Rock Mass in Adelaide

Sister Janet Mead died yesterday.  

I saw it in the Guardian newspaper, just as millions of others must have seen it there.  At one time I had her record.  This was when I still had a turntable, well, a Hi-Fi with a turntable, I don’t think that even then we would have called it a gramophone.  Playing it I would sing along with her rock version of the Lord’s Prayer.  I could still!   I hear it vividly yet, I am singing it now as I type, but it doesn’t sound like her.

In 1974 I spent the summer in Adelaide.  This was far from home, long distance telephone was too expensive for me, letters would not have their answers from abroad in less than two weeks.  Sitting in my dorm room, in the middle of this small, compact, geometrically constructed old city an unexpected, to me inexplicable, loneliness bit through everything around me. Loneliness mauled the world as a crated dog would if left alone and slowly gone insane.   

This lasted some days and then, with no more warning than when it began, when I walked out into a new morning, it had given way to a strange euphoria.  I could not understand what was happening to me, but could hardly stop to wonder, the grass, the buildings, everything was covered by sunshine, and so it was for some days.  This too gave way, by small inevitable steps the euphoria traded itself in for everyday happiness.  Once a week I gave a seminar, I met in department for its daily tea break, I made friends, the town was good to explore.

Quite early on someone told me about the rock music in the Cathedral, at the weekly Saturday vigil mass.  Sister Janet Mead and her rock band, young people with long hair,  performed the entire liturgy, with the priest present only for what only priests could do. It was amazing, I thought that she could like Saint Francis have transformed the entire Church, in this decade after John XXIII turned the altars around.  But that too gave way, by small inevitable steps, to a more ordinary happiness.  

Looking back I never tried to explain to myself what had happened that summer.  Sometimes gold and diamonds have come pouring into my hands, not knowing what to do with them, they flowed through my fingers.  A treasure remains, the image of how it was. 

Sister Janet was a very ordinary saint and a very unusual person.  I can only wonder what she was to herself, what we can know about others at all.