Oratory. Lusaka. Day four.

[This entry spends a significant portion talking about events occurring yesterday (Saturday). The rest of these events occurred today.]

It’s 10 PM on Sunday in Lusaka and the night air is quiet, for once.

Today, I discovered the source of the heretofore unmentioned and unmitigated noise that emanates from a westerly direction several hours of the day and several more hours of the night. After a very private Sunday Mass (Fr. George, Br. Joseph, Br. Simon, and myself) and a no-coffee breakfast I went and took a walk around the compound. I went out back where the Salesians’ Oratory is, as I hadn’t yet seen it. Somehow I was expecting a larger building, but the community here is small and no doubt doesn’t have the resources to run a large Oratory. Behind the tiny classroom is a hard-packed dirt soccer pitch with two netless goals and a roofless cinderblock structure at midfield.

Beyond that, and beyond the distant 10-foot wall of the compound, there is a gigantic corrugated steel warehouse containing what I can only imagine is a Pentecostal Church-cum-nightclub. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights—while sleeping in my room—I heard extremely loud trance music and club-style shouting until the wee hours of the morning. Today, probably from 8:00am until 1:00pm I heard extremely loud praise & worship music and a charismatic pastor with voice hoarse from screaming and audible, sucking breaths between powerful streams of the Word. I was almost tempted to go check it out, but figured there was no way in heaven that a Mzungu walking in mid-service wouldn’t attract an inordinate amount of attention.

I brought it up to the Salesians at lunch and, as I have learned is their attitude towards most idiosyncrasies of Lusaka, they laughed at it like a big joke. They are incredibly easy-going. One would think they would complain at being kept awake at night and having Sunday Mass disturbed by probably 500 Watt speakers blasting deep-bass techno-evangelium from the lot behind them. Instead, they said they were lucky the Mosque had moved—otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to hear a thing!

Yesterday was “National Day of Fasting and Prayer”: a civic holiday introduced by Edgar Lungu in his administration several years ago. I had seen some advertisements around Lusaka concerning this holiday, most consisting of suave, bespangled preachers clad in white suits promising spiritual healing and revival against a backdrop of large, concert style venues and rave lights. This the Salesians also treated as if it were a big joke. “Prayer is good, we do that every day. Fasting! That is where the problem is…”

At the breakfast table it certainly seemed as if people were fasting, or at least eating frugally. Most had nothing but a bowl of oatmeal or the like. Fr. François launched into a hilarious tirade about the recently sworn-in President of Madagascar (his home country), who sounds like a cartoon character—brought to power by military coup, dubious international businesses concentrated in (of all pairs of places) Gabon and Serbia. Previous president recently swore up and down to reporters that he was not going to flee the country—and then fled the country the very next day, taking with him a sizeable amount of assets. The new president is a Belgian citizen, having renounced citizenship in Madagascar—which makes it illegal for him to hold office. Apparently this is ok, since he’s promised to “fix” the constitution—much to Fr. François’s chagrin.

After that breakfast, I payed the paid the price for having stayed up all of Friday night writing. I ended up taking a six-hour (!) nap. When I woke up it was too late to play football at the Oratory, so I did laundry instead. Fr. Michael stopped in to wash his own clothes, and chatted with me while he waited for me to finish washing mine. Apparently he had spent three years in Luapula—at Kazembe, in fact. He spoke for a while about the area, the goodness and simplicity of the people, the challenges of running a mission, financial concerns, concerns over the integrity of local clergy, the fact that the parish has 34 outstations and only 3 priests.

We spoke about young people and the Gospel, American politics, the state of the Church in America, the state of young people in America. I gave him my thoughts—in America, many people are wealthy and prosperous. With wealth and prosperity, it is very easy to become distracted from the desire to seek the truth, which makes people think that they don’t need the truth, or can declare the truth for themselves—functionally, that there is no truth.

In Africa, it is different. I think that in many places where the line between poverty and destitution is very thin, it is different. Those who suffer are lashed to the Cross whether they like it or not, and those for whom suffering is a way of life are pierced with the very wounds of Christ. In Africa, there is no question over God’s existence. That is a first-world luxury. One needs Truth in order to live—because there is no comforting distraction to delude you into thinking you can live without it.

This does not mean that sin doesn’t exist here—on the contrary, it does in spades. But sin exists in a monastery, as well. Even in a Provincial House. That is why it is important to maintain discipline—to fast and pray. On yesterday’s national day of fasting and prayer, the first part was easy for me—I slept through lunch. But prayer proved itself difficult. It is difficult to pray, even for those who enjoy prayer. I don’t mean the kind of simple, quiet prayer done at your own convenience—but the discipline of prayer, the commitment to certain quantities of prayer at certain times, the wisdom of the desert fathers, of St. Benedict: “Seven times a day I praise you for your just decrees…”

Yet, it is possible to overdo it. St. Benedict allowed for no virtuoso asceticism in Monte Cassino. Fasting and mortification were geared towards the spiritual development of the community, not the glory of the individual religious. The monks of Scetis used to keep a flask of wine for visitors, scandalizing them until they realized that the rest of the entire year, they drank salty water.

As it is important to keep the fast, it is important to keep the feast. In proportion to the hardship of one’s life, you must find reason to celebrate. Give us joy to balance our affliction. We must remember to feast as well as fast. In the midst of extreme hardship, feasting becomes an art, a virtue—a way of loosening the tension of the mind and restoring joy and charity to the heart. These are the fuels one must burn to live the Christian life.

