Before I began working for Anne Rice, I was a Benedictine monk in a monastery a little north of New Orleans. Sometimes on this page I share stories of that life. Here is one I call... THE RINGING OF THE BELLS One of my favorite jobs in the monastery was ringing the church bells. The prior assigned that work to junior monks like me. Each of us took turns ringing the bells for a week. There were six bells. Each had a name: Raphael, Blaze, Laurence, Gabriel, Sixtus, and Angelo. All six bells were tucked away in the church, to one side of the main altar, hidden behind one for the minor altars, where we kept the tabernacle beneath a large lovely mural of the Sacred Heart of Christ. You knew a monk was heading there when you saw him walking along the ambulatory—a walkway behind the main altar that wraps around the far back of the church. In that hidden place there were long ropes for each bell reaching, down from the bell tower, all the way to the church floor’s terra cotta tiles. The ropes were worn from years of use. They had lost their coarseness long ago, and had a feeling like hard leather. We rang the bells almost every day for prayer. But they were also a way for the monks to communicate. Because the sacred silence in the monastery forbade brother monks from speaking, ringing the bells told us when prayer began. Tolling the bells told us when community prayer ended. There was a difference between ringing and tolling. For ringing the bells, I continued pulling on the rope to keep the bell swinging with momentum. For tolling, I would only let the bell ring once with a controlled clang. We had four kinds of prayer: Ordinary days, festal days, solemn days, and funerals. The bells were rung differently for different prayer services. On Ordinary days, we rang and tolled Gabriel. He was the middle bell. We never heard him at the first prayer service, Matins (5 am). That was still a time of silence. His sonorous peals were first heard with the sunrise at Laudes (at 6 am). Then his note could be heard for about half a mile, all the way down to the Carmelite convent, where the gentle sisters were also gathering together for their own morning prayer service. We also rung Gabriel before mass, before Vespers (evening prayer, 5 pm), and before Compline (night prayer, 7 pm). It had the same sequence. Yet we tolled him after Laudes and Vespers for the Angelus, a prayer recalling how the angel Gabriel spoke with Mary, the Mother of God. Ringing Gabriel had a simple sequence. His tenor-like tone lasted for a minute before Laudes. But for Vespers and Compline, we rung him while the monks walked in “statio” from the cloister to the church. Some brothers stopped ringing him when the monks opened the doors and entered. But I rang him a little longer, at least until the brothers processed through the church and took their place in choir. Then I stopped, hung the rope on a peg, and joined them, going directly to my place in choir. Chanting began shortly thereafter. Tolling Gabriel for the Angelus Prayer took some skill. He had to be tolled three times, then three more times, and then three last times. And then he was rung for a full minute. Tolling bells was difficult at first, but after some practice on my part, and after much patience on the part of my brother monks, tolling almost became an art form. Soon I could not only toll by the sound of the bell, but also by the feel of the rope in my hands. Each bell had its own personality, and this was especially true for tolling. For the lightest bell, Angelo, you could pull his rope down once, and hold it so that one note tolled out. But you could not do that with Gabriel; he was too heavy. I had to pull his rope down just enough so that the hammer in the bell was about to strike a note, and then I released him for his bell to toll on the upswing. After that I had to quickly grab the rope again, to stop the bell from swinging back, preventing any further notes from knelling. Tolling was an important aspect of monastic work. If it was done poorly, it could ruin prayer for a brother. Yet if it was done well, no one noticed because it was not meant to be; it was meant only to remind brothers to pray. That is one way of looking at the monastic life. Nothing was meant to stand out. Everything was meant to blend in together, the way our black monastic habits blended us together, since we were working and praying to be one brotherhood and “one body of Christ.” Memorials were another kind of prayer day. On those days we remembered an important event in the Church’s history, such as the death of John the Baptist; the life of Saint Francis Assisi; the work of Blessed Romero, who was assassinated in 1980 in El Salvador while celebrating Mass; or the kindness of Blessed Chiara Badano, a 19-year-old girl who died of cancer in 1990, and who never failed to love people despite her pain and suffering. On those days we would ring two bells. And after Laudes and Vespers, we tolled Gabriel alone. Fewer than ordinary days and memorial days were feasts. Yet they were more celebratory. Those were days when we remembered important events that shaped our relationship with God, such as celebrating the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph; Jesus’s baptism; or the Exaltation of His Holy Cross. On those days I would ring three bells. Often I had to get another monk to help me. Sometimes I could not find another brother. So I had to ring three bells at once. It was challenging and awkward, but