The Abbey

by James Martin

  Paul went to his bookcase and pulled out a dog-eared gray paperback. He flipped through the pages. “Here it is.”

  He sat down and read a passage that Anne could see was underlined in blue ink:

  I understood how all the flowers God has created are beautiful, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wildflowers. And so it is in the world of souls, Jesus’ garden. . . . He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be.

  “That’s pretty,” said Anne.

  “So the image of you in God’s garden is in line with some of the saints’ images. But here’s the point, Anne: it’s an image that God gave you. Think about this: where do you think the image came from?”

  “I don’t know. From my imagination?”

  “That’s true. But you could also say that God planted that seed in your imagination, ready to flower when you were ready. That’s the way God communicates with us—in very personal ways.”

  Anne sat back in her chair. The idea that God was something, or someone, or whatever, who would communicate with her was new. And confusing. “That’s a lot to take in.”

  Paul waited.

  “But it’s nice.”

  “God wants to be in relationship with us,” said Paul. “And God wants to be in relationship with you. And the first step in that relationship is trusting that this is true. Like in any relationship. It also means recognizing that these kinds of experiences are God’s way of starting the conversation. And does that sound like a judging God?”

  “No, actually,” she said, “it doesn’t.”

  “In fact,” he said, “if you think about the images of God that Jesus uses in the Gospels, it’s a lot more than simply a God who judges. Certainly Jesus talks about the Last Judgment, but there’s a lot more about a merciful and compassionate God.”

  “For example?”

  “Well, like the story of the prodigal son, where the son runs away from home, spends all his inheritance, and then comes back home again. Most people know that the father welcomes him back. But what they sometimes forget is that the son hasn’t even apologized yet. I mean, in the story the son decides to apologize, but the father rushes out to welcome him before the son says a word. That’s one of my favorite images of God. He judges—sure, the father doesn’t approve of what the son did—but most of all the father welcomes, he forgives, and he loves.”

  Anne stared at him.

  “Or think about the woman who lost her coin. Do you know that one?”

  “Sorry, I’m really striking out here.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “It’s not as well known. Jesus said that God is like the woman who loses a coin and sweeps her whole house to find it. That’s how much God wants to find us. It’s something like the parable of the lost sheep too, where God is like the shepherd who leaves the whole flock behind to find the one lost sheep. They’re both images of God constantly searching for us. And that’s the God who is inviting you right now, into . . .”

  “Into what?”

  “Into a relationship.”

  Anne leaned back in the chair and looked out the window at the pink and orange clouds. She felt a strange mix of fear, curiosity, and elation. But mainly curiosity. Because she couldn’t deny what she had experienced in the garden. It happened. And she couldn’t deny that Father Paul’s words were appealing. They were. She liked those images of God too. But the idea of God communicating with her seemed weird. And somewhat frightening. Anne didn’t want to become some sort of religious freak and tell people that God was talking to her.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll bite. So what am I supposed to do?”

  “Why not just let God be God and continue to speak to you in whatever way God wants. And let it be God, not Anne’s God, not your old images of God, but God. And maybe you’d like to say something back to that God.” He smiled. “Maybe you’d like to give him that letter.”

  The monastery bell tolled.

  “After Compline,” he said, standing up and smoothing his habit. “I’ll be right back. Unless you’d like to join us?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “I mean, um, no thanks.”

  22

  During Compline, Anne sat in Father Paul’s office, watching the orange sunset through the dark leaves of the maple tree and listening to the chants echo through the halls of the abbey. She anticipated the chanting of the Salve Regina. When the monks started to sing her father’s song, she rose from her chair and walked out into the hallway to hear it more clearly. As she leaned against the cold brick wall, she felt a kind of support. A holding. Then the great bell rang again, signaling the end of the prayer. When she heard the monks leaving their seats in the chapel, she ducked back inside the office.

  As the monks glided past the abbot’s office, a few absentmindedly peered in and then, noticing her, abruptly turned their faces back to the tiled floor.

  Father Edward shuffled by, gripping a metal walker, and glanced into the office. “Annie!” he said with a smile. “Oh, I was so sorry I missed you the other day! I’m so happy to see you. I’ve been praying for you.”

  The way his words tumbled out touched Anne. The only other person who greeted her so cheerfully was Sunshine, who wasn’t even a person. And that was only at mealtimes.

  Laboriously, Father Edward moved his bulk into the abbot’s office. Anne awkwardly leaned over his walker, which had rosary beads twined around one of the handles, and kissed the old monk on his rough cheek. He blushed.

  “Oh, it’s such a blessing to see you,” he said again. “Are you meeting with Father Abbot?”

  “Well, yes,” she said. “I wanted to stop by tonight and see you as well. Are you feeling better?”

  “Oh yes, yes. Just a little bronchitis, thank God. It takes me a little longer to recover these days.”

  When the abbot walked in, Father Edward started to push himself up to a standing position.