If one’s life is easy, simple, full of luxury and temptations to pleasure, then you must ride yourself hard, not sparing the whip and the goad in mortification and self-discipline.

But if one becomes grey of soul, if the light retreats from one’s eyes, if one’s life is nothing but toil and hardship, grief and woe—then a feast becomes a gift from God.

We must remain along the middle way, the narrow way. Too much hardship leads one to despair if one does not allow—no, make the concerted effort!—to enjoy the small things of life. In the same vein, too much ease and prosperity leads to pride and ultimately indulgence if one does not make a strict effort at discipline.

The life of the impoverished, of the desperate, of the despairing should be a continual feast.

The life of the rich, of the fat, of the happy should be a continual fast.

As I prayed alone in the chapel before evening prayer, one of the Fathers came in, not seeming well. He began to prepare the altar for Mass. Finding me praying, he asked my permission to say Mass for his friend who had just died. I gave it, of course. I extended my condolences and asked when it had happened. Very recently, he said. He had killed himself.

I sat in the back of the chapel as Father whispered the opening prayers to himself. It was a strange thing. As he prayed this Mass, I saw thousands of years of this same sacrifice said in the quiet—in the dark. Words whispered so that only God would hear. I saw Aaron, oil upon the beard, atoning for his people. I saw Christ, in the Garden, in anguish and supplication before His Father: “That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you…” Speaking into existence the radical likeness between the union within God and the union between Men—the irruption of the divine into the plane of human existence, and likewise, the irruption of the human into the plane of divine existence. He has joined Himself to us inextricably.

And likewise, I saw, without a doubt, the impossibility of Father’s friend having been refused into the life of God if he desired it with all his heart. Not even death, not even suicide—can break the divine grip on a soul that yearns for Him.

Fr. Kunda and I spoke for some time after dinner. He had arrived before Mass that morning and the first view I had of him was towering over the altar in his red vestments—stained yesterday with St. Luke’s blood—and breaking the Body before our eyes. He had given me a warm, brotherly hand clasp and embrace when we entered the dining room for breakfast. In his office, after dinner, he laid out the contract I was to sign as a volunteer with the Zambia Province. He spoke well of Fr. Cao, assured me that I would be in very capable hands, and gave me a detailed picture of what I was to find in Lufubu.

He pulled no punches—it would be hard, he said. A very poor area, a school in disrepair. But the people are good, the children will love you, and the Salesians there will be your support. He also informed me of the existence of other Salesian volunteers in Zambia, all of which (excluding Nate and myself) were girls—three Germans, two Czechs, two Poles, one Irish. We would all meet at some point after Easter for a conference on our mission work. It would be an interesting dynamic, for sure!

I like Fr. Kunda a lot. He is an intelligent, tall man—full of gravitas, radiating integrity. He was happy to hear that I was considering a Salesian vocation—“it is a beautiful life.” We finished with a Zambian shake and parted ways.

Today I decided to seize the opportunity to play football at the Oratory no matter what. I intended to go straight there after lunch (during which Br. Joseph brought in four ice-cold 16oz beers) but it was a ghost town at 13:00. I sat down to read Andrew Sardanis’s book (Zambia: The First 50 Years) and fell fast asleep for a couple of hours.

I woke up around 13:45 and headed out to the soccer pitch. I sat on the steps of the oratory for a few minutes before one of the kids came over and invited me to play. There were about 30 kids between the ages of 7 and 13, many of them with bare feet—which I learned very quickly was necessary to keep grip on a dusty pitch as slippery as an ice rink.

I settled into a kind of midfielder position and tried to play unobtrusively. I thanked God’s Providence that I had spent my 10 months of seminary playing soccer with a bunch of middle schoolers every Friday. The kids had fun calling me “Mzungu” and I tried to not accidentally knock any of the little ones over while slipping and sliding on the rocks.

They had three really talented forwards that ran circles around our defense. A little guy—maybe seven years old, built like Popeye and no taller than my knee—was always right in the thick of it, using feet, knees, chest, head, driving ruthlessly on our defenders and making key utility plays in the box. At one point, the right winger that I was contending fell and got some dirt in his eyes. I hurried over to grab my water bottle and poured some on his face to get it out. I offered him a drink, and then to the kid next to him, and next to him and so on—and, not much to my surprise, they drained my water bottle!

The completely lopsided game went to penalties by the grace of the referee (really just a Salesian Lay-Collaborator who ran the Oratory). Despite me missing mine, we tied and went to sudden death. One of their players walked it off and our team came together to lick our wounds. I said my goodbyes to the kids—likely forever. They have school tomorrow, and I leave for Lufubu on Tuesday.

I was struck by the kindness and openness of these children. Most of their families live in the cheap housing compounds in the area and survive by selling things here and there on the street. Many of their parents probably make about $1 a day. And yet, there is a joy and ease and lightness with them, an honesty, a willingness to share.

There is much to be said about hardship making people better. I don’t mean “more efficient” or “stronger” in some kind of Nietzschean sense. I mean more kind, more compassionate—in a word, more human.

Everyone remembers the first part of the Beatitude: Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Not many remember the second: But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Having little makes you more content with what you have. Having much… you begin to resent what you don’t have.

God loves the poor—in fact, He might just love them more than the rich. This is not to accuse God of being unfair—rather, it is the solution to the problem of evil, the silver lining for all those who mourn, who are hungry, who suffer: God Himself will repay you for your lack. Maybe not in this world, but in the flashing glimpse into eternity, the changeless realm beyond quarks and gluons and stars and planets—just maybe. That is our hope, anyway. Ave crux, spes unica…