Memorial Mass at Eastern Mennonite University

A Memorial Mass

Where does the wind go after it plays with my hair?

I thought I was late.  The wind cooled me just a little on this hot, muggy day as I jogged up the grassy hill behind the EMU campus to the Discipleship Center.  Since the hill is a long one, I had time to remember how what happened last week was sending me up the hill today.  During the first session of SPI, I spent some time getting to know Aimy, a student from Vietnam.  She explained to me that the war called the “Vietnam War” in the United States is called the “American War” in Vietnam.  Then she shared with me both happy and heart wrenching stories of growing up in a country that withered with violence like the napalm that disintegrated the trees.   Then on the last day of the session, just as we were saying good-bye to head out the door for the weekend, Aimy let fall her own emotional bomb.  She spoke softly, as if tearing the words out of her soul, “my mother died last night.” Then she fell into my arms weeping.  I held her as the whole class gathered around, first shell shocked, and then weeping openly.

            Aimy is a Buddhist, but she attended a Catholic school in Vietnam.  Teresa, a Maryknoll sister who lives in East Timor, offered to ask Father Jacques, a Jesuit priest from one of the French speaking African counties, to say a mass for her mother.  Aimy thought about it and then decided that she would like to have a service at 7 pm on Friday the 14^th of May and the same time her family would be celebrating a Buddhist ceremony in Vietnam, eleven time zones away.  I was invited to the mass along with the rest of the SPI community.

            This would be the first time I have been to a Catholic Mass organized by a Maryknoll sister, officiated by a Jesuit priest, at a Protestant school, said for a Buddhist woman I had never met, in a community of people from many different races, cultures, and faith traditions.  Not only did I think it would be a unique experience, but I also thought that this journal entry would be an excellent way to process what I would observe.

            I did not think it would be appropriate to take notes during the service, so I read through the Ethnographic Observation suggestions handed to us in class before heading up the hill.  I also set out a pen and a notebook on my bed so that I would have them handy as soon as I came back.  I would be participating in the service, but I also imagined carrying a TV camera with me to record the details in my mind.

Where does the smoke go when the incense burns out?

When I got up the hill, I was out of breath.  Father Jacques was standing outside talking to Aimy.  He was dressed in olive green pants and shirt, and she was dressed in white.  The other people who had already arrived were all women: American, Indonesian, and African.  They had prepared refreshments and were still finishing the final details of the set up.  The pentagonal shaped room had chairs set up in semicircular rows facing a makeshift altar.  The large windows allowed for a broad view of the green grass and trees, Harrisonburg, and the Shenandoah Mountains in the background.  The windows also let the sun light in brightening the floor and heating the western side of the room.  There were cloths from different parts of the world decorating the tables and the altar, and I could recognize the ones from Fiji and Burma.  The altar itself was made up of two tables, one larger and one smaller, in a stair step.  On the lower part there was a Buddhist  meditation bowl (I could identify it from a previous activity at SPI, but I don’t know what it is called), another bowl full of sand, and a round, hollow wooden artifact that I would later find out is an instrument played at Buddhist funerals.  On the top part of the altar was a wooden chalice and plate with wafers set on a small, square, white piece of cloth, a small glass of water, a Bible, a book of the Catholic rituals, and a large white candle.  On the floor in front of the altar there was a large vase full of multicolored carnations.

            I went back outside and toward Father Jacques and Aimy.   Just as I walked up, Father Jacques was saying to Aimy, “Culture sometimes gets in the way of what we would really like to do.”  Aimy just nodded in reply.

            As people began to come into the room, no one sat in the front rows.  Finally, Doreen from Kenya and Yanti from Indonesia asked me to sit with them in the front row.  Aimy lit three incense sticks, and as the spicy-sweet smell wafted through out the room, she stuck them in the sand-bowl.  This was the only Buddhist religious act I could identify during the whole ceremony. She then came and sat next to me.  Father Jacques lit the candle and the Mass began.

