.” The speaker was a heavy-set woman of middle age, with a large wooden cross hanging from a strip of leather around her neck.

  “Well, you’re right in part. There is much that has crept into the church today that I disparage. But people have the wrong idea when they blame Vatican II. None of that was envisioned by the Council —”

  “Oh, I think you’re being too kind there, Father, too kind altogether.” An elderly priest struggled to his feet with the aid of a cane; he faced Burke, then turned to address the crowd. “In fact we can put the blame squarely on the Second Vatican Council for destroying the very essence of Catholic worship; some would say the very essence of Catholicism itself.”

  The first speaker was back before Burke could respond. “So some liturgical practices are not as good as others? Is that what you’re saying, Father Burke? Are you admitting you’re an elitist?”
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  Many a schoolteacher would have envied Father Burke at that moment; he may have been under siege, but he had the attention of every student in the room.

  “We are members of the Roman Catholic Church,” Burke countered. “That is not an institution founded on relativism, moral or otherwise. We need look no further than Saint Thomas Aquinas, who speaks of degrees of perfection. Gradibus in rebus, gradations in things. Thomas says some things are better, truer, finer than others. And that is certainly true of music. When you compare Mozart with, well, some of the tripe —”

  “I was right,” the woman asserted. “An elitist. Well, that approach leaves out great segments of our community, I’m afraid, Father. Not everyone can appreciate —”

  “Who’s being an elitist now?” Burke snapped. I was surprised he had held his temper this long. “I refuse to talk down to my congregation, as if the people are simpletons who ‘don’t get’ the great music. I refuse to insult their intelligence with childish, jaunty, sentimental little tunes —”

  “So we’re going to be stuck with all the old music? I thought we were going to dialogue and workshop together to create some music of our own. There’s a group of us here who have been sharing ideas for some new compositions for the Mass.”

  Burke’s customary deadpan expression gave way to one of horror. How had someone who proposed composition by committee found her way into his schola, a bastion of traditional music?

  He eventually got back on track and continued his address. The vast majority of the group were attentive and silent, but he was going to have his hands full with the disgruntled minorities in the student body. If things proved dull in the criminal courts, where I spent most of my days, I’d make a point of dropping in to the schola to observe the fireworks!

  That evening found me in Father Burke’s church, where I was a well-established member of the St. Bernadette’s Choir of Men and Boys. There were sixteen of us in the choir. The trebles and altos were young boys; the tenor and bass sections were made up of guys in their teen years or well beyond, like me. I was something of a crossover artist, since I usually did my singing with a bunch of scruffy characters who shed their day jobs at five o’clock, donned old frayed shirts and porkpie hats, lit up smokes, and did their wailing in my blues band, known as Functus.

  The church, at the corner of Morris and Byrne streets, was a couple of blocks south of the city’s downtown shopping area, and about a minute’s walk from the waterfront. St. Bernadette’s was a small neo-Gothic church with arched stained-glass windows. The Victorian-era rectory, three storeys high, stood beside it. Across the way on the west side of Byrne was a large stone building in the Second Empire style with a mansard roof, dormers, a crucifix on top, and a more recent brick extension. Wide stone steps led up to the double front doors. This building was home to the new schola cantorum; it also housed the children’s choir school and a parish youth centre. I entered the church and took my place with my fellow choristers in the loft.

  “Gloria in excelsis Deo!” The voice of an accomplished operatic tenor filled the church, and the entire membership of the St. Bernadette’s Choir of Men and Boys moved to the rail of the choir loft to gape at the exotic figure below. The man wore an elaborate-looking soutane, the close-fitting ankle-length black robe traditionally worn by priests of the Catholic Church. It was unusual to see one these days. Over the soutane he had some sort of shoulder cape; the cape’s lining flashed a lighter coloured silk as he extended his arms, turned, and intoned the “Gloria” again. He stopped to listen as the sound reverberated off the church’s stone walls. A jewel flashed on his left hand as he raised it to his head. He was wearing an old-style flat black hat with a large round brim, a type of headgear I had never seen on a local priest. He whipped the hat off and shook out black and grey curls that swept back from a widow’s peak. A prominent nose and curved lips gave the impression that he had stepped out of a Florentine portrait from Renaissance times. Father Burke emerged from the sacristy in his stark black suit and Roman collar. He greeted the man, and they seemed to be conferring on the subject of the church’s superb acoustics. Burke pointed up to the loft, and the operatic priest bowed towards us with a flourish, then left the building.

  Our choirmaster joined us. Burke did not allude to the stranger in our midst, but proceeded to open the rehearsal as he always did with a Latin prayer. He then announced that the choir would be joining the schola group for solemn vespers on November 22.

  “As the boys from the choir school know, vespers is the church’s evening prayer of thanksgiving. We chant or sing hymns, psalms, and antiphons. This will take place on the feast day of Saint Cecilia.”

