The Roman Ritual, the dark side of life, & the redemption of spirit

During this challenging time in my life, being largely busy during the days, I find myself walking for about an hour and 20 minutes in an old industrial park at night. Sometimes it's late, and beyond the lights along those very wide outer streets, I can see the absolute blackness of the mountains and sky... probably appearing more so due to the mild glare of these lights on my eyes. These street lamps are maybe about thirty yards apart, but illuminate the streets fairly well. If they suddenly shut off, the area would be in near blackness with just a few lights emanating from the mostly very old one-story industrial structures; constructed from a time when materials would be brought in by train, as up until about fifteen years ago there were train tracks zig-zagging through the area. There's still the old tunnel which connected the these tracks to the rail line which is still over there and operational. Somehow these streets have a dated look to them, despite being well-maintained. However, there's a certain ominous look to that outer blackness from my current perspective.

Probably due to certain health problems in recent years, my mother has unexpectedly been befallen by something called 'rapidly progressive dementia'. Two months ago during a small heat wave here, she was sipping on a little glass of Lamarca wine on her deck along the hillside behind her home. She was fine at that point. In just weeks, she regressed mentally, and I kept thinking it was temporary. The condition moved so quickly that she was unable to take care of herself, and she just kept regressing, to the point of not always remembering me. It took about seven weeks from her sitting in the sun contently, and talking on that deck, to being taken to a assisted living facility. Yes, that quickly!

Strictly by chance, while walking those streets and listening to YouTube audio on my iPod, I have listened to just whatever the order of programs I downloaded onto it. There are 85 of them I racall; some long and some short. The past couple of weeks I was listening to many hours of old episodes of the 'Opie & Anthony' radio program, most of them with Joe Rogan. As I walked along the empty streets, although there is always at least some activity going on, I didn't think of them as ten or fifteen years old programs, but I somehow imagined them as current. I visualized the traffic or work days in NYC, Chicago, LA, or anywhere else where the popular radio program was aired, as I listened to the wild humorous conversations, filled with unexpected dialogue and opinions. It helped me get my mind off of things, and I even laughed some.

However, again strictly by the chance of how these programs were ordered, I began listening to the audiobook of the 1971 novel 'The Exorcist' by the late author William Peter Blatty, a Maronite Catholic from NYC. The book is very similar to the film, except it goes deeply into the internal psychological struggle of the protagonist Damien Karras, a young Greek-American Jesuit Priest. Despite being extremely open-minded and considering all remotely rational explanations, he struggled to comprehend the evil he was involved in. I don't even know exactly how far into the book I am now, but the early heated confrontations between the very learned Jesuit Priest and the ancient Sumerian demon Pazuzu have already occurred. Must of the book has revolved around the progression of the deep psychological struggle of the main protagonist.

The novel would be a bit tedious if not for me having such brisk and long walks trying to get my mind of off things. In this instance, it's actually relaxing for the most part. Still however, the ominous nature of the peril which has befallen my mother, and the ominous darkness of the terrain there (under the circumstances), makes the experience somewhat eerie as well. The streets being so empty and dark at that time--outside of an occasional truck, car, or loud noise from one of the distant loading docks--I sometimes see something dark move, or a light flash, that's mostly just a trick of light and shadow as I move along the streets. I do sometimes see a coyote or raccoon moving in the distance. In my current state of mind however, listening to the malignant Pazuzu speak--both deeply intellectually and with great malice--while walking in that location, is a legitimate reason to border on certain hallucinations. For the most part, the novel is relaxing, but this is not an experience that I would have expected or planned.

If there is any conflation between the novel and my mother's current misfortune, it's with me only. I mean, I could attach metaphors to it, I just choose not to except for the character of myself perhaps. So one could say that there's an eerie parallel in that way. Of course, the pandemic adds yet another ominous dimension to the current state of things here. Yesterday at 10:45 AM I arrived at the entrance of the barely par care facility, which officially opens at 11 AM. Usually there's a certain protocol for just entering, however the glass door was just wide open as the weather was probably close to 70 degrees at that point. I just walked in and made my way to her second story room. Being that the structure was once a sanitarium, the path up or down are not stairways but long ramps. It was very quiet, with only an occasional sound of activity.

As I got to the room, the door was open wide, my mother was on the bed, undressed on her stomach, half asleep, and largely unresponsive. Maybe she was to be bathed soon, I don't know. There were random visitors in the hallways as she just lay there with the door open. Even beyond that, some of the care workers are male, and they probably wouldn't even understand her if she could speak. That she would be in this situation, I know to her, would have been unfathomable only a short time ago. However, her body may be alive, but she's basically gone now, cared for by strangers who never knew her. A victim of a sudden horrific condition. Gone is any real communication, thought, or interests, and certainly none of the good energy and sense of humor that I remember so well; just a shell of her former self. Mentally, at least she isn't aware of her degradation as a person. At one point she looked up at me, and as her blue eyes focused slightly, I wanted to believe that she recognized me. She did speak to me on the previous visit a little, holding my hand, and asking if I would be back to visit her... and waving goodbye. That may have been, for all practical reasoning, her final goodbye.

As I listened to the audiobook yesterday evening, mentioned somewhat prominently was a text entitled 'The Roman Ritual', a very old writing which over the centuries has had many volumes added to it. "The Roman Ritual (Latin: Rituale Romanum) is one of the official ritual works of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. It contains all of the services which may be performed by a priest or deacon which are not contained within either the 'Missale Romanum' or the 'Breviarium Romanum'. The book also contains some of the rites which are contained in only one of these books for convenience." Apparently unusual rites such as exorcisms are only a part of these volumes. Curiously, the Milanese Rite of our culture from Lombardia has a similar ritual. The Ambrosian Rite has its own ritual (Rituale Ambrosianum, published by Giacomo Agnelli at the Archiepiscopal Press, Milan). Again, any parallels between our situation here and lets just say the audiobook is just with me and my own mental state; however, this is indeed my own real life horror. I suppose her death would be easier to accept.

 

 

I noticed last night a "Moon-Mars-Venus trifecta" in the sky. The moon had the slight appearance of a half-moon at about 75% fullness. Close over to its left side was Venus, and up aways over to it's right side was Mars... from my perspective. Perhaps the Moon was my mother, Venus was my late sister Katherine, and I was Mars; as the Moon and Venus were so close together in the sky. When my mother finally passes away in body, she will be reborn again in spirit, such as when she was the little girl with red-brown hair walking though the horse pastures back in Gogebic County. Her name, Janet, originates from "Little Joan" (also Jane or Jeanne) in Scottish, with the Italian equivalent being Gianetta... meaning "God is Gracious." There is always a plan..

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain." -- Rev 21:4

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