REQUIEM AETERNAM

 

Matt Hermann turned for one final, painful look at the little log cabin before it disappeared behind a gentle rise in the prairie road.  What he found so unbearably hard to accept was that he had actually survived the terrible drought in spite of losing his first farm and falling into the trap of renting a quarter section of submarginal land.

Now he experienced defeat just when the rains had returned with the promise of prosperity.  The crops he had harvested with the help of his neighbors paid all his outstanding debts.  His defeat came from something far more frightening, more final than the quirks of weather, something he could not fight against.  He had to give up farming, stop working altogether.

No amount of natural optimism could replace the conviction that without his farming, his labor, his large family would face hardship and poverty that would make the drought seem like a perpetual picnic.

Why did life have to deal him a losing hand?  It was not fair.  He flicked the reins rather too harshly on the rumps of the team of horses he had borrowed, and the grain wagon, loaded with poor and simple household goods, lurched forward a little faster in the direction of Lake Sand where it had all begun.

Matt paid more attention to the land than usual.  Most of the farmlands had been harvested.  Some had already begun their fall cultivation.  Poplars sported bright yellow suits now.  In a few days the wind would blow the leaves away, and the colors would be gone.  Berry trees among the bushes sported reds and rich browns.  He loved the gentle curves of small hills, the glorious blue of a small body of water along the road.  He caught his breath in admiration as a sleek deer bounded across the road in front of him, jumped effortlessly over a fence, and made for a small poplar grove.  Maybe this would be the last time he would travel this road, he mused ruefully.

At least he was going home, and the children could go to school regularly and be taught by the Sisters.  And the parish priest would be handy when the time came.

Like so many other Minnesota farmers, the Hermann family migrated to the rolling plains of Saskatchewan shortly after the turn of the century when dryland farming had proven itself, and when the world began its clamor for number one hard Canadian wheat.  Aspen groves and clear fresh water lakes alternated with long prairie grass and promised to yield magnificent harvests year after year.

The Lake Sand homesteaders had experienced a few years of light summer rainfall, but the heavy yellow clay of the subsoil held enough moisture to sustain reasonable crops.  With generous snowfall and normal rains the following year, the land produced as if there had been no interruption in the moisture cycle.

But a sustained drought was another matter.  Drained of moisture, the subsoil turned hard as rock.  Most farmers had overworked their land, and the once rich black loam turned into gray powder.  Helplessly, the farmers watched the wind drift their land into foot-high banks around every clump of thistle.  Great dust storms lifted the soil and bore it eastward, God only knew where.

Matt’s father had arrived with the first wave of immigrants.  Something of a patriarch, he doled out a quarter section to each son as he married.  But he failed to attend to such legal niceties as transferring title to the land.  What did it matter?  It was all in the family.

Matt did not know that his father had taken a private mortgage on his quarter even though a government mortgage was available.

“No, Hank,” the wealthy Kusch patriarch had insisted.  “You can’t trust those government deals.  They’ll cut you right off, and you’ll lose your land.  You know how they hate us Catholics out here.  I’ll mortgage your land.  You can trust me.”

But when hard times came and the Hermanns defaulted on two consecutive payments, Bernard Kusch foreclosed.  He would hear of no alternatives.  So Matt’s quarter with its grey little house and the log outbuildings all went to young Bill Kusch.

In time Matt found a somewhat abandoned quarter section of land about thirteen miles from Lake Sand.  It had no buildings, with only sixty acres open.  On the south side was a large depression which in normal years would be a slough.  A gentle ravine cut diagonally across the north side.  Nothing like the lost quarter, but it was something.

But Matt was not one to dwell on bitter thoughts.  Kind new neighbors came for three days in a row to help build a log house on the south bank of the ravine.  How they struggled and sweat with the not-too-straight poplar logs to make them fit together!

Before long the family came to appreciate the generosity of bachelor Mike Bilter across the road.  How many times he rescued a meal with a prize specimen from his huge vegetable garden.

And in the east bush live old Paul Erlinder, trapper, almost hermit.  He never tired to showing the boys his well-used traps and the smelly skins of rabbits, weasels, and skunks hanging stretched over boards on every spare nail inside and outside his untidy cabin.

And his wife.  What a sweetheart Laura was!  Never did she breathe a word of complaint, even when she could have blamed him for tinkering with a harness or whittling a toy when he could have been out chopping wood to sell or trade for a bag of flour or sugar.  She pitched in with every fiber of her neat little body so often big with his children.

Matt Hermann had always taken pride in his own body too.  Hardened by work, his muscles stood out firmly on his arms and back and chest.  His well-shaped hands could be as gentle as they were strong.  People instinctively took to Matt, not only for his handsome good looks, but for the quiet honesty and frankness that seemed to surround him like an aura.

The second summer at Minkle proved especially heartbreaking.  No other description would do.  The one-room log house, separated only by blankets, presented more and more problems for a family now numbering six children.

The barley just in front of the house came up as if miraculously from the caked soil.  Time after time the wind-driven dust sheared it off at ground level.  And the thin growth of late July, barely seven inches tall in most places, headed out even more thinly.

“The roots must go down half a mile,”  he told Laura one evening as they locked arms while staring at a crop that would yield little more than seed for next year, and perhaps a bit of feed for the few animals Matt had decided to keep.  Certainly they would not be able to begin to pay debts this year.

But the summer was not all unhappiness.  Matt followed up on a remark he heard one Sunday after Mass and found a few days work at clearing brush for a new farmer.  As payment he accepted a small pony.  A thrill of pride swelled through him when he saw the faces of the boys as they caught sight of him leading it homeward up the road.

“Can I ride her?”

“Can I lead her home?”

She shied only a very little bit as hands reached out to pet her velvet nose and sides.

“Is she really ours, Daddy?”  They couldn’t believe such luck.

“Yeap.  But you’ll have to look after her.  Careful there, Johnny.  Let her get used to you first.”

Gentle Bessie joined Boss in the pasture behind the barn, where they soon became inseparable companions.  The two older boys, now seven and eight, would no longer have to walk the three and a half miles to Lang Valley School.

One particularly hot afternoon several weeks later, Laura was kneading bread in her big enamel bowl.  Suddenly she looked up.  Something felt wrong outside.  She wrung the flour from her hands as she hurriedly checked the two little girls playing contentedly with colored yarns in the corner near the crib where the baby slept.

With mounting fear, she opened the door.  The day’s brightness had fled.  She found the boys across the creek, their play interrupted as they fixed their attention on the western sky.  They headed for the house.  High, dark whirlwinds scuttled and bounced across the fields.  She called for them to hurry, anxiously wondering where Matt was.  They had talked about disking some new breaking.

A sudden gust of hot wind whipped her apron and skirt up around her legs.  Dust bit harshly into her face, her legs, her arms, as, in mother-hen fashion, she rounded up her brood.

“No, Danny!”  She tried to hide the alarm in her voice.  “Bessie will take care of herself.  Come in the house, right now!”

It took all of her strength to pull the door shut, even though she waited for the lull between frighteningly powerful blasts.  The whole sky had turned a dull yellow, a hot and dirty yellow.  She huddled the children around the stump of blessed candle on a low stool.

She plucked the rosary from its nail on the wall and began to pray.

“I believe in God, the Father almighty. . .”

Darker and darker the gloom of the violent dust storm descended upon the tiny circle of kneeling figures.  The house shook and groaned.  The candle flickered and threatened to go out.

“My eyes hurt, Mama.”

“Keep them closed.  Don’t look up.  Pray for Daddy.”

“Hail Mary, full of grace. . .”

“Mama, I think the toilet just blew over!  I heard it!”

“Will the house blow down too, Mama?”

Their praying became frantic.  “Mama, why doesn’t God make the wind go away?”

“Where is Daddy?”

“Will the wind kill him?”

“No, Daddy will be all right.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”  Inside, her fear struggled for release as darkness and the howling wind took over her world.

Around six o’clock the wind died as suddenly as it had sprung up.  The dust settled.  The sun glared down on the new arrangements of dust dunes.