  Burke looked at a little fellow named Richard Robertson, who was a bit of a rogue, which may have been why Burke was particularly fond of him. “Who is Cecilia, Richard?”

  “The patron saint of church musicians, Father.”

  “Right. Now, we can’t have the service here at St. Bernie’s because there’s a wedding that evening, so we’re going to Stella Maris. A great old stone hulk of a church.”

  “It’s spooky there, Father!” Richard said. “Me and my friend snuck over to that church one night because we heard there were rats there, and we wanted to shoot them with a BB gun. We didn’t see them but we heard noises.”

  “Well, you’ll be hearing the ‘Magnificat’ at vespers. About as far as you can get from the squeak of rodents. But you’re right. It’s quite deserted around there; the church is scheduled for demolition. I guess there are no parishioners nearby. All right, now, open your books to the ‘Sanctus XVIII.’ This probably dates back fifteen hundred years; some say longer than that. I’d like the full choir to sing it just to the ‘Benedictus.’ I want you young fellows in the front row — you’re supposed to be in the front row, Richard, get down here — to carry on from there. The words are among the most beautiful in the Mass: Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. What’s it mean, Ian?”

  “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”

  “Precisely. Let’s hear those clear, young voices.” He raised his arms and conducted the piece. The little boys sounded like angels as their pure voices soared to the heavens.

  “Lovely. A little lighter on the higher notes. Let’s hear it again.” It was even more beautiful the second time. The priest favoured us with a rare smile, and gave credit where credit was due: “Deo gratias!”

  When the rehearsal wound up an hour and a half later, Burke and I retired to the Midtown Tavern on Grafton Street. At the Midtown you got draft, you got steak, you got fries; nothing came with, say, a light mango-chutney mayonnaise on the side. The priest had shed his clerical collar, as he always did when we headed out for the night. He lit up a cigarette and sucked the smoke deep into his lungs.

  “Big day for you, Brennan,” I said. “How’s it going so far?”

  “O’Flaherty was right,” he said. “How did he know all these malcontents would show up?”

  “Monsignor O’Flaherty is a wise man. But, really, what’s surprising about it? Ever since the Vatican Council wrapped up in 1965, preconciliar and postconciliar Catholics have been squabbling about whether it was good or bad for the church, whether it modernized things too much or not enough. Some of the more authoritarian aspects of the church needed reform. And surely not all the music composed in the past twenty-five years is bad.”

  “Of course not. I’ve heard some compositions and some choirs that are excellent. But there’s an overwhelming amount of rubbish as well. If we don’t do something about it, generations of Catholics are going to grow up without knowing anything better.”

  “Well, try not to fret too much about the students at the schola. There are just a few grumblers. And they’re not all of the same stripe. You’ll be attacked from the conservative side when they find out how liberal you are about everything except music and the Mass.”

  “This is about the sacraments, not politics! It’s about beauty: the beauty of music, of language, of ritual
. I’ve wanted this for so long and now …” He drained his beer and signalled for another. “What have I got myself into?”

  I felt a bit guilty thinking it, but this was going to be fun to watch.

  II

  Et antiquum documentum novo cedat ritui

  O’er ancient forms departing newer rites of grace prevail

  — Saint Thomas Aquinas, “Tantum Ergo”

  “‘The most beautiful thing this side of heaven,’” Burke said to his class the next day. I had a chance to drop in to the schola between an early morning court appearance and my first appointment of the day. “That is Father Frederick Faber’s timeless description of the traditional Latin Mass.”

  “So why did Vatican II outlaw the Latin Mass?” The voice was unmistakably American.

  “Vatican II did no such thing,” Burke replied. “Many changes were made, which were in fact not promoted, authorized, or envisioned by the Council. The only things that are official are those contained in the Council documents. Here’s what the documents really say, and I’m quoting from Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: ‘… care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing…. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.’ Vatican II made that point in a paragraph all by itself. There is a subsection that opens the door to local languages in some parts of the Mass, but it is worded with great caution. Latin is the official language of the church. It is the sacral language of our faith, just as Hebrew is the sacral language of the Jewish faith. Active participation in the Mass was considered back in 1903 by Pope Saint Pius X to mean the congregation should be singing Gregorian chant. Subsequent popes agreed. Now let us observe two versions of the Mass.”

  The room darkened and a screen lit up before us, showing the exterior of a building shaped something like a saddle. The scene shifted and we were inside the low-ceilinged structure. A spindly cross was the only evidence that the place was a church. Two giant quilts depicting wheat sheaves hung on either side of what must have been the sanctuary. An earnest-looking man and woman stood at a microphone with guitars. A third woman raised her hands and urged everybody to sing the “gathering hymn.” Few did, but the words came through loud and clear from the leaders of song: