The Miracle of the Images. Welby Thomas Cox, Jr.

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СКАЧАТЬ told me that I was not to disclose the command to paint the portrait until the first miracle had been completed and then they were to be shared only with the Holy Father in Rome."

      "Tell noone Aldo...you are the handmade of the Lord." She said.

      "So each day for the past fifty years I have prayed the rosary to the faceless portrait and then on the fifteenth of August I watched as the faces took shape...faces that noone could ever imagine nor can I describe." Aldo said as he made his way to a chair and sat down, seemingly exhausted from the exchange.

      "Well its getting late, and I know Aldo goes to bed with the chickens." Father Francis said trying to introduce a little levity into a heavy moment.

      "Yes I always pray the rosary...before bed and I invite you to join with me now." Aldo asked.

      The priest knelt in place as Aldo began the Sorrowful mysterious. It took little time to pray the five decades and then Father Francis prepared to leave. It was very dark so Aldo turned on the large strobe to light his way to the car. He promised to return the next day, after lunch, to pick up the priest from Rome.

      Was the parking strobe light, the light, which awoke Aldo? Father Dalton thought to himself.

      As the visitors prepared for bed, Monsignor Voght requested to stay in Aldo's boyhood bedroom where the visitation took place. In only a few moments the house was quite and all the lights were out. Aldo was extremely tired and it was now an hour past his bedtime. In a moment he was fast asleep. Father Tim Dalton was feeling the effects of the flight from Rome. He tossed for a few moments and then fell into a deep and peaceful sleep as the sounds of the night prepared a cacophony of sounds and lights unheard in the city. The Monsignor wasted no time and seemed to be asleep before his head hit the thick goose-down filled pillow.

      Then it happened...the wind picked up and whistled through the windows of the Monsignor's bedroom...the bed began to shake. The Monsignor woke and held the sides of the bed, which seemed to be adrift at sea as it rocked from side to side. The lights, which Aldo had described, blasted through the frame of the door and through the cracks as well. Monsignor Voght attempted to pick up his two hundred fifty pounds from the rocking bed... put he was unable to gain any momentum. The door opened, but the Monsignor saw no one...he called out!

      "Who is it...Blessed Lady, I adore and worship you. I lay down my life for you, please grant me this moment so that I may die in the peaceful knowledge of your loving embrace."

      There was no vision... the light dissipated, the wind calmed and the bed set down on the floor. The Monsignor got out of bed and went to the door. He looked out from the doorway and down the hallway... only silence unfolded. He knelt down where the light had been so intense and he felt a field of sensation throughout his body. The hair stood on his head, neck, hands, legs, arms and pubic area. He did not know how long he had been kneeling in this place but his knees seemed to have been frozen...locked into the floor so that he was unable to get up. The Monsignor first sat down on the floor and then he rolled over on his side and tried to straighten his legs. They would not permit him to do so without intense pain but slowly the pain began to subside. He lay there flexing the knee joints and then he got back into the bed.

      He began to smell coffee and frying bacon. He knew that the incident had taken him through the night. A caller leaving him with a thought from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner... 'He prayeth best, who lovest best...all things large and small.' The Monsignor could not sleep so he prayed as he watched the formation of the sun and then new day.

      *******************

      Aldo had completed the breakfast and set the table in the dinning room before he called for the priest to come down. Father Dalton had risen to the smell of the coffee and bacon, showered, shaved and dressed in his compulsory black suit and white cleric collar. The Monsignor had on the same dress code with the exception that a small slice of red had been sewn beneath the white cleric collar to denote his rank as a Monsignor.

      The breakfast table was as inviting as was the dinner table. A large platter of scrambled eggs sat in the middle of the table. A platter of fried country cured ham, Job Bacon from the smoke house and sausage patties which Aldo had rendered from the hog killing last November after the first real hard freeze. A bowl of homemade applesauce sat beside cruets of freshly made strawberry, grape, peach and pear preserves. Steam rose from the biscuits and the gravy containing bits of sausage delivered the pungent smell of the sage in the sausage. The coffee filled the mugs with steaming darkness and a small pitcher of cream, which had been separated from the milk in the dairy processing on the farm sat nearby.

      The table with its farm fresh goodness on display was accentuated by two large freshly cut bouquets of red roses. The table took on the appearance of Thanksgiving...a celebration of the harvest and the bounty of God's own land.

      Father Tim expressed his gratitude to Aldo for the peaceful night after such a beautiful meal and evening. He complemented him as well for the feast they were about to partake and then the bell to the front door rang. Monsignor Voght jumped noticeably. Aldo went to the door and there stood Father Francis as though he had been orphaned. Aldo invited the good priest into the hallway and lead him down the hall to the dinning room where the other two priests were sitting waiting patiently for the host to say the blessing.

      "Father Francis has come to say the blessing of the meal and the day." Aldo laughed.

      "Father Francis, I'll set you a plate as you prepare." Aldo withdrew to the kitchen and returned with a setting of china and cutlery.

      Father Francis said the grace and then he read a short passage from his Marian Missal, after which the priest filled their plates with the morning morsels of goodness from down on the farm.

      "Aldo, I have said it before...we are going to abduct and carry you back to the Vatican as the personal cook for his Holy Father." Father Tim laughed as he commented.

      "Well we've only just elected the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI and it would be wonderful to think that his reign will be as long as that of his Holiness Pope John Paul II but, I doubt a diet containing all of this goodness would be in his healthy best interest." Father Francis smiled.

      "Interestingly," Aldo chimed in, "All of the items which you see here are natural including the preserves...with the exception of the spices there are no additives and it is a fact that my parents, the great parents and the great, great parents who were all products of this farm and this life lived well into their respective nineties. Well above the mortuary table of the expectation of the life table set by the actuaries."

      "Now Monsignor Voght, you seem to be a bit under the weather." Aldo said, "You have touched very little of your breakfast...perhaps I could get you a bowl of cereal or perhaps some very nice oatmeal."

      "Thank you no, Aldo...but I am well...its just that something happened to me in the night...I think...perhaps a visitor. I am not at all certain if it was a dream brought on by the exhaustion of the trip, the food and the wine but after I had fallen asleep, I was awaken by the wind whipping through the drapes and the rocking of the bed. Then a strobe light pierced the frame of the door and the cracks as well. I went to the door, opened it and knelt before the light but nothing happened...I held the crucifix in my hand and prayed but no one appeared. Then as quickly as it had commenced all the elements including the light disappeared.

      I knelt through the rest of the night. I do not know how long this took place. I was unable to get up because my weight had settled into my knees and I seemed paralyzed...attached to the floor. I was finally able to sit down and then to rollover on my side and begin to flex the joints of my knees. Throughout the experience my entire body seemed to be energized by an electric field which caused the hair on СКАЧАТЬ