The boys couldn’t wait to get out of the oppressive heat of the house to watch for Matt or the tractor.  Meanwhile, they surveyed the damage to the outhouse, which they discovered had rolled about fifteen yards from its original setting, but had remained otherwise intact.  A brief attempt to roll it back convinced them that they must wait for a stronger hand.

A visit to the barn proved that all the animals had survived without apparent hurt.  The mounds of new dust invited them to rival the wind in producing wonderful designs, and they forgot their concern for Matt.

Inside the house, Laura initiated the endless task of clearing the fine dust out of the shelves and dishes.  The windowsills received an unusual amount of attention as she sought the approaches to the house for signs of Matt.

She fought back the emotional release when Danny burst in with an excited, “Daddy’s coming!  Daddy’s coming!”

Everyone clamored for first attention to report discoveries of what changes the storm had brought.  It took a sharp reprimand from Laura before Matt could tell his tale.

“You know, that wind was so strong it moved the John Deere!  We had to leave it and lie down in a furrow.”  He explained to the children how they had pulled their shirts up over their ears and almost choked to death before the storm had worn itself out.

“Were you afraid, Daddy?”

“You bet I was.”

“Just pretend it’s pepper,” Matt told the children as their teeth ground on the fine dirt that had found its way into their supper.

“But I don’t like pepper,” wailed Katie.

Matt swept her off her chair unto his lap, rumpled her thick dark hair.  “Then you’ll just have to pretend it’s cinnamon.”

He wept silent tears of frustration as he held Laura tight in bed that night.  He could see no break in the succession of misfortunes that had overtaken them.  Yet, in her arms he dared to hope again as sleep smoothed the creases from his brow.  Tomorrow would be better.

A few days after the big storm when things had settled down to normal, Matt borrowed a team of horses and a wagon from Mike Bitter to look for work in Minkle, any kind of work, anything to yield enough to buy much-needed groceries.  Five year old Johnny and little Katie had gone along.  The search proved futile.

He waited till near the end of the day to approach Murray’s store just before old Tim Murray could lock up.  Begging had never suited Matt’s temperament, but he simply had to talk the thin, white-faced grocer into more credit.

“But you already owe us eleven dollars and forty seven cents, Mr. Hermann.  When do you think you can pay that back?  What kind of crop have you got?”

No need to ask that, thought Matt.  He knows very well that no one has anything worthwhile.  Aloud he said, “It’s not very good, I know.  But I’ll make it up to you, you can take my word.”

In the end Tim Murray gave him the necessities, meticulously entering each item and totaling it up three times to make sure he hadn’t lost a precious penny anywhere.  If Matt could have hated, he would have hated this man, making him stand there humiliated in front of his children, whose solemn looks of concern forced him to swallow his pride, wink slyly and give them a wry smile.  Then he snatched up the box of groceries abruptly, mumbled a not-altogether sincere thank you, and hustled out to the wagon.

“Daddy, why didn’t anybody hire you today?”

“I don’t really know.  Maybe nobody needed any work done today.”

He breathed a deep sigh of relief when the children curled themselves up on a pile of blankets and promptly fell asleep.  It saved him trying to explain what couldn’t be explained. Nothing in the world seemed to be going in his favor.  But he felt that wasn’t true.  His mind wandered free.  He loved the pattern of the poplar groves curling around the rolling hills.  This land, given just a bit of rain, would flourish again.  The rains would come back.  He began to sing softly.  The horses pricked up their ears a little and leaned just a bit more willingly into their collars.

Two days later it came.

Without warning.

He had just pumped water for the chickens and pigs and now had the better pail on the pump for drinking water.  Suddenly all the muscles of his chest contracted.  He couldn’t breathe.  It caught him like a blow from a log.  He sagged over the pump handle, his left hand hanging limply at his side.  Only one thought possessed him.  Laura.  He must reach Laura.  He forced himself upright and propelled himself toward the house.

Then his chest exploded.

