Twentieth Century Limited Book One - Age of Heroes. Jan David Blais
“Who are these people? And what are those... things hanging off them?”
“Those are natives, ti-Paul,” he stammered. “That’s how... how God makes natives.” The truth came out later, but Panama fueled my curiosity about what might lie over the horizon. Or under, as the case may be.
Religion occupied much of our time. First time I peeked into the thick, soft-covered catechism book I thought, neat! A question-answer game, page after page. How wrong I was! Every night, twenty sets of questions to memorize. Spelling and arithmetic mattered, but in the most solemn tone Ssstamargramary said this little book was something far, far greater, our guidebook to eternal life. Even the music we studied, most of it, was for Church. Chant, with little square notes.
So all right, why was I put on this earth? Why did God make me? What kind of person does He want me to be? All of a sudden I had answers to questions I had never asked. My world, the only world I knew, to which I was attached with a mostly pleasant bond, was a stepping stone to something else, and a slippery step at that, a place of sorrow and danger for piling up credits for the next life. Disobey the commandments of God or His Church? Better you had never been born! Heaven! Hell! Eternity! More than forever, if you can imagine, which you can’t, so don’t even try.
I was astonished to learn the dismal legacy of our first parents which somehow led straight to me. It was unsettling to learn about my evil tendencies, worse yet, that they were about to erupt. I had shown some limited talent for getting into trouble, but never had I felt evil or ashamed. Yet there it was in writing and the person of Ssstamargramary. All God’s children are connected to each other under Him, but what was supposed to be a beautiful and happy time had turned to ashes. Literally.
O God I am not worthy, that Thou shouldst come to me.
But speak the words of comfort, my spirit healed shall be!
Not worthy? That made no sense. Punished for things that happened long before I was born or my parents or my grandparents. But I was reminded of certain indisputable facts. I had the dark hair and eyes of my father, didn’t I? A fact. Some unfortunates were deformed or sightless from birth, I was not. A fact, though I’d never met anybody like that. Some people were rich men’s sons but I was not. A fact. The Divine Plan touches every one of us, and just because I had nothing to say about it doesn’t make it unfair. God is the Creator, I am the creature. Big difference. If God had wanted my opinion, He would have asked. But to my vast relief, I discovered our weak human condition is not the end of the story, not by a long shot.
I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord... crucified, died and was buried... rose from the dead... seated at the right hand of the Father... will come again to judge the living and the dead...
The God of Abraham and Isaac, of Moses and David, the one with long gray hair and flowing robes, He turns out to be the only true God. And astonishingly, He so loved the world He sent His only Son to heal our sin and help us to heaven. God acts, we conform. The try counts but results do too, and there’d better be plenty of those or He’ll know you’re faking. He knows everything. Even before it happens, He knows.
What a world! How wonderful to be part of it!
TRAINING INTENSIFIED as we prepared for our First Holy Communion. Sister Perpetua, our second grade teacher, looked on as the pastor questioned, prodded, explained. Father Donnelly was tall, with a shock of thick white hair. His voice was low and chalky but Sundays when he wound up you had no trouble hearing him, even in back. He wasn’t gloomy like Father Maloney, but sometimes he exploded for no particular reason. My mother said he talked too much about money. Here also began my acquaintance with Latin, the mumbling from the altar I had only a foggy idea about. Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam...in remissionem peccatorum.
I finally figured out what it meant to believe. If people you know really well tell you something it must be true, especially if they’re all saying the same thing. Your parents, the nuns, the priests, especially the priests. Things written in books can be believed, but you don’t know the people who wrote them so better you listen to who you know. This belief thing is complicated, but fortunately there are people whose job it is to steer us straight.
Never was I asked whether I believed. It never entered my mind I might choose not to believe. The nuns and priests expected what they told us to stick, and with me it certainly did. Saints and angels, the Blessed Virgin, bells and candles, I believed in them the same way I believed in the air I breathed. Later, I was surprised to meet normal people who disagreed with what to me was so obvious. Back then I didn’t know anybody like that, having heard only vaguely about such people. From my haven I felt sorry for them, whoever they were, missing out on the joy of my wonderful world. No wonder they were lost. I’d have been lost too, without the divine roadmap it was my privilege to inherit. I figured, if God wanted their opinion, He would have asked.
With the big day nearing, arithmetic, geography, all worldly concerns were set aside. How does the Sacrament of Penance remit sin and restore to the soul the friendship of God? What is the Holy Eucharist? Why did Christ institute it? And the question that bothered me most – how can the wafer look so different from what it has become? Father Donnelly had the answer to that one, too – it is a mystery. If we could see God, there’d be no need for faith, would there? If we knew everything God knows, we would ourselves be God, which deserves no comment. I closed my eyes. What is mystery? Does it have color? Is it like the sun that helps you see but if you stare at it you go blind? No, mystery can’t be like that because light reveals things. Mystery must be dark. Black.
Once when I was small, I bought a vanilla cone from the truck that drove down our street ringing a bell. It was a hot day and my cone began to leak. I licked so hard the scoop fell off and onto the sidewalk. I put it back on the cone but now there was this little puddle on the sidewalk. Here’s what I could never understand. To this very day, through rain, snow and countless feet, there exists a chalky white patch in that very spot on the sidewalk in front of Malloy’s house. Was this a mystery? Or is mystery tied up only with religion? I thought of asking Father Donnelly but didn’t have the nerve.
With so much at stake I couldn’t fail, I wouldn’t fail. How much time we spent in church I don’t know, but we were there early and late, rising, sitting, kneeling in the cavernous space, dark except for a few lights and candles and the red lamp telling us Jesus was present in the tabernacle. The radiators clanged against the chill, and sweet incense hung in the air. Wooden pews that turn sticky in the heat of summer were cool and smooth, grooved from generations of fingernails, wads of gum under the benches.
The girls whispered and giggled and my friends fooled around, but that ended when our teacher came up the aisle with her weapon, two pieces of hard wood hinged with a rubber band she’d snap to warn of a rap on the ear or across the knuckles. Tall, sandy-haired Father McAdam was in charge. He was the only one of our priests you dared talk to. Younger than the others, he helped with the CYO. It was strange seeing a priest shooting baskets, though he always wore black pants in the gym, I guess that was a rule. When they weren’t snapping those knuckle killers, the nuns fussed over Father McAdam, especially the girls’ teacher, who was kind of pretty, which I also thought odd.
I was fifth in line as our class lined up in the center aisle. The girl beside me was quite a bit taller, which would have been embarrassing except my attention was on the back of Margaret Foley’s head. I was taller than Margaret, which was fortunate, because I was in love with her. When she walked, her banana curls swayed side to side and even from behind I could picture the freckles on her face. I’d never really spoken to her because we didn’t see the girls much and you wouldn’t be caught dead at recess talking to one. My brother Jim was big enough to get away with talking to girls. My only chance would have been at dismissal when everyone filed out to the march music from the loudspeaker on the side of the school building.
Sometimes I could have walked near or even beside (but not with!) Margaret since she lived up my way. But I didn’t. Most days Father Donnelly paced up and down Pope Street in his black windbreaker, hands behind his back, making sure our lines were straight and nobody got run over, but really looking