Bro Paschal Jordan, OSB

Bro Paschal Jordan of the Benedictine Monastery in Guyana has been spending a few months in Ghana conducting a course in liturgical music. He relates his Easter liturgical experience.

The celebrations here at the Monastery went well, on the whole. Holy Thursday was a rather subdued affair; Good Friday was crowded, and the monks sang a version of Agios O Theos in three-part harmony. I got this from the World Council of Churches (WCC), and it worked here.

The Easter Vigil was something else! It lasted four hours and 35 minutes, and there were 80 baptisms. The Dagaaba Choir was in attendance, and most of the chants were in Dagaare - because all of the catechumens were of the Dagaaba tribe. I sang Fr Garfield Rochard's Paschal Proclamation (in English), with the monks and the Dagaaba Choir joining in the chorus.

On Easter Sunday, Mass was held in the cave: this is a very large area, just outside the Monastery wall, with two partial coverings of rock - imagine a large three-sectioned dome of rock, with the centre section sliced out of it.

There were about 400 persons there, sitting on the rocks around, and sitting on all the chairs and benches there are from the Monastery, some on the ground and some persons standing. It was cool and breezy, and the frangipani and poinciana were in bloom. There was a natural resonance, so no need for microphones.

The Dagaaba choir was resplendent in their royal-blue and white choir robes; the Techiman Catholic Mothers' Association, in their yellow bodices and green-and-white-striped ankle-length skirts; the handicapped children from the Home, together with their chaplain, a kindly 80-year-old Dutchman called Fr Peter Boosma (of the Society for the African Missions) and all the new Christians, baptised at the Easter Vigil.

The Mass Readings were in English and Dagaare; the chants entirely in Dagaare. In fact, the Sunday Liturgy at the Monastery is often a mixture of English and Dagaare (spoken by the Dagaabas); and the Dagaare songs are very lively, accompanied by a pentatonic marimba, small maracas, and drums played with hooked sticks.

The maracas players are fascinating to watch: the “bulb” of the maracas is flung from the player's right palm to his left, caught swiftly and flung back again in the following rhythm: right (shake)-right (shake)-left (shake); right-right-left; right-left, giving the rattling sound as a rhythm of 1-2-3 / 1-2-3 / 1-2 beats.

The drummers play what sounds, for the most part, like three beats; but the singers sway from right to left in a shuffling dance of two beats!! And it all works out in time!!

 Imagine a dance step like this: RIGHT-left-right; LEFT-right-left. I thought I was good at rhythm, but these poly-rhythms never cease to fascinate me, and I often find myself distracted from the liturgy by simply trying to count the beats as against the dance steps, as against the drumming!

After Communion (on Easter Sunday), when many African Christians have thanksgiving dances, the Techiman Catholic Mothers danced up to the area in front of the altar, and invited Fr Giles, the celebrant, and the monks to join them.

 Fr Giles, Bro Basilio and I danced down. There was a roar of approval; and suddenly, the whole congregation of 400 persons - men, women and children - erupted in a sort of conga-line dance, with the women periodically ululating!

I enjoyed myself enormously! Wish I had a video recorder - or even a tape recorder - to share this with you all at home. I guess it is not surprising that, with Catholicism only 100 years old in this country, the faith of these Christians is almost tangible.

Yesterday, Easter Monday, a group of about 20 doctors and nurses from Holy Family Hospital in Techiman came for lunch. The community had invited them as a token of appreciation for all their work, and especially in bringing Bro Patrick back to health.

Such young doctors! These fellows look like twenty-somethings. The refectory was far too small, so we moved out into the large atrium. Happily so, since the area is breezy. Stephen, the cook, did wonders with vegetable rice, fried chicken, beef stew, cabbage-carrot-and-tomato salad and desserts of pawpaw-and-pineapple cocktail and a banana cake with fruit and slathered in chocolate sauce. Man!

I went to town on the cake. It's only once, since I arrived here, that cake was served. You know what a Dessert Monk I am!

Today, more visitors are expected: this time, 12 novices from the West African English-Language Province of the Salesians - whose novitiate is in Sunyani (the city nearest to our Monastery) - and their Novice Master.

They will stay until Saturday! Perhaps we shall have better singing in the Liturgy? There's nothing to beat a male-voice choir, you know!