Immediately the pain disappeared.  He was floating.  From some indeterminate distance above he saw the children run screaming from different parts of the yard.  Almost indifferently now he caught sight of Laura wringing her hands on a white apron, rushing headlong down the slope toward the pump.

Through a white fog he heard them.

“Daddy.”

“Daddy!”

“Matt!”

“Daddeee!”

He loved them all. How he loved them.  But now he experienced peace, peace such as he had never believed possible.  He could watch time stand still, could analyze and savor each tiny moment, each sound, each nuance of color and line, all for as long as he pleased.  He could freeze an expression on each face and study it.

They kept calling, each voice a musical world of its own, blending into the sounds of gentle songbirds on the fence.  They clawed at his clothing.  Laura was kneeling at his side, her hands on his face, but he felt none of that.

He shifted his gaze upward into incredible brightness and calm.  How could it all be so beautiful?  How could he compare this with the dingy earth, where all his sweat had yielded him nothing, where the creek had dried up before the full summer warmth had even begun, where one skinny horse and a skinnier cow placidly ignored the little scene below, where barefoot little creatures swarmed all over his body.

“Daddy, Daddy, DADDY!” They screamed hysterically.

“No.  It is better on this side.  Don’t you see?  Look up and you’ll see me.  I’m right up here.  It’s beautiful up here.”

They fought over him, pulled at his arms, pounded on his limp body.

He looked up at the cool place above for direction, for some sign, but he knew there would be none.

He began a systematic concentration on his little brood below.  Danny, so generous, so earnest, so open to the world.  Freddy, the grasper, so much in need of a strong hand to pull him out of mischief.  Johnny, the tousle-headed dreamer, so in need of a push to inspire him.  And the girls, so beautiful despite the rough little hands, the scuffed knees, the dirty toenails.

And all of then clinging to Laura. Little Laura.  His memory took him back over the gentleness of their first embrace;  how eagerly she had responded to his own tender, almost cautious advances.  That first real kiss.  He saw her now abandoned.  Where would she go for help?  She’s so young yet.  He caught a vision of her with another man, one not so gentle, one who would take her instead of give to her.

No!

That could not happen.  He dared not let that happen.  He fought off a last desperate desire to just let it all go, to be free, to look again at the inviting prospect above him.  “I’ll come back!”  he was shouting, screaming, as the hammering in his chest began again.  Just when he thought he must burst apart, he flung himself with a mighty heave through the blackness.  He was breathing again.

“What happened, Daddy?”

“Matt, what is it?”

“I guess I fainted — just passed out.”

The looks on their faces plainly told him they did not believe that simple explanation.  They had witnessed his face distorted with terrible agony.  Complete and utter exhaustion held him in so powerful a grip that he could not rise to his feet.  Half crawling, half carried, he made his way to the house.  He raised no objection when Laura suggested he lie down till suppertime.

“Come away now, kids.  Go outside and play.  Let Daddy rest a while.”

Sounds of whispering and muffled sounds of supper preparation intruded on his consciousness only vaguely as he drifted into shallow valleys of sleep.  “I must have dozed off,” he explained lamely as he took his seat at table where the family was already half finished.  They made no effort to hide their apprehension as they watched him move about so slowly.  Like an old man, like someone not at all sure of his place.

Oppressive silence replaced the normal chatter and bickering around the table.  For once, Laura would have welcomed a spat.  But even the youngest did not fail to catch the significance of Matt’s ashen features.  Their strong father had been reduced in an hour to a weakling who could hardly move his chair up to the table.  It took more energy than he had to lift his arm high enough to feed himself, and in the end left all but a small mouthful of potatoes on his plate.

He knew they didn’t  believe him when he grumbled that he was all right now, that he would be better in the morning.  He dragged himself back to bed where he fell instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep.

“Would you like some coffee, Matt?”

“Wh . . What time is it?”

“It’s about noon.”

“Is it really!”

“How do you feel, Matt?”

“All right now.  Where are the kids?”

“They’re all outside playing.  You really slept good.  I don’t think you moved a muscle all night.”

“Did you sleep, Laura?”  He felt a twinge of guilt as he realized he was sprawled over the center of the bed.