            After the songs, prayers, and homily, Father Jacques began to consecrate the elements for the Eucharist.  His hands trembled.  Everyone in the room, except for one young white male whom I don’t know, stood with their hands clasped either in front or behind their bodies, even me.  Many people had their heads bowed; several were weeping openly. When it came time to partake of the communion elements, people whom I knew not to be Catholics including Mennonites, Presbyterians, and Syrian Orthodox went forward to receive communion.  Aimy did not even though she had recited the prayers and sung the songs from memory.  Several times, Aimy’s eyes filled  and hands shook, but the tears never rolled on down her cheeks. 

            Father Daniel, the Syrian Orthodox priest, was dressed in his clerical clothing but did not participate in the service. Just as the final blessing was said and the last of the three incense sticks burnt out, Father Daniel began to sing in the back of the room, his chant a postlude as people began to mill around.    The refreshments were served by both women and men and by people from different counties: tea, juice, nuts, dried fruit, and cookies.  Many people stood around, ate, and chatted.  Aimy handed me her camera, and I spent the next ten minutes taking pictures of her with different people from the SPI community.  Several women were the last to leave, putting the chairs away, picking up the altar and decorations, and clearing the refreshments.  When I finished saying good-bye, I ran back down the hill and straight to my room. I began to write with the taste of dried apricots and artichoke tea still in my mouth. 

Where does the sun go when it sets?

Hundreds of questions have come bubbling out of this experience, and I know I will not have the opportunity for all of them to be answered.  I believe that my questions reflect my hunches, intuitions, and reflections.

v  Aimy was dressed in white, the appropriate color for a Buddhist funeral and yet she chose to have a memorial mass with the SPI community and could recite the Catholic prayers and liturgy (sometimes in French and sometimes in English.) What are the stories behind this decision?  What would be the elements of the Buddhist service her family was celebrating in Vietnam?  What kinds of memories from her childhood and of her mother and family came to her during the mass?  Will this mass be remembered by her as a moment of healing not only in her grief but in the traumas of her childhood? 

v  Father Jacques fingers trembled as he consecrated the elements.  I assume he has served mass many times as it is a priestly requirement.  Do his hands always tremble?  Were they trembling now reflecting a specific emotion?  Was he nervous about serving mass to his fellow students at SPI, about offering an open table where non Catholics would be invited to partake of the Eucharist, or about something else?  What did the more traditional Catholics think about this open invitation to a ritual which is considered exclusive for members of their church?

v  Father Daniel, earlier in the week, had expressed his shock and disillusionment when he saw women helping to serve communion in the local Catholic Church in Harrisonburg.  Yet, after this mass where the Maryknoll sister served from the chalice, he seemed to be at ease and supportive.  What was different for him?  Was it the relationships that he has established here?  Is it that he feels that this is a safe space where he doesn’t have to criticize or protect his position but can be open to sharing and learning?

v  In several key moments, Aimy singled me out.  She sat next to me during the service, she held my hand for a moment during the homily, and she asked me to take pictures for her.  Did our previous conversations establish such a foundation that she felt she could depend on it in this time of grief?  Did she see me as something of a surrogate family for her because she had trusted me to hold the stories of her childhood memories?  Were the bonds of trust between the story teller and the story keeper stays to later weathering the storm of loss?  If so, how can taking the risk of telling our personal stories make us more resilient to the traumas we may face later in our lives? 

v  Women played a prominent role in organizing, preparing, and cleaning up.  Did these women feel a kind of solidarity with Aimy in her grief?  If so, what kinds of stories could they tell?  Yanti, a Mennonite pastor from Indonesia, told me she, too, had lost her mother while living in the United States, and she was not able to go to the funeral.  She was very supportive and caring of Aimy.  What other stories are hidden behind the quiet, good-natured service of these women from around the world?  I would have loved to have sat with the women who worked before and after the mass to share their stories, too. 

v  Refreshments.  Food.  Is it for comfort?  Is it to create a welcoming atmosphere that invites conversation?  Would Aimy’s family have had food after the service in Vietnam?  What would they have eaten and how would it have been served?  What are the other traditions connecting food with death from around the world?  I remembered my own experience in Mexico where we used to eat sugar or chocolate skulls with our names written on them, a tradition to celebrate the day of the dead.  What do these traditions mean to us and how do they help us in our grieving processes?