Faith. Jennifer Haigh

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СКАЧАТЬ able to say it. Instead he found himself dumbstruck. Hastily he assigned her a penance, falling back with relief on the familiar words. Go in peace and sin no more. He pronounced the last words with particular emphasis, as though they exonerated him. As though in speaking them, he had discharged his duty.

      On the other side of the screen the kneeler creaked. Cindy Clay rose to go, a cloud of lilacs in her wake.

      EVERY PARISH had a Cindy Clay, or several. He was assigned next to St. Rose of Lima, on the North Shore. It was a parish of young families, its elementary school thriving. As the new assistant pastor, Father Breen functioned as a kind of youth minister, a duty that suited him perfectly. He trained altar boys and spoke to Confirmation classes. He did sacrament preparation for the tiny First Communicants, and subbed for a religion teacher in the parish school. The young mothers were his own age, grateful for his involvement. More than once he heard the wistful compliment—You would have been a wonderful father, Father—in a tone that was nearly flirtatious. If there was a proper way, a priestly way, of responding, Art never found it. He blushed, stammered, mumbled. Thank you. You’re very kind.

      Holy Redeemer, St. Rose, Our Mother of Sorrows: Art’s life as a priest divided into chapters. The newspaper accounts mention them only briefly. Father Breen served without incident.

      In the spring of 1994 he was assigned to Sacred Heart.

      Part 1

       2002

      Chapter 4

      Holy Week, for a priest, is like the year’s first snowfall: he knows it’s coming, yet somehow it always catches him off guard. The crowded Masses, the hundreds of confessions, the sickbed visits; the extra hours of sermon preparation, in a vain attempt to avoid repeating what’s been said a thousand times before. The hectic pace is shocking to a man who feels marginally useful most of the time. Art understood that to most of his flock, his services were not essential. At their baptisms, marriages and funerals his presence was expected, but in the intervening years they scarcely gave him a thought.

      He had grown up in the priesthood, and grown tired. In his early fifties he’d begun to grow old. He was a slight, nervous man, prone to stomach upset and a yearly bout of bronchitis—ailments he blamed on his two vices, coffee and cigarettes, dissipations even a priest was allowed. Over the years he’d lost hair and weight, energy and stamina. He felt, increasingly, that he’d lost his way. That Lenten season—the season of repentance—had shaken him profoundly. This year he had a great deal to repent. And yet, as he prepared to celebrate the Resurrection and Ascension, he felt a glimmer of his old sense of purpose, like a dream remembered. The sensation was short-lived but potent. It seemed, however briefly, that aggiornamento was still possible. That a new life lay ahead.

      The rituals of the season still touched him. The Palm Sunday gospel—Jesus riding into Jerusalem to cheering crowds, the shining moment of triumph before the looming betrayal—could move him nearly to tears.

      Behold, thy King cometh unto thee.

      That Holy Week was Art’s ninth at Sacred Heart, and though he didn’t yet know it, the final week of his ministry. Had he known, he might have skipped the endless parish council meeting that, due to a scheduling glitch, took place on Spy Wednesday, just four days before Easter.

      The meetings were a chronic source of frustration. The council had been appointed by the pastor, Father Aloysius, just before a stroke landed him at Regina Cleri, the archdiocesan home for aging priests. The old man clung stubbornly to his title even as Father Breen took over his duties. Because Art was still, nominally, a mere assistant pastor, any decision involving money—as in the end they all did—required approval from the Archdiocese. It was a slow, cumbersome process that demeaned him in the eyes of the council, seven men and two women, most old enough to be his parents. They were pious souls, fiercely loyal to the parish (all but one had been baptized there, a fact often mentioned) and hostile to any suggestion of change.

      Old themselves, they seemed not to notice the congregation shrinking and stooping around them, the young families leaving, the Communion lines shorter each year. At daily Mass the pews were mostly empty, dotted with gray heads. Unconcerned, the council reminisced about the old days, the elaborate church festivals, the parish high school so overenrolled that an entrance exam was needed to keep classes a manageable size.

      It had been, at one time, the largest suburban parish south of Boston; its parishioners came, in equal parts, from the towns of Dunster and Braintree. The church, school, rectory and parish hall occupied an entire block, thanks to a diocesan building boom that started in the 1950s, the era of packed masses and heavy collection baskets. The church itself was vast and modern, with a central altar and pews on three sides—a design much maligned by the older parishioners, who still called it the new church. (Its predecessor, with its Communion rail and elaborate statuary, had been destroyed by fire in the early seventies.) The sleek new structure, in their eyes, looked suspiciously Protestant: the Sacred Heart nowhere in evidence, the altar marked by a looming crucifix.

      That year Spy Wednesday was cold and rainy, like many nights in late March: the streets puddled, the storm grates loud with runoff. If the air were five degrees colder, Greater Boston would have been buried in snow. Art’s winter cold had blossomed into bronchitis, and a deep cough had lingered. An evening in bed would have done him good. Instead he dosed up with cough syrup and wound a muffler around his throat.

      That night’s meeting was held in the church basement, the parish hall already in use by a local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous. Art had offered them the building while the Unitarian hall was under renovation—sparking complaints from the council, who groused that the hall was for parishioners’ use only. Art had refrained from speculating how many AA members likely belonged to Sacred Heart.

      He was greeted outside by Flip Finn, who stood beneath an awning at the back door. His real name was Philip, but in the parish he was known by the childhood nickname. For Art it evoked visions of trained seals, an impression reinforced by Flip’s short limbs and narrow shoulders and smooth bald head.

      “Evening, Father. They’re all here except Marilyn.” He nodded toward the church basement. “Smells a little damp, if you ask me. You might want to get the dehumidifier running. You could grow mushrooms down there.” A former engineer for the MBTA transit line, he kept busy in retirement by delivering a constant stream of technical advice to those in need, women and priests especially. Like many competent men, Flip was genuinely alarmed by such people, with their minimal understanding of the physical world and, when its systems broke down, their limited ability to cope.

      They walked together down the stairs, into a wide, low-ceilinged room lit by fluorescent tubes. Used by the elementary school as a lunchroom, it retained a sandwich smell, peanut butter and tuna fish. At one of the long tables sat the council members, still wearing their coats.

      “Father, it’s freezing down here,” said Kay Cleary, rubbing her plump arms. “Any chance we can turn up the heat?”

      “I’m on it,” said Joe Veltri, springing to his feet. He was a small, spry man who worked part-time as the church custodian, a job Father Aloysius had created when Joe was laid off from Raytheon.

      Art sat at one end of the table, Flip Finn at the other. Flip cleared his throat. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so I say we dive in. No sense waiting for anyone,” he said pointedly.

      “I agree,” Kay said.

      Just then Marilyn Burke swept into the room, shaking her wet raincoat. “Sorry, sorry. Traffic was murder. The rain,” she said, taking the empty seat next to Art.

      She was СКАЧАТЬ