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.
