Beloved.3 / "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If thou wilt, let us set up three tents..."

Went to Madonna della Stada, the chapel @ Loyola University, for sunday mass. When I moved to campus in 1987 i went to this late Sundaynite student mass, and immedialely fell in love with it. I am reminded of an old E.R. tv show program from about 5ya, when Kovits (a doctor who was volunterring in Africa @ the time) was taken hostage by bad guys in a Rwanda type situation. I can't remember exactely how it went now, but he was asked if he believed in God, and somehow it got onto the subject of Mass. Kovits said he loved the mass, and he trailed off his explaination by only noting his love of "the singing........" Trailed off, drifted of, that was my favourite ER episode - I was a mild fan for years- of all time. That scence. "The singing....". Should watch that show again.

This late Sunday student mass also has boss singing. Love it. So many of my favourite hyms are from this mass and from St. Rita's Mrs. S. My favourite? "Gather us in". Even the Beatles or Sex Pistols couldn't top the Loyola choirs version. Whenever they had suggestion forms left for us to fill out in the pews, I always mentioned the song.

In many ways, my love of this mass really kept me attending church @ a 93-99% clip for years. But this was the first time in maybe 10y that i've been to it. Attending dinners @ the Gallo's old Rogers Park place in my younger days usually meant I'd leave late, so I got into habit of going to other masses. Then I got so old Sunday nites were tough all over 'cause of the early AM Mondays. I should go more.

It occured to me to run some old memories.

*Being w/ Q and not being afraid to sing the hymns together.

*Seeing Madonna in church when I was w/ Q - and after Madonna had made certain subtle actions my way. (I trid not to look her way).

*The first time ever I went, and when the bread and water were being turned into the Body and Blood of Christ, as was customary @ St. Rita growing up, I took a knee - but NO ONE ELSE DID. Didn't care - that was they way we did it in Mq. Pk, and I'm be damned if I change up on campus.

*Being in the pews w/ Vito once, and it was the gospel. We were listening, but the story was so crazy and took crazy turns that @ a precise moment we looked @ each other and started cracking up. Hey, we were paying attention!!

*That time that Vito, Jamey, Drax (Belgium), and I went to mass but were accosted by a zealot (right when we got in the door) who didn't like the way we......... smelled ......... I took the decisive lead that moment and said simply "Let's go" and lead our little troop in a flanking maneuvre around the chapel................. to another entrance. She was a real jerk. We hadn't done anything except offend this old ladies petty offactalory(sic) senses. All we wanted to do was Praise Jesus.

Well, and oggle the chicks. There was always such a social scence. But, hey, there are many ways to praise Jesus.

And here's another church story, maybe I said before, but I want to cover before I write of last nites mass. In Belcoo, my cousins little village in the Occupied Zone, we went to mass. Like last nites mass, the gospel was the Transfiguration episode.

Two things:

(*)How mad I was while this tiny Irish priest, heavy ass brouge, sent 92% of the sermon talking of "Holy Jesus, and the miraculis jesus, and the glory, and the........" and I kept getting angrier and angrier @ him - GIVE ME FUCKING SOMETHING TO WORK WITH HERE -I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THAT SHIT - and he finally relented. The last minute of the sermon told of a story of his youth, and how proud that in his school days the teacher of the class directed students who didn't know how to do a particular thing to the future priest- Basically, just like the cloud fingered jesus, the future priests teacher fingered him. The kicker that got me was his tieing that into the transfiguartion account - where the clouds bark out "This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased" (or the like). The point? Listen to Jesus - he knows best.

(**) There's that line where Jesus says NO to the two disciples who were with him when they wanted to build tents and stay on the mountaintop. Jesus then said "Tell NO one" It made me think, in 1999, that Jesus mite have been saying "Don't make tents here and tell no one what you saw- if that happens, they may try to make some church or religion out of me, and that is not good!!"

Some good Catholic I was. It's in Matthew 17 : 1-9.

But, it's true. Listen to Jesus. He knows. I should, a lot more. I'm a good uncle and librarian, but shit @ EVERYTHING ELSE. No, no, Performnce artist - I'm good at that as well.

Things have changed. To all LU grads, the Jes Res lawn is no more. Seriously. Giant computer building there. And it's all gone. Prince Charles of England once got into trouble in the 80's because he said that modern architecture had done more to destroy English cities than the Nazi bombers in the blitz. Pretty funny. But progress, man. My campus was gone. My beloved campus. I wanted to show Gf where we walked, swam, hunted, danced and sang - but because she didn't care and there was a terrible dearth of remaining landmarks, it was hard. Much like Marquette Park, with it's wondeful 63d street 2-3 three stories starting to be razed (as if the Heikels, Dorniers, and Junkers had started in on us*), one really can't go home again. In this case.

Long ride home. Imagined being Strasser.

No I didn't. But the shout out's just the same.

btw = "Beloved", as mentioned by Father Jerry, was mentioned twice in the three readings this Sunday. That's why. With all of the change on campus, it was great to hear him sing -wait, yr not james joyce hilts, stop stealing from Stephen Hero - I mean celebrate - the Mass. Made a point of recieving The Body Of Christ from him. Old times sake. Fr. Jery's sermon on the Transfiguration?

' Remember, we are not always on the mountain, where we want to be to pitch our tents and stay - there are also vallies. When we are in the valleys - that is when we should hear the clouds voice saying "Listen to (Jesus)". '

Beautifully sung, by one of my two favourite priests. Father Jerry of St. Rita, Fr. Jerry of Loyola. Christlike both.
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*=glory be any twist in a story that lts me list off that shit.