“You’ll have to see a doctor, Matt.  They say there’s a good one in Lake Sand.  He comes out every Wednesday.”

“You know we can’t afford that.  Do you know what doctors charge, Laura?  I’ll be all right.”

But after two weeks he could do no more than eat and sleep.  Laura and the boys managed the chores, but the farm work simply had to wait.  He said nothing about the strange experience of leaving his body.  He did not understand it, could not have found words to talk about it, and would only have frightened and hurt them.

In time rest and food restored some of his strength.  Gradually he resumed his normal round of work, being careful to find excuses to rest every time the pain threatened his chest.

Despite a terrifying tiredness that eroded his confidence, he made it through the long winter.  In spite of his efforts to appear perfectly normal, he did not deceive Laura.  Finally he told her more firmly than he had ever spoken to her that he wanted to hear no more of sickness or doctors or hospitals.  After that, each had to carry the devil of fear alone.

Spring came early.  April blessed the earth with quiet rains and warm sun.  Even the natural pessimism born of the drought could not hold back the smiles and bright eyes as farmers gathered briefly after Sunday Mass.

This spirit captured Matt body and soul.  He forgot his caution and fear.  Then on a dusty day in July, just as he forked the last great load of hay onto the huge stack by the barn, he was stricken again.  Laura found him doubled over, gasping for life.  And this time he raised no argument when Laura pointed out that the doctor would be in Lake Sand on the morrow.  He wanted to live.

It seemed as if the doctor would never finish listening to his heart.  Finally, as if he had waited as long as possible to give his verdict to this strong young farmer, he announced, “You have a serious heart problem.  The valves which control the amount of blood moving from one part of the heart to the other are not functioning properly.  Let me show you in a drawing.”

Matt stared at the simple explanation.  So much like the valves of a motor, he thought.  “What can be done?”

“Nothing as far as I know.  They’re studying some new techniques in the States, working on animals.  That looks promising, but nobody has tried it on humans.  You’ll simply have to avoid  any physical exertion.  Your heart can’t take it.”

“But I’m a farmer.  That’s all I know what to do.  How else can I make a living?  I have no education.  And I’ve got a big family to feed.”

“I don’t know how you’ll manage, but I can tell you that your heart won’t stand up under any kind of pressure.  You have to get off the farm, Matt.  You have no choice about that.  Your wife will find you dead some day.  And you’ll be wise to avoid intercourse too.  That’s hard on the heart.”

“Just when the crops are good.  It’s not fair!” Laura complained bitterly at first.  Yet, both of them had been taught to accept life as it came, been taught to accept fate as the will of God which could not be questioned.  They set everything in motion for the move to Lake Sand to a little cottage a maiden aunt made available to them.  She had suffered a bad fall and would be more comfortable with her sister anyway.  Matt tried to insist that she should not have to give up her house, but he had no alternative.

The first night in the new house brought home the cruelty of fate.  For the first time in many years Matt and Laura had their own bedroom.  He awoke just as the first sparrows began to chirp the arrival of a new day.  Laura was curled up warm in his embrace.

“Matt, you know what the doctor said.  You don’t want to die in my arms, do you?”

“I couldn’t think of a better place or a better way to go.”

“What about the kids, Matt?  And we can’t take a chance on having any more.  Matt, don’t!  Please!”

So that was that too, he thought bitterly.  He released her and turned over.  Silence.

“You’re not mad at me, are you, Matt?”

“No.”

Matt drifted from one job to another.  Although he retained his naturally gentle outlook, life was simply not life without work.  Lake Sand offered few chances of employment at work requiring little physical exertion, and when he discovered a natural affinity for bookkeeping, he could find no one to offer to pay him for that talent.

The livery stable, the lumberyard, the curling rink, all in the end proved too much.  He found it impossible to walk home sometimes without sitting down to rest.  At such times, the children would find him and rush to him.  Laura, not wanting to create a scene, would wait anxiously at home for him to rise stiffly and plod home with his cluster of silent little ones.