it could be done. I would have to pull the rope of the two lighter bells in one hand while pulling the rope of the heavier bell in the other. On festal days I rang the bells in a particular sequence for about five minutes. The sequence began with all three bells ringing for a minute. Then each bell was rung alone for a minute. Next two bells were rung together for the last minute. Finally all the bells were rung together. Fewer than the other days were solemnities. They were the most important celebrations of our year. On those days, we remembered events that we believed changed the course of human history, such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost—which has roots in the Jewish festival of Shavuot. Since days like those were so important to us, we would ring all six bells together. Then I would have to get five other brothers to help me. It was a community effort. Sometimes five could not be found, so we had to make do with four. We would gather together and the main bell ringer would guide the others, even if they were experienced, to coordinate a special sequence. For solemn prayer services, all six bells had to be rung for 15 minutes. This sequence began with all six bells ringing together for five minutes. Then each bell had a turn alone for a minute. Some bells were coupled together for a few minutes. At last, when the celebration was about to begin, all the bells had to be rung together. The only time of year when we did not ring bells were the 40 days of Lent. This was because bells were considered celebratory instruments, and Lent was supposed to have greater gravitas. So we maintained a greater sense of silence during that time. Instead of ringing bells we had what we called a “clacker.” It was a wooden instrument with a handle that had to be cranked around, like an organ grinder’s instrument. It made a *clacking* noise. It was penitentially loud. We were glad when Lent finished for many reasons. Easter was the main reason, of course. But we also rejoiced when we put away the clacker and returned to ringing the bells. Lent ended officially at the Easter Vigil. The celebration began at 10 pm and finished at 2 am. But the bells were not rung until right in the middle of the service, right at the stroke of midnight. We rang all six bells for almost ten minutes, banging and clanging and clamoring together. The massive clangor of the bells could be heard for miles around. Many families lived down the road from the abbey. I never heard any neighbor complain. The bells were our way of communicating to the whole world that, on Easter, we were not afraid of death anymore. On that day we announced that we believed that the Son of God defeated death when, after he was killed, he rose from his tomb. All six bells announced our joy. Easter was beautiful because we celebrated life from death. But funerals were equally important to us because we also celebrated the life of the brother monk who had worked and prayed hard to live with death before his eyes daily. Only one bell could be heard at our requiems, Raphael, the largest. We seldom rang him alone. He was so heavy that, if you held on to his rope, he would pull you up into the air. That often happened when it was time for the bells to silence. We had to stop them all at the same time. The brother ringing Raphael held on with all his might. I had to put all my weight into stopping his momentum. He could lift me five feet up. Raphael was never rung for a monk’s requiem: He was tolled. Tolling him was the most challenging task. However, I also believe it was also the most important. Tolling him was like tolling Gabriel, yet needed greater strength. I had to pull Raphael down to the point where he was about to make a sound, and then I let go of his rope, so that the bell tolled on the upswing. During a requiem there was only one other noise in the church. It was the noise of a hammer nailing the deceased brother into his coffin. Our coffins were simple wooden boxes (as I wrote about in a previous post). The lower part of the coffin was sealed with half the coffin lid, showing only the brother’s upper half, his cowled head and his hands folded prayerfully over his black habit. Once our requiem ended, the upper half was nailed closed. The hammer striking the head of the nail was the only sound in the church. Some brothers could not stand that noise. They would rung from the church in tears at the thwacking, thwacking, thwacking, echoing steadily throughout the church, sealing the coffin lid closed, until the Last Day. So tolling Raphael properly was important. It was closure. It was the last celebratory noise we would make for that deceased brother. It was the last send off. It told everyone within earshot: Here is a brother who meant something to us. Here is a brother who did his best. Here is a brother we loved and served and helped grow closer to God. Here is a brother who acted as a channel of God’s love for us. As the bell was tolling, several brother monks would carry his coffin from our church to our churchyard, where a grave had already been dug. For Brother Gabriel’s funeral, I worked hard to toll Raphael just right. It was my way to ask forgiveness for all the times I had failed to love him with the love of God. Yet it was also my way of saying, Until the next time we meet in Heaven. More stories to come soon...
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 15:20:37 +0000
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