The Abbey

by James Martin

  “Yes,” said Paul. “A great deal.” He paused for a few seconds while Anne continued to gaze at the image.

  “Oh, I forgot the coffee!” he said suddenly. “How do you take it?”

  “Surprise me.”

  After Paul left, Anne settled comfortably into one of the chairs and exhaled. She stared at the still-setting sun through the window. After a minute, she popped up, walked over to the bookshelves, and began examining their contents. Mostly they were formidable tomes on Jesus, the Trinity, Mary, church history, monastic life, and prayer. Feeling nosy, she perused the neat rows of framed photos on his file cabinet.

  Most were reproductions of religious paintings—including a Salvador Dalí painting of Jesus floating up to heaven, which Anne thought creepy. Many were photos of an elderly couple Anne supposed were Paul’s parents—both tall, both with glasses. And three showed Paul himself: arm in arm, laughing, with capped and gowned friends at a college graduation, perhaps his own; dressed as a priest and kneeling before a bishop whose hands were placed on the crown of Paul’s head; and pouring water over a baby’s head. The photographer had caught the precise moment of baptism; Anne could pick out the individual water droplets as they fell from Paul’s hand and were about to land on the infant’s pale, perfectly round head.

  Her eye was drawn again to the image of Mary on the wall, and she stared at it for a long while. This time she seemed to say not “I know,” but “I want to know.”

  Mary seemed to look at her with the eyes of a friend who was waiting for her to talk. Like the time she went out to dinner in Center City with Kerry on her first day back from work after Jeremiah’s death. Anne said she needed to blow off some steam, and Kerry took her to her favorite Thai restaurant and announced that it was her treat. “Ask for anything you want.”

  An hour later, looking down into her third gin and tonic, Anne said, “You know what?” She was about to say that she couldn’t concentrate at all on work. That she wasn’t sure what she was doing half the time. And that all she thought about, every moment of every day, was Jeremiah.

  Kerry reached across the table, grabbed Anne’s hand, and squeezed it tight.

  “What?” said Kerry.

  When Anne looked up from her drink she saw Kerry’s kind face, ready to hear whatever Anne wanted to say. After the accident, Kerry was ready to hear about pain and sadness, ready to hear about grief and loss, ready to hear about anger and fear. Ready to hear anything Anne wanted to say. Ready.

  That was the look she now saw on Mary’s face.

  16

  Anne’s back was turned when Father Paul entered the room, so he did surprise her.

  “I like that image too,” he said.

  “Oh!” Anne had moved behind his desk and was examining the icon. “I didn’t mean to take over your office. I’m afraid you caught me snooping around a bit. Sorry.”

  “When I entered the novitiate here, I was pretty lonely for my family,” said Paul, settling into one of the chairs. He handed Anne a heavy white cup filled with creamy coffee, and she took the chair opposite Paul. “My father had died a few years before, and I was close to my mother. So I told my novice director all that. And you know what he said?”

  Anne prepared to hear something absurd.

  “My novice director said that I should ask Mary to pray for me and pray for my mother.”

  Anne smiled. “I thought you were going to tell me that he told you that Mary should be your mother.”

  “Ha!” said Paul. “I would have laughed if he said that. Come to think of it, my mom would have too.”

  Anne and Paul then talked about their mothers, who, as it happened, went to the same high school. Both sets of parents were married in the same church, though a decade apart. People from Philadelphia tended not to move around much, so these kinds of coincidences rarely surprised Anne. But it increased her affection for Paul. He was only slightly older than Anne, so they also knew a few of the same people, the same places, and liked the same spots at the Jersey shore—though she was disappointed when she discovered that he was only a tepid Phillies fan. “It’s hard to follow the games without a TV or radio in my room,” said Paul.

  When she asked what first drew him to the abbey, he told her about his Catholic upbringing and the story of how he once came here on a high-school retreat and was “bowled over” by the place. The idea of entering the monastery endured through his years at college and beyond. But it wasn’t the silence that kept him here. There was something else. Something more, he said.

  “God keeps me here.”

  Anne sipped the coffee. “Wow. Mark was right. This coffee is awesome. Do you make that here too?”

  “No, just jam, I’m afraid. Brother Robert buys the rest of what we need at the supermarket.”

  Anne stared into her cup, deciding whether to venture a question. “What do you mean when you say God keeps you here?”

  “Well, I know it sounds a bit mystical, but it’s really quite practical. It means that I’m happy here.”

  “That’s it?” Anne said. “Being happy keeps you here?”

