Eddie turned 13 the summer of 1945. Small for his age, he was given to doubts and anxieties. He worried over the drought which had burned the prairies dry and forced his Daddy to give up farming. He had agonized over World War II. He worried that the Germans would come to the village and kill everybody.
Most of all, he worried about religion – and God. God was everywhere, saw everything, knew everything. The major preoccupation in his life was worrying whether God would notice what he did, or didn’t do.
The stained glass window at the back of church said it all — an enormous open eye peering into every nook and cranny of life. God kept a perfect record of every word, every thought, every deed. If those thoughts, words, or actions were sinful, the only way to have the black marks removed from his soul was to confess them fully to Father William.
In his mind the priest was the great eraser of sins. He imagined his record smudged with many erasures. He worried about whether he had forgotten any sins, and always included “for these sins and any others I may have forgotten I am truly sorry” at the end of each confession. He worried anyway, not completely convinced that this really worked.
Religion wasn’t all bad for him, of course. Father William had finally pronounced his mastery of the Latin prayers and the rituals of the acolyte as adequate for him to become an altar server.
He felt awed by this honor. Even the holy nuns were not permitted beyond the communion railings except to clean the floors, dust the furnishings, and arrange the flowers. Now he would be one of those nearest when the holy mysteries happened.
As far as he was concerned, serving Mass was just about the most important thing a boy could do. He was shocked and offended when some of the other boys played around or made rude jokes about holy things.
In spite of the pride he felt at being an altar boy, Father William had to scold him for daydreaming while at the altar. Lost in thought, he would forget to ring the bell or change the book or bring up the water and wine at the right time. Often he dreamed of being a hero in some holy cause like the saints the Sisters told the children about in religion class.
Not long after V-E Day Father William announced a thanksgiving service of “Forty Hours.” Forty Hour devotions were among the most important of devotional exercises in our parish.
After Mass, the Blessed Sacrament was enthroned high up on the side altar in the big golden monstrance. The altar was decorated with all the candles and flowers available. For forty hours members of the parish would take turns in adoration, never leaving the church unguarded.
The altar boys had places of honor on kneelers right in front of the altar. Even though other people would come and spend time in the church, we were the ones responsible for making sure the church was never empty. They would dress in their cassocks and surplices, hair combed, hands and faces washed, so that the Lord would be pleased with their appearance. Father William also checked up on them. The younger servers took the day shifts and the older boys took the nights. Eddie looked forward to the time when he would be old enough to take a night watch.
Eddie and his cousin Herb drew the first watch after Mass a little past eleven o’clock. They knew this would be a long hour. They were hungry from having fasted from the night before.
They soon tired of saying rosaries and paging through the devotional books Father William had left for them. Their knees, though toughened by being servers, were not quite up to the demands now made on them. Father William had told them they could sit for short periods, but that it was better to kneel. Suffering would join them to the suffering of Jesus on the cross.
When the clock in the sacristy struck half past eleven, Herb took off. It took Eddie a while to realize that he wasn’t coming back. He was now alone, the sole protector of the Blessed Sacrament. He felt the sobering thrill of so great a responsibility.
Time dragged. The clock in the sacristy chimed the quarter hours. At exactly noon old Mr. Langkammer climbed the stairs to the loft to ring out the Angelus. But he left as suddenly as he had come without looking into the church.
Eddie prayed with renewed energy, believing that his time of waiting would soon be over. The next shift would come and he could go home. Eddie could see himself coming home to his own piece of chicken, for today the family would have chicken, and his piece was a thigh.
Quarter past rang out, and still no one came. Eddie began to feel more and more faint from hunger and thirst. Half past twelve and 12:45 came and went. There was not a whisper of movement anywhere around the church. The silence deepened. He looked up at the statue of St. Therese and recited an Our Father for each of the roses in her arms, then a Hail Mary and even a Glory Be. The clock ran no faster.
At one o’clock Eddie began to have visions. He closed his eyes and saw himself lying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, dead of sheer exhaustion. People were gathering around his emaciated body.
“Couldn’t someone have come to help this poor little boy?”
“What a little hero. He is now in heaven. A saint.”
He envisioned them picking up his shrunken body and carrying it away in triumph. Even Mamma didn’t cry. She was so proud to have a son who gave his life to protect Jesus in the Sacrament.
A seraphic smile would glow on his face for all eternity. Boys of every age would flock to become altar boys and emulate the heroic example he had given. A shrine would be erected in the village and became a place of pilgrimage for all of Canada. Many miracles were done at his intercession.
Eventually, a more practical vision entered his mind. Eddie saw himself leaving the church to go across the road to the parish house to tell Father William that he needed to have a bite to eat before hecould go back, or at least a drink of water.
“Who is in the church?”
“Nobody.”
“You have left the church with no one to watch with the Lord?”
“Yes, but…”
“There can be no buts with the Lord. You will no longer serve at the altar. You cannot be trusted with the Blessed Sacrament under your care. And if you ever thought of being a priest, you can forget that dream right now. You are not worthy. God would never call you, since you could not watch a little while longer at the tabernacle. Go home. Your mother will be very sad when she hears what you have to tell her. You have broken her heart. And mine. Now get out.”
Eddie dared not risk that. He thought of throwing himself down and lying there until he would be found. And everybody would feel sorry for poor little Eddie.
But God would see. God would be displeased and write still another black mark behind his name. And in the final judgment the whole world would be told of his duplicity right in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament.
It was after two o’clock when a new shift of servers arrived, warm and sweaty under their cassocks. Without a word, they took their places.
On the way home Eddie had to run the gauntlet of a swarm of cousins and neighbors playing ball along the grassy roadway. More visions. He saw the ball game stop. The players stood in reverence as he passed, shading their eyes from the glory surrounding him. The older ones crossed themselves. With hands still folded in prayer from the long adoration, he passed, scarcely touching the ground. One of the girls reached out to touch him, then pulled her hand back, feeling unworthy to touch so holy a body.
In reality, they did notice his passage. “Get out of the way, you stupid little jerk1”
Eddie consoled himself that at home he would be greeted by a solicitous mother. She was sitting on the chesterfield in the corner, paging through the Spring and Summer Eaton’s catalog. The table was empty. Eddie looked for his chicken. Where was his piece of chicken? The kitchen was all cleaned up, the dishes put away.
“I thought maybe you had something with Father William, or the Sisters.”
“No, Mamma.”
“There’s bread in the pantry. You can use double smear.”
That night Eddie cried in deep bewilderment. Why was it that he felt so alone in his sacrifice today? Why had no one else recognized the importance of the responsibility he had taken on?
He finally fell asleep wondering. Had God seen? Did God maybe take notice and put a gold star behind his name that day?