  “Oh, Father,” said Paul. “Please don’t get up. Save your strength.”

  Anne suddenly felt uncomfortable. How have I come to this, sitting with two monks in a monastery? She imagined Kerry teasing her about this tableau. A faint smile came to her lips, but she willed it away. Then she thought about her father and how happy he would be to see her here.

  “Do you think you might visit with me after you’re finished speaking with Father Abbot?”

  “I’d be happy to,” she said.

  “Do I have your permission?” he asked the abbot.

  “Of course,” said Paul.

  Father Edward shuffled out of the office.

  After he was out of earshot, Anne asked, “Is he really okay?”

  “Yes, I’m happy to say that he is,” said Paul. “He’s dying of course, but—”

  Anne’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s what we sometimes say here. I mean that we’re all dying. All of us are moving toward death. But yes, Father Edward is doing fine. Just the normal aches and pains of human life. One of our abbots used to say that, rather than looking at our bodies as something permanent and getting upset when things break down, it makes more sense to see our bodies as something impermanent and bound to break down. The same way that you don’t expect a pair of pants to last forever, you shouldn’t expect your body to do the same. In the end, they both have wrinkles and holes and start to fall apart. So when things start to decline, it’s not as frightening. It’s to be expected.”

  “That doesn’t make getting older any easier,” said Anne.

  “No, not easier. But it makes it more . . . expected. Somehow that’s always helped me,” he said with a shrug.

/>   Anne didn’t want to get drawn into a discussion about aging, and she still wanted to visit Father Edward and get home before it was too late, so she got to her point.

  “So how do you propose I deliver my letter to God? Or maybe I should call. Do you have a direct line here?”

  Paul revealed a gap-toothed smile. “Oh, that’s pretty good! No, we don’t have a direct line. But maybe you could say that it’s a local call. God’s already heard you, of course, but why don’t we place your letter before the image of Our Lady that you like? There’s a little basket for petitions that visitors often use. How does that sound? You can do that after you visit Father Edward.”

  The old priest was bunking temporarily in the infirmary, and as Anne was escorted there by Father Paul, she noticed parts of the abbey that she had overlooked before. Familiarity gave her new eyes.

  She liked the orderliness most of all. Everything seemed to be in its place, nothing like her home—where boxes and books and clothes and papers and files were scattered everywhere. Here all the white cowls were on their pegs, all the gray pots on their hooks in the kitchen, and all the red prayer books lined up on their shelves. The simplicity of the building itself also appealed to her. It was big, no doubt, but somehow the architecture, with its clean lines and almost total lack of ornamentation, mirrored the austerity of the men who lived here. The monks walked close to the brick walls as they passed her rather than in the middle of the hallway, as if reverencing the spaces in the wide hallways and making room for one another. She liked how the cloister garden looked at dusk, with the slim branches of the dogwood and cherry trees swaying gently in the summer breeze.

  An understanding of why her father liked coming here deepened in her. Quite unexpectedly, she felt an intense burst of love for him.

  Father Edward’s infirmary room was sparely furnished: a metal hospital bed, a small porcelain sink, an old easy chair in which he now sat, and an ancient wooden desk, nicked in places. A gathering of squat plastic pill bottles stood grimly on a nightstand beside a framed portrait of a female saint wearing a brown-and-white nun’s habit and holding a bouquet of roses. As Father Paul sat on Father Edward’s bed and Anne on a rickety wooden desk chair, the old monk began talking about her parents.

  Her father began coming here after attending a men’s weekend retreat that his parish had sponsored. On the last day of the retreat the abbot asked if any of the men present had any accounting experience and if anyone would like to help the monastery out of a tough spot. Father Edward said her father’s expertise saved the monastery at a difficult time. The previous accountant was not exactly “unscrupulous” (Anne hadn’t heard that word for a while), but he was “unhelpful.” Apparently, not only did the former accountant occasionally clash with the abbot; he also couldn’t be counted on to pay the abbey’s bills on time. Anne’s father, by contrast, was “a boon” to them and ended up being devoted to the monks. “It was a great relief to the abbot when he came. It meant that he could relax more about the finances and concentrate on other things.”

  Anne’s mother too attended women’s retreats at the abbey, something Anne was surprised to learn. Father Edward said he didn’t know why she stopped coming, but by calculating backward from the dates that the old priest mentioned, Anne figured that her own birth had afforded her mother less free time.

  Hearing about her parent’s piety and their relationship to the abbey was both comforting and unsettling. It was odd to hear stories about her mother and father from this elderly monk, who in some ways seemed to know them better than she did. And it was strange to think of her parents as not only religious in the sense of following a set of rules, but religious in the sense of what Anne was beginning to understand about prayer. Her parents, whose spirituality she had dismissed as superficial and at times naive, were starting to seem, in a way, more sophisticated than she was.

