Monday Night Misa

Monday nights my co-worker Elly attends Spanish-language mass at the Catholic church across the way from our office, and the first Monday after I got back she invited me to go. I'm rather game for new adventures, especially the religious kind, and I knew it would be a good opportunity to meet community members as well as work on my Spanish skills. So I put on yet another spiritual hat (to add to the UCC, Episcopal, Missionary Baptist and others I wear down here on the Coast) and headed off to la Misa.


The first challenge was trying to participate in the call-and-response service in a foreign language. I've been to enough Catholic masses in French to have memorized all the correct formulae and when to say what--"Pour des siecles et des siecles, Amen." "Que l'Esprit Saint soit avec vous..." "et avec votre esprit." Bada-bing. (The only trouble I've ever had is with the Lord's prayer, because I am so used to the words and the rhythm of the English version I grew up reciting every Sunday. But then, I get thrown off just by being in a different English-speaking congregation where they pause in different places or emphasize different words--although I have interchanging "trespasses" and "debts," as appropriate, down to an art.)

Now, I don't even know the Catholic service in English, so my participation in la Misa is entirely dependent on how fast I can a.) figure out what the priest (Father Paddy, who speaks Castilian Spanish with an Irish accent, I kid you not) is saying, b.) translate that to the corresponding section of a French mass, c.) remember the correct response in French, d.) translate the French response into Spanish, hoping I get somewhere close to what I'm actually supposed to be saying while still managing to fire off a reasonably sincere prayer. This is why I'm continually behind the rest of the congregation (thank God for the older lady who is also always behind because she can't hear anything); sometimes I have to resort to simply lip-synching and hope it looks like I know what's going on. And NEVER can I find in the missal what I'm actually supposed to be saying in time to join the congregation--it's torture!!

Other than that, however, la Misa is fantastic. The contrast between French and English masses (dare I say white/European masses in general??) and Latino mass, or even African-American mass (I once attended a fabulous second-line service at a black Catholic church in New Orleans), is like night and day. The first is solemn, slow, and can even be a bit dreary at times, although I do love the classical music & Gregorian chants that typically accompanied mass at La Cathedrale Saint-Sauveur. The second is more up-tempo and full of life--the homily is just as devout and the prayers are just as prayerful, but somehow listening to a group of mariachis (un-costumed; let's not get carried away) on guitars accompanying el coro as they harmonize Mexican folk songs while little kids zip up and down the aisles to be blessed, arms beatifically crossed and trying not to giggle--it just fills me with a little extra joy. Then there's all the cheek-kissing during the Passing of the Peace...okay, that happens in France, too, but somehow it's a little warmer here, a little less removed.

I never fail to walk out of la Misa with a smile on my face, my heart uplifted and my toes tapping for some ranchero music. It reminds me of the time a group of Unitarian-Universalist high school youth came down from northern Minnesota to attend prayer service at the local Missionary Baptist church--UUs can be pretty open to different forms of worship, but apparently these kids' home congregation wasn't too lively, because they all came out of service clapping their hands and singing gospel music, shouting "That was awesome, we're converting!!" much to the chagrin of their self-professed humanist youth group leader.

El Senor obra de maneras misteriosas...

Je jure mon allégeance...

I was driving back from dropping off a friend at the New Orleans airport the other day around 5:30 am, listening to the Ragin' Cajun, 100.3 FM. It was still dark out as I cut through the city on the 610, and suddenly the station changed from your typical Zydeco-Cajun mix of accordion-laced down-homey tunes, sung in accented French, to a recording of several voices intoning cyclic chants about God, Jesus, and "le Saint Esprit." It took me a few listens to realize (being the non-Catholic that I am) that it was a congregation praying the Rosary.... in Cajun French. Weird.

Folks who have learned "Parisian" French in a sterile academic setting often find Cajun French understandable, but barely. I like to think of it as the difference between a Boston Brahmin's clean, starched-collar elocution and the bouncing, rollicking twang of a native Texan. There is something sort of buoyant about the way Cajun words drop into the mouth and tumble around, in the process smoothing away some of the sharper, more precise corners that indicate that certain "raffinement" particular to textbook French. (Montrealites (Montréalais??) sound like this to me as well--probably just my American ears' inability to hear the nuances between the two.)

The repetitive nature of the Rosary was oddly calming as I powered through narrow lanes and sharp curves, zoomed up off of an energy drink (since I'd been awake from 3am on...). I spent so many miles listening to Cajun Catholics pray that I can now say the Hail Mary in French. I have no idea how to say it in English, but since I only go to Mass when I'm in France, I guess it doesn't really matter.

The strangest part about this was crossing the I-10 Twinspan going east as the sun was rising. As the clock ticked over to 6am, an instrumental version of the national anthem struck up. Then, in a moment of bizarre cognitive dissonance, my ears filled with the sound of the Pledge of Allegiance being transmitted over the airwaves in French. I wondered if this expression of patriotism was an intentional embrace of what the United States did for the foremothers and forefathers of today's Cajuns--it was, after all, this country which welcomed the Acadian refugees when the British kicked them out of Canada. Given the long-term, deliberate persecution of French-speaking Louisianans, however, and the systematic repression of pretty much any other minority group wanting to preserve their language and cultural heritage in this country (Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, some dialect speakers, indigenous Spanish communities...), it's quite ironic that the local Cajun radio station broadcasts a Pledge of Allegiance to the government in a language which they were forbidden to speak by that very same government.

Oh, the complexities of United States history.


PS: A belated happy Indigenous People's Day (known to most of us as Columbus Day), by the way. I refer to it as the former because I'd rather celebrate the immense diversity of this land's native cultures than the man who massacred thousands of Arawak Indians in the interest of expanding Spain's imperial grasp.