Word: cloister
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...secular mind, the vision of monks and nuns living silently and praying ceaselessly behind cloister walls has always seemed, at best, a kind of regrettable eccentricity-harmless enough, but useless too. Yet the Roman Catholic Church, and such Protestant sympathizers as the Monks of Taizé in France, have insisted that the contemplative life is a special and noble vocation. The fathers of Vatican II declared in a 1965 decree that "communities that are entirely dedicated to contemplation are a glory of the church and a wellspring of heavenly graces." While some adaptation to modern life might be in order...
...issued by the Vatican's Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes, the document reaffirms the role of the contemplative as a witness to Christ. The cloister is both to be retained and encouraged, but "it should be modified according to conditions of time and place, and outdated customs done away with." Rather than having such changes ordered from the Vatican -which before Vatican II held tight control over cloister rules-the orders themselves will make them; even the individual convent will be allowed some latitude...
...play The Devils. The libretto sketches the facts surrounding the torture and execution of a Jesuit priest in a 17th century French provincial town. Sister Jeanne of the Angels, prioress of St. Ursula's Convent, asks Father Urbain Grandier (sung by Baritone Andre Hiolski) to become the cloister's confessor. When the worldly, sensual priest declines the offer, Sister Jeanne has a series of hysterical sexual hallucinations that soon infect other nuns in the convent. Eventually, the sisters accuse Grandier of indecent and immoral behavior, which has led to their being possessed by the devil. The charges coincide...
...performed at its world premiere by the venturesome Hamburg State Opera, the three-act music-drama is a lurid vision of hell on earth. Horror builds to a crescendo as sacral scenes of church and cloister are followed by wild orgies of the possessed nuns and a ludicrous exorcising ceremony in which the crazed sisters howl, shriek and twitch like wolverines in heat. Present in nearly every scene is a revulsive chorus of guttersnipes, beggars, epileptics and whores who leap and leer with a demonic joy reminiscent of Hieronymous Bosch...
...lawn tennis, the methods of attack are different. Points are scored by driving the cloth ball off a slanting 3-ft.-wide wall called the tambour (the monastery's flying buttress) at unreturnable angles, or by knocking it into rectangular openings called the winning gallery and the dedans (cloister) or a 3-ft. 1-in. square hole in the wall called the grille (buttery hatch). A player may also score points in "the chase," which means dropping placement shots into blocked-off sections marked on the floor...