Small Steps in the Oratory

The chapel at Pistachio House is the oldest building on the property. It began its life in about 1904 as the shack in which the folks who built Pistachio House lived during construction. Over the decades and century since then, it has served at various times as a coal bin, a workshop, and storage.

When Francine and I bought Pistachio House, the finances were a bit doubtful. As we prayed to own our own home, we vowed to make that little building into a chapel¹.

When we bought pistachio House, our future chapel was almost falling down, and there was a lot of hard work by the two of us and a cadre of friends to get it into shape for use.

Francine and I prayed Vespers here, and it was our hope that at some point we could celebrate its completion with a Mass². 

There’s still a lot to do – the interior walls are wanting trim and paint, and at some point an actual floor will need to be laid over the subfloor.

I have not prayed here since Francine went into hospital. Following her death and the sudden need for urgent work on the garage, the chapel basically became a storage unit.

During my long Camino, one of the (many) things the Lord brought to my attention was the passage from chapter 52 of the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict which reads:

Let the oratory be what the name implies, and let nothing else be done or kept there.

Hoo boy. Our little chapel was stacked high with bicycles and boxes and backpacks. Hardly conducive to prayer. It was also covered in cobwebs and thick with dust and dirt.

And then there was the roof. Several shingles had been torn off.

In my absence, it appears that somebody with a tall vehicle scraped the roof in the alley, probably while trying to turn around. I thought initially the damage to the roof was caused by a storm, but once I got up there on the ladder today I realized that the source of the damage was a single point on the edge of the roof from which shingles had been torn off.

So today, cleanup work in the chapel began.

I fixed the roof and reattached one of the interior wall panels near it that had come off and was hanging over the altar. I started in on the cobwebs and the dust, though this will take a lot more time. The battery on the vacuum ran down to zero, though I had completed perhaps 15% of what needed to be done. The bicycles and the more obvious boxes were removed, and I swept the place. I recharged the battery-powered lights.

There’s still a lot to be done, but I think I can return to praying Vespers here.

Small steps. And now, lunch.

1. Technically, private chapels may only be erected with a Papal indult. What we have at Pistachio House is more properly termed an oratory, though since almost nobody knows what that means, we’re going keep calling it a chapel for convenience unless someone tells me to stop.
2. Although I’m not absolutely clear on this, I believe a regularly scheduled Mass in an oratory would require permission of the Archbishop. Occasional Masses are OK, I think. I mean, we once had Mass at Pistachio House celebrated on a table in our dining room, so I presume it could be done in the chapel with no issue.