  “That . . . and other things,” said Paul. “When I was a young man, twenty-five at the time, I felt this great pull to the monastic life. And that was the way God was working in my life—through that pull. It didn’t seem to make much sense at the time. I mean, no one in my family was a monk or anything like that. And the only priests we knew were the ones we saw during Mass on Sundays. But in another way, it was the only thing that did make sense. I just couldn’t get this place out my head. And when I finally came here for the novitiate, I don’t think I had ever been happier. It just fit me. The first year was just lovely. I liked the community life, and the stability, and oh, how I loved all that beautiful singing! Then, after novitiate, I made my vows and promised God I’d stay here. So you could also say that what keeps me here is that I told God I would stay. But God’s also been very faithful to me here.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning . . . that God’s given me the grace to stay, and he’s given me a lot of happiness in the past twenty-five years. More than I could have expected. And in ways I could never have imagined. It’s not the perfect life. Not by any means. We certainly have our share of problems. And unlike in other settings, if you don’t get along with someone, you can’t move—and neither can he. We take a vow of stability in addition to the other vows. So it’s not perfect. But I would say . . . it’s perfect for me. So I see God in all of that.”

  Anne stared at her coffee cup again. This was already the longest religious conversation she had ever had, except for the arguments she had with her parents after she stopped going to church.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m not so big on God right now.”

  Paul paused. “I can understand that, I think.”

  Anne said nothing, alarmed that she was being drawn deeper into a discussion about religion. But she also felt a growing curiosity. It was as if a part of her wanted to talk about God. Weird but exciting, like discussing something taboo.

  “You know,” said Paul, “Father Edward was very upset when he heard about your son’s death. I don’t think I’m breaking confidence to tell you that he offered Mass for your son the next day.”

  “He did?”

  Paul nodded. He looked at her intently.

  “That was very thoughtful,” she said quietly. “Please tell him I said thank you.”

  “I hope you’ll be able to do that yourself soon.”

  Anne stared out the window at the remaining light in the sky, which had now turned violet. “So can I ask you something?”

  “Feel free.”

  “How can you believe in a God who lets these things happen?” Anger rushed into her heart and tightened her lips. Now that she had said it, had let it out, some of the fury she experienced after Jeremiah’s death returned.

  That her rage at God surfaced only one time after the accident surprised Anne. She thought she’d be angrier at God. On the other hand
, maybe that meant she didn’t believe in God any longer. Around the time she started college, she drifted away from the church or, as she thought of it, the church drifted away from her. No women priests? Boring homilies? No birth control? No thanks. During her senior year at Haverford she stopped going to Mass, to the consternation of her mother, and her father even more. Christmas and Easter were the exceptions. Her parents insisted on that, and so she went to Mass with them twice a year. To keep the peace.

  Sometimes Anne missed it. Parts of it. She liked some of the songs they sang in Sunday school, finding them comforting. The Rosary that her father carried in his pocket and the statues of the saints that her mom kept in her parents’ bedroom were talismans of a more certain time in her life. But what did her father see in the church, she used to wonder, and why did he spend so much time with the monks? (The answer to that second question was becoming clearer.) For the most part, she was pleased to be rid of her faith, which she considered a vestige of a childish way of viewing the world. Overall, it was an encumbrance.

  But the day after Jeremiah’s funeral, after her ex-husband’s car pulled out of the driveway and the house was finally empty for the first time since the accident, Anne found herself in the bathroom, sobbing, barely able to catch her breath. Kneeling on the cold white tile floor, wedged between the sink and the bathtub, she heard herself scream, “I hate you, God! Why did you do this?” Anne shouted that question over and over and over, until eventually, hearing no answer, she stopped shouting. In the end she stood up, dried her tears and blew her nose, looked at herself in the mirror, and said, “Screw it.”

  She told Paul this story now, dispassionately.

  The abbot listened intently. Then he stared into the swirls of milk in his cup and paused for a long time.

  “It’s okay for us to hate God at a time like that,” he said. “It’s natural. And God can take it. And if you’re shouting at God, that means you’re still in relationship with God. That’s important.”

  Anne continued to peer through the window, still unable to look at Paul.

  “I think I still hate God,” she said quietly. “I hate him for taking away my son. Sometimes I say . . . sometimes I say to myself . . .” She paused. “You’re not going to like this.”

  Paul said nothing.

  “Sometimes I say . . . I wish I were dead.”

  Paul nodded silently. Anne took this as permission to continue.

  “Sometimes I think of Jeremiah so much that I don’t think I can live anymore. I mean, sometimes I don’t think I can survive the sadness. I don’t know how else to describe it, but it’s like I can’t breathe. I can’t believe it’s possible to be so . . . sad. And sometimes I feel like everything is pointless. It’s getting better, I guess. A little. I mean, it’s not as bad as it was.” She paused.

  “I think about what I should have done to stop him going to the movies that night. I think about the way he looked in the hospital. Oh, God! I think about his funeral that day. And you know what I think about most of all?”

  Paul waited.

  “I think about what he would be doing now!” she said, her voice rising. “I think about that when I see his friends riding their bikes and laughing and playing baseball. The other day some of the kids hit a baseball through Mark’s window, and Mark was so worried about it, and when he told me, you know what I was thinking? You know what I was thinking?”

  She was trying to get the words out through her sobs now.

  “What?”

  She shouted, “How I wanted Jeremiah to be with them! What I would give to have him be able to do something stupid like that! To play ball! To break windows! Instead of being dead!”