Finally, Uncle Jake, who owned the Lake Sand Hotel on Main Street, offered him a job in the beer parlor.  It proved interesting only for a very short time.  Matt had little stomach for slinging beer to men who had already had too much, and too little cash to pay for it.  He abhorred cleaning up the foul-smelling messes deposited on floors and tables by soused neighbors.  He wound up drinking too much himself occasionally and would crawl sheepishly into bed, glad that Laura said nothing, but feeling her reproaches even more deeply for her not speaking out.

His boys became familiar with the beer parlor too.  Each Saturday morning they accompanied Matt to give the greasy wooden floor a thorough scrubbing with huge mops and brushes.  The sour-sweet smell of stale beer disappeared by the time the heavy old tables and chairs were put back into place.  They saved the worst job to the end, the cleaning of the little room off the lounge, with its long tin trough and unbelievably foul stench, which nothing could take away.

For Matt, his beer parlor job represented the ultimate defeat.  Something deep inside stopped fighting.  Cruel nature had robbed him of his farm.  A quirk of fortune had crippled his heart.  He now bowed to the inevitable fate of waiting for life to play its final trick on him.

Although he tried to hide his bitter hopelessness from his family, he knew they knew it.  He saw it in their eyes too.  He tried to laugh, but it sounded forced, hollow, artificial.  He began to lose weight.  There was no hiding the haunted hollowness in his eyes.  He walked ever slower, husbanding what strength he had for the losing battle ahead.  There was really nothing to do.  That’s the way life is, he told himself.  You can’t fight it.  God made it that way for reasons of his own, and who are we to question him?

Laura shared his de-energizing despair in silence.  They dared not speak of it openly, but each recognized the meaning of the signs.  She could imagine no other way to deal with their tragedy but to wait and pray for the strength to accept what God had in store for them.

In the mid-afternoon of a gloriously sunny day after a heavy rain of the day before,  Herb Hermann had taken Matt out to look at the crops.  He had pulled off the road into the ditch before realizing that the ditch was full of water.  He was immediately stuck.  Matt was out of the car and grabbing the rear bumper before Herb could stop him.

On that same afternoon during the final recess, the church bell suddenly began to toll.  The village had lost one of their number.  The ragged ball games came to a momentary halt as the school children searched each other’s faces.  Someone they knew was gone, irretrievably gone.

All eyes turned on Sister Antonia hurrying toward them.  She was all out of breath.  “I would like to see . . . the Matt Hermann boys in the parlor.”  She bustled on ahead of them back to the school, her black habit flapping despite the quiet day.  She had to collect her thoughts for the message she would have to deliver.

“You know your father has not been well for a long time . . .” she began.  The rest of her words blurred into a meaningless mumble.  Numb and shaken, they had to be told twice, “You may go into the chapel to pray.”

There they found their little sisters on their knees, already weeping softly.  Young as they all were, they understood enough of life to know that their Daddy had finally found peace.

For them it was not so simple.  What were they supposed to do now?  Then Danny, under the weight of responsibility he hardly dared think of, gathered them together.

“Come on, Let’s go home.”

 

 

 

 

 

S

 

 

 

 

 

SO SIMPLE THE CHOICE

 

Pete Germaine knew something was wrong as soon as he walked into Father Bill Delcoe’s office in St. Simon’s.  Immediately, Father Bill’s stare, reptilian in its shocking coldness, jarred him into the realization that he should have paid attention to that tiny twitch of misgiving he felt when he found, posted on his office door, the new pastor’s curt, “You have a meeting with me today at 3:30.”

Pete Germaine was the kind of man who did what was right day after day.  No fanfare.  Just a dogged pursuit of duty.  He had left the seminary just before ordination, choosing, after a three-year hitch in the army, to return to the family farm.

For the last eight years he had been employed as the Religious Formation Coordinator at St. Simon’s.  He could honestly say that he had lived a life of obedience to God, to his country, and to the parish, something he attributed as much to the army as to his religion.   He was proud of the fact that he always went the extra mile.

Now he was hearing Father Bill say, “I don’t know who you are. I am concerned about some of your work in the parish and in the community.”

