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| That was a good morning... |
The motivation for this hedonism was the concept of "the last hurrah." I'm afraid that in the aftermath of the surgery, my desire to prance about half-naked on tropical beaches will be greatly diminished. Further, after the lenten road of radiation & chemo, it was easy to believe that I "deserved" such a treat.
Well, in the manner of a true progressive, I descended upon the Dominican Republic to enjoy its fruits while condescendingly decrying its poverty and the horrific contrast of wealth between the resort-goers and the natives. A security guard at our resort, who stands all night on the beach making sure that the resort is not tainted by unwelcome guests, makes about $100 per month. Unlike the bartenders and waiters, and even the chambermaids, nobody is tipping the security guards to supplement their income. So I could smugly pat myself on the back for befriending one of the guards, talking cigars with him, and then later handing him a La Flor Dominicana wrapped in a $20. The next day when he saw me, he treated me like a messiah. Profitable for him and heartwarming for me.
Of course, there is some debate among the resort-goers about whether the $100/month story is perpetuated by the security guards in order to obtain more sympathy tips, but from a quick bit of research, it's certainly reasonable to believe that it's true.
In any case, Elizabeth and I dispensed $1 bills like we were money trees in the gusts of autumn, all of Punta Cana basked in the munificence of the Summer King and his Queen.
But that's not what I came here to tell you about.
Nor did I come here to speak of The Canadians and The Floating Turd-Leaf, which I will relate at some point in the future.
No, what I am thinking of tonight, in my official nightly insomnia, is the experience we had attending mass. Now, when we made plans to go to the DR, I thought that we would be leaving the resort on Sunday to find a local parish church, which I figured would be easy in a country that is 70% Catholic. However, upon inquiring of our "concierge" David, we learned that there were two masses every Sunday at the resort, in English. Well, as much interest as I had in the local church, it's hard to choose a mass in a foreign language, so Elizabeth & I were left to discuss whether to attend at 9:30 or 11:30, and how this might affect our other plans for our last day at the resort (basically how it would affect our sleeping, eating, swimming, and drinking).
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| If swimming means floating in a pool with a cigar, then I'm Michael Phelps |
As it got closer to Sunday, we inquired again about mass, and were told that the location varied - sometimes it was in the Tropical Lounge, sometimes in the Main Lobby - we had to call to find out. Then there was a question about whether there really were two masses, or just an 11:30. Then they told us that mass was from 11:00am to 1:00pm.
From the state of confusion related to the mass, I was already getting a feeling that this was not a priority for the resort, and, as it turns out, it really isn't. The resort we stayed at claims 1100 suites. Assuming a double occupancy at 80%, that's 1760 guests at the resort on a given Sunday. Assuming, as most of the guests were American, that 25% of them were Catholic. And using the 2013 statistic that 25% of Catholics attend mass weekly, that meant that we should have had about 110 people at mass.
Elizabeth & I arrived at the Tropical Lounge at 9:30, only to wander around as we were directed by one staff member after another to a location at which there was no mass (nor even two or more gathered in His Name). Eventually we were told 11:00am to 1:00pm in the Main Lobby. So, after a quick breakfast (just under the wire for the 1 hour fast before 11:00am), we arrived at the Main Lobby and found the official mass room around 10:50.
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| This is not where we attended mass |
We were greeted by another couple from Virginia who were quite relieved to see us. Now that we had growing confidence we were going to attend mass after all, we settled in. More folks drifted into the room. About 11:15, the priest arrived, toting an amplifier and a mobile mass-kit. As he walked through the room greeting his congregation, he realized that the majority of the people in the room were Brazilian. But as he did not speak Portugese, the mass would be prayed in Spanish & English. This was later accommodated by one of the Brazilian ladies reading the 1st Reading in Portugese from an iPad.
Before mass began, the priest asked what time the resort had told us. There were varying answers. He chuckled and said "it is 11:30. It has always been 11:30."
Missals of a sort were distributed in English/Spanish. The first thing of note was that the English translation of the mass predated the most recent Vox Clara reform of the ICEL. OK - no problem. I understand it's only been a couple of years, and they would have to re-print the missals. But I thought that it was ironic that Pope Benedict, who promulgated the reform of the American English translation, was still listed in the missal - the priest stumbled over this before correcting it to "Francis our Pope."
How jarring it is to have the old translation in front of you!
Equally jarring is attending mass in some other people's vernacular. I've attended mass in France, Spain, Italy, and now the D.R. (my many earlier travels were in the days when I was eagerly claiming travelers exemption every chance I got. How I regret now not having been to mass in the old Catholic stronghold of Linköping Sweden, where Bishop Brask held out for so long, or experiencing mass in Japan, China, Singapore, Taiwan, or Korea? Or trying to find a mass in post-Soviet east-Germany. What experiences those would have been!).
Anyway, it is undeniable that the universality of the mass suffered immensely in the wake of Vatican II. My previous posts on the synchronic vs. diachronic nature of the mass spoke to my sorrow that the 1700-1900 years of the latin mass were no longer reflected in the communion of saints across time, but here was an example of how the communion of the faithful in-time was lessened by the vernacular.
But regardless, it was wonderful that we were able to hear the gospel in English. There were two salient points. The priest focused on the Gospel reading of the road to Emmaus and likened it to our journey through the Word of God and ultimately to the Eucharist, which is where we finally recognize Christ. The disciples had already welcomed Jesus, without knowing who He was, when they invited Him to stay with them at the end of the day. But it was not until the breaking of the bread and the blessing that they knew Him. The priest, in praising Evangelicals for their devotion to the Word of God ("did not our hearts burn within us?") pointed out that the Evangelicals stop too soon, and never invite Christ in for the breaking of the bread. That it is in Catholicism in which we finally know Christ - in the essential Eucharist. Of course, he was much more eloquent, even in his foreign English, than I am in repeating his words. I was struck by this view of the Emmaus passage, but particularly struck by the degree of concern for the Evangelicals, who view the D.R. as mission territory. The Catholic Church's war of resistance to Evangelical (and Mormon) invasion in Latin America is obviously very real to this priest - it is a message that we never get in Tennessee, which is mission territory for Catholics (and we're doing pretty well, thank you). Anyway, it was an interesting dynamic and eye opening.
But, my greatest takeaway was in the scope of the Sunday Mass Experience. Here I was at a resort with close to 2000 guests. In a tropical paradise. In the midst of the splendor of the resort, with its marble collonades, arcades, galleries and rotunda, a corner of one convention room is set aside, and here, attended by 30 of those 1760 guests, or roughly 2% of the population of the resort, Jesus Christ Himself becomes truly present and we can enter into communion with Him. Outside of the little room, families frolic and stroll, shop for gifts and are shuttled around in little golf carts. Drinks are poured and breakfast buffets are crowded with people jostling for the front of the omelette line. Honeymooning couples walk hand-in-hand, their flip-flops smacking the marble, while packs of tropically-clad senior citizens embark for the shopping mall. Obese and oily Russian millionaires drag their thin young paramours from place to place, and an army of white-clad Dominican youth move purposefully from chore to chore, catering to this mob of Western Wealth. And back in that little convention center room, a cancer-ridden middle-age man and his beautiful wife thank God for the grace that brought them to mass in Punta Cana.
