Thursday, April 5, 2018

Maria


   Joe stepped from the confessional and kneeled in a pew along the left side of the sanctuary.  He was immediately struck by the low attendance on that Holy Thursday, reflecting on, as his father often said, the damage done by Pope John XXIII.  Once the Latin Mass was gone, parishioners began losing interest in the Catholic Church.
   Finishing the five Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys that Father Durbin had assigned for his penance, Joe added six Glory Bees to cover the impure thoughts that he had failed to mention.  Ever since a nosy priest asked for more details back in grade school, Joe had decided not to mention them but always offered additional penance in compensation.  Once he finished, he headed home, stopping by United Dairy Farmers to pick up a gallon of milk.  He planned on going to bed early that night, hoping that tomorrow would be the most exciting and rewarding day of his life.

   While eating his Cheerios the next morning, Joe scanned the Cincinnati Enquirer and local TV stations, searching for coverage of the events down in Carbon City.  To his surprise and dismay, not a single report was evident.  Back at the Church, he left his car in the grade school lot and climbed aboard the waiting bus, taking a seat halfway down the isle.  As was his habit, he was the first to arrive and he opened a window to escape the driver’s cigarette smoke.  Within thirty minutes the bus was nearly full and an obese, heavily perfumed woman plopped beside him.
   “Hi.  I’m Shirley Cook,” she said, an instamatic camera in her pudgy hands.
   “Joe Crandall,” he replied.
   “Is this your first trip to Carbon City?” she asked.
   “Yes,” he replied, suddenly wishing he had brought a copy of Mechanics Digest.
   “Mine, too,” she said.  “And I plan to capture as much as I can on film.”
   Following that remark she snapped a picture of Joe, slumped against the window, and went on to report that she is a dental hygienist, that her mother died last year and that her neighbor, Faye Horstmeyer, a foster mom to ten kids, is one of President Bush’s Thousand Points of Light.
   As she rambled on Joe pretended to fall asleep and began to retrace his own history, hoping to reassure himself that, if a miracle should occur that day, he would be worthy.  Of course, he could never match the devotion of his father who attended mass every morning and insisted that Joe and his mother join him in saying the rosary after dinner each evening.  Sometimes he would have them kneel on a yardstick and recite the rosary with arms spread wide, to experience, in his words, a hint of the suffering that Christ endured.  And his mother, God rest her soul, was a humble woman who rarely left the house, content to provide for Joe and his father.  In fact, she died in that house, her aged cat coiled in her lap; Joe discovered her body on one of his daily, afternoon visits.
   But Joe knew that he was not nearly as deserving.  Having escaped military service, thanks to a bum knee, he attended a Catholic seminary at his father’s recommendation.  It was there, on that fateful Saturday morning, that he met Maria, a young, beautiful maid from the Dominican Republic.  Shy and awkward around women, Joe gradually developed a relationship with Maria, primarily limited to walks on the secluded campus or evening chats on the dormitory porch.  Once the inevitable event occurred, Joe could not go on with his training and resigned from the program.  His father died of a heart attack three weeks later and, despite the reassurance of his confessor, Joe remained convinced that his personal failures were responsible.
   Pushing fifty and working for the Post Office, his life had become an endless routine of sorting mail, stopping by Ted’s Bar on the way home and tinkering with his ’66 Mustang in the evenings.  But now, he had the chance to demonstrate his faith and, hopefully, be rewarded for his long devotion to the Church.  As the bus rocked up the winding back roads of eastern Kentucky, Joe’s anxiety grew and, when someone pointed out the Blue Ribbon Diner where Holly King worked, his palms began to sweat.  In the middle of town, the sidewalks were crowded with visitors, moving past displays of carved statues, devotion candles, holy cards and Bibles.
   Once the bus sputtered to a halt, Joe followed the parade of worshipers toward a pine-studded meadow where Holly King knelt before an outcrop of sandstone.  Joining the others, Joe knelt in the pine needles and took part in a group rosary.  Those around him remarked on a glow near the rocks and others reported smelling incense.  A few in the crowd collapsed and were carried off by ambulance personnel.
   At the end of the rosary, Holly rose and faced the crowd.
   “Our Holy Mother wants to thank all of you for coming today and extends the blessing of her son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.  She will continue to return on the first Friday of every month and she asks that you all pray for peace on Earth.  Your donations will be directed, in her name, to organizations that serve the poor across our globe.”
   Dressed in a lily-white gown, Holly then passed through the crowd, touching many atop their heads.  Some reported bright lights in the sky and others claimed to see a hazy figure above the pines.  Joe neither saw nor heard anything unusual.  Nevertheless, tears collected in his eyes as he rose to leave.  As he expected, he was not worthy.  He thought of his devout and devoted parents, surely looking down from heaven at that moment.  And, of course, he thought of Maria.