Yesterday, a little after noon, I heard one of the St. John’s Abbey bells sounding. At first, I thought it was marking the quarter hour the way our Charleston bells do. Then, it continued and continued to ring slowly for quite a long time, and I realized I was hearing a toll. One of the monks, Father Jerome Coller, OSB, had passed from this world to the next and the bell was telling the family of St. John’s what had happened. Take note and pray, brothers and sisters, it seemed to say. Fr. Jerome was advanced in years, a music educator, composer-performer, and had been ill for quite a long time. He was most likely not a famous person in the eyes of the world, and, yet, the tolling gave his passing a kind of tender dignity.
How long has it been since you’ve heard a toll like this? In times past, it was normative to toll when someone had died. John Donne certainly was familiar with the practice. It strikes me that this is another way we have sidelined our communal awareness of death. Media vita in morte sumus -"In the midst of life we are in death." On this Midsummer Eve (also the Eve of St. John the Baptist), may our awareness of the “shortness and uncertainty of life” cause us to embrace those we love with a greater intensity and to thank God for the gift of life. At the close of Evening Prayer last night, the monks sang the prayer in the photo below.
