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Show J - EASTER WITH THE KQNKS OF SANTA 13ARBARA. The special high masves and other feast clay celebrations taking place on Easter ciay at the historic old Santa Barbara mission in California will make up the lluth consecutive Easter service performed by the Franciscan monks, who. lor over a century, have filled the mission church with their chants, and who seem to be destined to hold their f-3rvicts in the dimly lighted edifice as Jong as its rock vails shall stand. Few are the places in the west of like antiquity; few are the places that have peen so many changes in the evolution of Pacific coast civilization. When in the gray dawn of the Easter morning, as the sun rises from the waters of the Pacific, the padres of the mission, the coarse brown habits of their daily wear, disguised in vestments brought ten generations ago from . all lie buried in the foundations of the grand old church they decorated or in the graveyard by its side. Easter and Christmas are glad times for the monks. On these days all the pomp of the purest of ritualistic services ser-vices may be seen as upon some stage of the most perfect - modern setting. Masses are sung three times' in the morning. They are truly dramatic in their effect upon the thousand or more Mexicans. Californians and tourists taking the places of the 864 Indians who were atached to the mission in 1S0O. and who built the strong foundation founda-tion walls, eighteen feet thick, to defy earthciuakes. Easter day, with all its happiness, is a welcome relief to the clergy and people of the mission. It makes a pleasing mid-year break in a life that has w .jnuch of sameness to be a contented con-tented one: too much of austerity and sacrifice to be anything but hard to bear. There is no luxury within the mission walls. Bare floors, walls severe with the most exemplary of religious pictures, pic-tures, tables covered with oil cloth and the heaviest of crockery; these things are the environment of the men who lived under the red tiles of the church roof. A new color is seen ft Easter tide In the somber picture. The dishes ar? hurried aside by the lay brethren, for the bells in the towers must be rung wit'- the force of the strong, temperate tem-perate arms thnt delight to ring out every happy tone: arms of men who proclaim the news of the arisen Christ because they know and love him better than most men do. The brown cowls disappear in the robing ante-room, giving giv-ing place to royal garment of lace and p-old of rarest texture. When before the kneeling, scarcely breathing audience audi-ence the monks march out past the high altar to their places the bare walls seem to recede and pass. In the candle can-dle light the place is heavenly. The singing choir boys are the holy angels tWPfmmmmmmummmmmmmmuu mt in i uw n. in in Spain, sing the first bars of their early morning mass, they will be doing just what their Franciscan predecessors have done on Easter mornings all these years. The candles that burn wrill follow fol-low into the smoky crevices of the eld church roof some 25.000 candles burned away in former Easter services. The thousands of roses and Easter lilies that make up the very elaborate church decorations dec-orations will fill the places of roses and lilies arranged a century ago by Indian maidens' fingers and the linger of Spanish senoritas, daughters of the old hidalgos who ruled Santa Barbara when it was a village of cattle and Indians, In-dians, instead of a world known tourist tour-ist city. Maidens, daughters, hidalgos, and the golden crucifix is Christ himself. him-self. Such is the glory of Easter day. What wonder that the Franciscans are proud to celebrate their Easter masses in the ancient house of their order? The place is awful in its majesty. ma-jesty. The light of day breaks but dimly through the narrow spaces ceiled windows in the six-foot walls built by the Indians. Smoke of incense, burned for a century, has made dingy everything every-thing once white. The shining candles casting their gentle glow from shrines of martyrs and saints stand out in rows from their autumn colored background, back-ground, staring with 200 eyes that wink amid the lilie.-s. Slowly, step by step, the vestured monks proceed with their forms of worship. wor-ship. They take pride in the fact that they have priests enough to perform every devotional ceremony laid down in the books. Three priests and the two j deacons bow before the holy altar cloth, j In the choir are fortv boys. The sermon ser-mon is in Spanish. The trood superior feels the warmth of satisfaction as all goes well. In the afternoon there is one service, a. simple benediction with the nngelus. There is no display, for this, save the Powers left from the morning. When this worship is over the monks retire to their apartments to read or to their famous fa-mous sacred garden to watch the shadows sha-dows of evening grow long across the foothills. Their garden is their own. No woman ever steps within it. The place is peace. Here, with a central fountain playing, with the scent of oranges or-anges about and guavas for the pluck- j ing, the Franciscans sit until 6 o'clock. j The feast day is over, evening prayerg are said, and the monks go to their narrow iron bedsteads, thinking that it j will be many long months before the I comine of another such day. A century hence, when all has j changed in beautiful Santa Barbara i save the old mission, Franciscan monks will still ceieb'ate the masses. The candles can-dles will glitter and the singing of clear-voiced boys will peal through the church from loft to altar and on to God. And priests then will be as glad as now to hail the feast day, to don their i crumbling vestments and chant their j noblest hymns in his name. |