He did not look at Matthew, or at Manus, but kept his eyes moving between Father Donald, who had a breakdown last year and was subject to sudden tears, and Brother Kevin, whose hysteria was tight, reined in uncertain check. Something of that nature was what he feared, but the thing to do now was be firm, disperse them, reassert the rule of obedience. “And the first thing we will do,” he said, attempting a smile, “is every man jack get back to work. That is all. Now, off you go.”
“That is not all!” Father Matthew, angry as Isaiah, pointing an accusatory finger, rearing up in his great height. “Why have you not told the community, Father Abbot, what you told to me last night?”
“Last night I told you to go to bed. Now, I tell you to go to work.”
The laughter he had wanted, flickered, then stilled.
“You also told me that we are to consider the Mass, from now on, not as a miracle, but as a ‘pious ritual,’ I believe you said.”
“That is correct.”
“How can a thing be a miracle one day and not a miracle the next day?”
“Maybe you are a greater theologian than the pope or the Vatican council, Father Matthew. I am not. I am a monk and I do as I am bid.”
“No, no, no, no!” As the abbot had feared, Father Donald had come to tears. “That is sacrilege, that is blasphemy. No, no, no, I can’t be hearing that, no, no!”
The abbot put his arm comfortingly on Father Donald’s shoulders. “Now, Donald,” the abbot said. “You are not yourself, you mustn’t be getting excited like this. Come along, everybody. Let’s get to work.”
“And I will not be put off like that,” Father Matthew shouted. “I will not be ordered to believe something that I do not believe.”
“No one can order belief,” the abbot said. “It is a gift from God.” But even as he said this, said the only truth left to him, he saw in these faces that he was failing, that he was losing them, that he must do something he had never done, give something he had never given in these, his years as their abbot. What had kept him in fear since Lourdes, must now be faced. What he feared most to do must be done. And if, in doing it, I enter null and never return, amen. My time has come.
Matthew, bent on trouble, began again. “You can all see what is being proposed here. It is a denial of everything the Mass stands for.”
The abbot held up his hands, commanding silence. There was silence. He turned and held open the door that led into the nave. “Please. Let us go into the church.”
Stood, holding the door for them, as they moved past him, his eyes on their faces, these faces he knew better than his own, seeing every shade of wavering, from confusion, to doubt, to anger at him, to fear, to Father Donald’s dangerous tears and Brother Kevin’s hysterics, tight on snaffle, a horse ready to bolt. He entered behind them and shut the door. Moved past them in the aisle, going up into the great vault of the nave, moving in that silence, in the gray light of this place where he had spent the longest years of his life, this place where his body would lie, this place he feared most. He entered the chancel. He faced the altar.
“A miracle,” he told them, “is when God is there in the tabernacle.”
“But you said the opposite, you said that the sacrifice of the Mass is just ritual, that bread and wine remain bread and wine, that there are no miracles!”
Matthew, thundering: righteous, wronged. The abbot, his back to all of them, heard their stiff intake of breath, the fear of their lives at these words, said in this place. He stared at the golden door of the tabernacle. His fear came. “Prayer is the only miracle,” he said. “We pray. If our words become prayer, God will come.”
Slowly, with the painful stiffness of age, he went down heavily on one knee, then on both. Knelt in the center of the aisle, facing the altar, the soles of his heavy farm boots showing from the hem of his robe. He trembled. He shut his eyes. “Let us pray.”
He bent his head. “Our Father, who art in heaven,” he said. His trembling increased. He entered null. He would never come back. In null.
He heard them kneel. “Our Father, who art in heaven.”
Relieved, their voices echoed his.
“Hallowed be thy name,” the abbot said.
“Hallowed be thy name.”
About the Author
Brian Moore (1921–1999) was born in Ireland and lived most of his adult life in Canada and the United States. He was the author of many novels, including The Colour of Blood, Lies of Silence, and The Doctor’s Wife—all shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize—as well as Catholics, The Statement, I Am Mary Dunne, and The Magician’s Wife. The Luck of Ginger Coffey was awarded Canada’s most prestigious book prize, the Governor General’s Award for Fiction.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1972 by Brian Moore
Cover design by Ian Koviak
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5027-2
This edition published in 2018 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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BRIAN MOORE
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
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