No other introduction.   Then that chilling stare.  Was he supposed to say something?  He waited.

He knew he was doing good work and was respected for his ministry.

“You will have to discontinue your hospital ministry,” Father Bill continued.

“My hospital ministry?”

“I’ve done some checking and I have talked to some people.  I have also been in contact with the canon lawyers in the chancery office.  We are concerned that you are posing as a priest and doing ministry only priests can do.”

Unbidden thoughts crossed Pete’s mind.  Then why are there no priests around to do it?  Why don’t those who are here do the work?  Why do they have unlisted phone numbers?  But Pete said nothing.  He thought of the many people whom he had served in their dying moments, of those to whom he had brought the Lord in Communion, praying with them, and assuring them of the love of the all-forgiving God.  He had slipped into this work so gradually that it seemed the natural thing to do.

“You will also stop doing funeral services of any kind.”  The priest was now no longer looking at him.   “You will no longer do any Communion services in church or any preaching.  You will confine yourself to administrative tasks only, and coordinate the catechetical program of the children.  That is all we have in your original job description.”

“You mean I can’t. . .”

“Yes.  I say you must stop all other ministry as of now.”

Pete was painfully aware that his fatigued clothing and pudgy form must have been a poor vehicle for God when compared to the elegantly pressed black suit and the pure white Roman collar of the ordained priest.

For a moment he thought, how odd it was that he ever imagined that his knobby workman hands could be vehicles of sacramental grace when compared to the meticulously manicured and anointed hands of Father Bill, hands now indulgently stroking a gold pen, now making powerful pyramids. Years of pride in his ministry evaporated from Pete in less than ten minutes.  He felt contaminated somehow, as if he had betrayed his values in his work.  In those few minutes this arrogant man upset his sense of fulfillment and turned it into vainglorious pride.

But Pete’s mind refused to stop there.  Does God’s grace flow only as if by magic through the stark formulas of the Roman Ritual and the speck of oil on the sacred thumb of the ordained priest?   Did he not experience God at work in his loving touch when he rubbed great gobs of the holy oils into the forehead and hands and feet of the sick while praying for healing of body, mind, and spirit?  Did not God’s word flow from his lips and from his heart when he conducted funeral services for people who had turned away from the church?

“You mean to destroy me, don’t you?”  Pete blurted it out before thinking, before considering what effect this might have.  He should have remained silent.

“Are you questioning my authority?” Father Bill demanded angrily.  “May I remind you that the Scripture clearly says that Jesus gave the power of the sacraments only to priests.  You are acting in heresy when you use the holy oils or the ritual as if you had the power of the priesthood.  He who hears you hears me, Jesus said.  The authority of the magisterium of the Catholic Church has always taught this.”

The priest finished,  “You must listen to me to find the will of God for your ministry.  I expect you to obey me without question.  If you do not, you have two weeks notice as of today.  A letter will be in your mail to that effect later today.”

Pete left the office in confusion, drained of courage or resolve.  At 75 years of age, with a semi-invalid wife, and no savings, he felt he could not begin again.  But could he work under the authority of a petty tyrant like this and retain any sense of honesty?  He rushed to the church and knelt before the altar in deep anguish.  The lingering scent of incense heightened his acute awareness of the divine presence.  “Tell me, Lord Jesus, what am I to do now?”

The answer came swiftly, without a trace of ambiguity.  This was not about Peter Germaine doing priestly work.  This was all about power and control.  He had roused the sleeping giant of the clerical establishment.  He had never imagined that some day, today, he would be choosing between Jesus Christ and his church authority.  Yet, here it was, so stark, so clear, so simple.

The rush of gladness and freedom caught Pete by surprise.  Hope burst forth in a mighty surge as the words of Jesus struck home.

“Do not worry yourself at all about having enough food and clothing.  Those without faith are always running after these things.  You have no need to be concerned about them.  Your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and he will see that you have enough.  So don’t be anxious about tomorrow.  God will take care of your tomorrow too.  Live one day at a time.”

Pete could not wait to go home to tell Clara that they were now free to pursue their dream of returning to a simpler life on the farm.