Excerpt



Michaels vocation had been nourished by his mother, wombed and nurtured in the dark belly of the lower church of St. Ann which the monastery parish used in the winter. Elizabeth took Sarah and him to confession each Saturday afternoon, some little light coming from the seven day candles that also gave the lower church most of its heat. It was hushed and grave, and his mother led them up to the communion rail to say their penance after they had confessed, to the spot where the huge cross with its life size painted body of a bloody Christ hung near to remind them of what their sins had done to Him.

Christs head hung limp, his chin touching his chest, and when Michael looked up at Jesus, he could see the pain in His eyes and what He had suffered for love of people. It wasnt the love that impressed Michael so much as the pain, the twisted body nailed in place and crowned with thorns which he knew from roses hurt so much and the mocking message over his head which a priest had told him meant, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

There was an awful sense of drama in the lower church, and the people waited in line at the confessional boxes, silent, humble, their heads bowed, many of them slipping rosaries through their hands like his mother, hushed because they were in the holy presence of God.

It terrified Michael and at the same time it thrilled him, and at the center of the drama, their black habits trailing to the ground, leather-thonged cinctures girding their waists and huge fifteen decade roasaries hanging in several loops from their cinctures, were the Passionist priests who served the parish.

They wore sandals and they took the vows of chastity and poverty and when they preached they had a crucifix tucked in their cincture for they preached Christ and Him Crucified according to the command of their founder St. Paul of the Cross. They were grand and mysterious and holy, and Michael felt awe and reverence whenever one of them spoke to him.

But Sarah was afraid and said the church was scary and the priests were bad men and she cried each Saturday afternoon when their mother took them by the hand to the depths of the church and up to the crucified Christ which terrified her.

Why in thunderation do you insist on taking those poor children to that haunted house every Saturday afternoon? Stephen demanded. I told that Father James to put the damn lights on and stop trying to make everyone think there are spooks running around down there. Hes nothing but a medicine man.

Stephen fumed, veins bulging in his forehead, a no good fundamentalist witch doctor. He has all those emotional nitwits, like yourself woman, believing that bloody Christ on the Cross is real! They kneel there, and Im including you in this, like theyre waiting for Him to speak to them, and youre trying to make my children as crazy as the rest of those simple minded peasants.