  The last word rang through the halls of the abbey. Paul’s face fell, and tears filled his eyes.

  “Sometimes I want to die,” she said. “I want to die so that I can end all this, and maybe, maybe . . . be with him again. But I’m not even sure about that.”

  Paul let her words fill the room. “You loved him so much,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  Silence descended upon them.

  “More than I can describe,” she said.

  “And I’m sure he loved you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so sorry, Anne,” he said. “I’m so sorry about Jeremiah.”

  Anne wiped her red eyes with the back of her left hand. On the coffee table was a pink box of tissues, which Paul pushed closer to her. She pulled one from the box. “Thank you.”

  The abbey bell intoned the hour.

  “That’s pretty,” she said, wiping away her tears. “It must be nice to live here.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He waited for a long while and finally said, “How do you think God sees you right now?”

  Anne looked at him, confused.

  “How would I know?” she said. “I mean . . . I don’t know.”

  Paul paused for a moment, staring at the faded oriental carpet. Then he looked up. Anne saw his gaze rest on the image of Mary.

  “Well,” he said. “In that case, how do you think Mary looks at you right now?”

  Anne sucked in air and looked at the image. “Oh,” she said, with a frown. Then more tears came. “Oh, I think she would feel sorrow for me.” She pulled another tissue from the box. She could feel Paul watching her. He put his elbows on the arms of his chair, steepled his hands, and closed his eyes.

  “That touches you deeply, doesn’t it?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said quietly and looked out at the sky. With the last traces of day gone, its hue was dark violet. Only a few lavender clouds were visible. This time of day always made her feel calm, as if all the hard work was over.

  “It’s nice to think about that,” she said. “When you just said that, it made me feel, I don’t know, less alone. I think Mary would understand me . . . and feel sorrow for me. Her son died too. I was just thinking about that the other day. She would understand me. Especially if she was like that.” She motioned to the picture on Paul’s wall.

  “She was like that,” he said. “And is like that. Close to Jesus to the last.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Close to Jesus to the last,” he said. “It’s from a prayer about Mary that I like. In fact, I think it was on the back of the card I gave you the other day.”

  Anne opened her lips to speak, but then fell silent.

  “Can I ask you something?” said Paul.

  Anne nodded.

  “If Mary feels sorrow for you, do you think her son could too?”

  She had never thought of them together like that. Like two human beings who could feel sorrow for someone.

  “And if her son does, don’t you think God could too?”

  Anne stared at her coffee. “I don’t know,” she said. “What do you think?”

  “God is mercy,” he said. “So I think God looks down on you with the greatest love imaginable. And what does God see right now? A loving mother who misses her child more than she can say. And more than I can know. God is all mercy, and loves you, Anne. And God understands your anger and your pain and, in a way, God loves you even more for all that. God loves us more when we’re hurting, the way . . . the way that you loved Jeremiah when he was hurting or struggling.”

  Anne sobbed. “Oh, God, I miss him . . . so much!”

  “I can see that. God sees that too.”

  Then she wiped her eyes and looked directly at Paul. “So what do I do with all this?”

  “You can continue to be honest with God about all of this. Why not tell God how you feel?”

  “You mean by praying? I don’t really pray.”

  “I think you do. That prayer you said to God was a good one, you know.”

  Anne laughed through her tears. “You mean when I said, ‘I hate you’? My father would have been horrified to hear me say that.”

  “But it was honest. Of course we can’t say that all the time. No more than we could say that to a friend all the tim
e. But it expressed what you were feeling at the time,” said Paul. “And God wants your honesty. Just like any good friend would want that.”

  Anne looked at the image of Mary.

  “Lots of people think they’re not allowed to be angry at God,” he continued, shifting in the chair. “But anger is a natural part of life. It says we’re human. Jesus was angry. Remember? He gets angry at some of the people of his time. He calls them a ‘faithless and perverse generation.’ He gets angry at the merchants in the Temple . . .”

  “But he was God,” said Anne.

  “He was human too. So he got angry. As you can. You can tell God how you feel. God’s been handling people’s anger for a long time. Do you know Psalm 13?”

  Anne smiled slightly. “No.”

  Paul said, “How long, O Lord?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “‘How long, O Lord?’ is how Psalm 13 begins. It’s the cry of someone who feels abandoned by God.” He rose, took a step toward his desk, picked up a worn Bible, flipped through it, and began to read.

  How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

  How long will you hide your face from me?

  How long must I bear pain in my soul,

  and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

  How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

  “That’s a psalm?”

  “Mmm hmm. There’s a whole group of psalms called ‘lament psalms,’ which are basically people being sad or angry or disappointed in God. Calling out for help. The next line is really powerful. We sing it several times a year here. Some translations say, ‘Consider and answer me, God.’ But another one says, ‘Look at me! Answer me!’”

  Anne didn’t know what to say. So she said nothing. She felt a weird connection to whoever wrote that psalm.

  “Answer me,” she said. “That’s how I feel.”

  “Why don’t you try telling God how you feel?”