  “Oh, and look,” Father Edward said. He took a Bible from his nightstand and gingerly pulled out an old photo from between its thin pages. “Look who I found!”

  With a slightly shaking hand, he gave Anne a faded photo of her mother in a flowered pink dress, her father in a brown suit, and a much younger Father Edward, in a white alb and golden stole, pouring water over a baby’s head in a church.

  “That’s you.”

  Anne looked carefully at her baptism. She had never seen this photo before. Her parents weren’t much for photo albums or home movies. Anne’s mother kept a leather wedding album and a few other family pictures in a shoebox under her bed. After her mother’s death Anne reproached herself for not being able to locate the box; later, in the rush of selling her parents’ house, she simply gave up looking. She wondered if she had carelessly thrown it out with whatever else she had considered trash.

  “The abbot at the time gave me special permission to leave the monastery to do your baptism. All because of our gratitude to your father. Look how little you were, Annie,” he said, pointing his gnarled finger to the baby nestled in her mother’s arms. “They were so happy that day.” Anne felt her throat tighten.

  “I was proud to welcome you into the church,” he said.

  With some formality, he handed Anne the photo and then asked if he could bless her. She looked at Paul, who wordlessly met her gaze.

  When Paul nodded, Father Edward motioned for her to come closer. She stood and moved beside the easy chair, not knowing what to do, and he chuckled.

  “Come closer, dear.”

  When she bent down, he grasped her head with his shaking hands and was silent. Then he whispered, “Amen.”

  After saying their good-byes, Father Paul led Anne to the abbey church. “Stay as long as you like,” he said. “And come back whenever you like.” Then Father Paul left her.

  By now the church was almost completely dark, except for the light coming from a bronze lamp hanging near the altar. The blue stained-glass windows let in only the slightest amount of light, so that even during the daytime the space was largely held in shadow. Anne walked up to the heavy wooden table that supported the image of Mary, who seemed to fix her gaze on Anne.

  Now Mary’s expression seemed more compassionate. It was strange how the same image could look so different after you came to know it.

  On the table, underneath the painting, sat a round wicker basket in which dozens of letters were stuffed. Most were concealed in envelopes, but many were written on loose pieces of paper. She couldn’t help reading some:

  Mary, pray that my father’s cancer will be cured.

  Let me have a child, God.

  Please, God, if it is your will, help me to find a job.

  God, I pray not to be so lonely.

  Thank you for your prayers, Mary.

  Anne wasn’t sure how she felt about the requests. On the one hand, they touched her. On the other, they seemed superstitious. Why would you ask Mary for her prayers if you could just ask God for something? It seemed like an unnecessary step.

  Anne wondered whether it made sense to put a letter to God in a box in front of a picture of Mary. Then she looked at Mary’s face and decided that this was as good a place as any. She stuffed the letter in among the other petitions, stepped back a few feet, and then said, silently, “Well, Mary, if you’re there, please give this letter to God.” She was glad she didn’t say it out loud, because she thought it would have sounded embarrassing. But silently it felt okay.

  Seeing no one else around, she sat in one of the pews in the visitors’ section. She would have preferred to sit closer, in the monks’ stalls, nearer to the image of Mary, or even on the tile floor, but she worried about what would happen if someone noticed her. The old pew creaked as it accepted her body, and then the chapel was silent. Crickets chorused outside. For the first time since Jeremiah died, Anne tried to formulate a prayer. Despite herself, she repeated the title of a book she had read in junior high school. She couldn’t figure out how else to begin.

  “Are you there, God?” she said silently. “It’s me, Annie.”
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  23

  Mark looked at the vast lawn and groaned. Was it possible that the abbey’s property had grown larger since the last time he mowed it? It seemed that way. After a lawn-mowing day, which came twice a month, Mark would drive home, take a shower, go for a run, and then take a second shower just to wash all the grassy smell from his body. Even then, when he closed his eyes at night, all he saw was green and all he smelled was grass.

  Today, under a sweat-stained Red Sox cap, he cursed himself for making a pass at Anne over the weekend. “Shit!” he shouted over the noise of the abbey’s colossal riding lawnmower. Because who could hear him? Sometimes he felt as if his libido overpowered him. Even worse, he felt embarrassed when rebuffed by a woman: foolish, embarrassed, and diminished in his own eyes. “Unmanned” was a word he recently read in a biography that he didn’t finish. He didn’t know precisely what it meant and was too tired to look it up in a dictionary, but he had a definite feeling about the word, and that’s how he felt.

  It had been that way since junior high. When a woman responded to his advances and they ended up making out or dating, he felt good about himself, and those positive vibes colored all he did: his work, his interactions with his friends, even his running. He felt as though he ran faster when his romantic life was where he wanted it to be.

  Mark made a sweeping turn on the green-and-yellow lawnmower and from the valley contemplated the view of the abbey church on the crest of the hill. The days when Mark was angry or frustrated—as today, thanks to his interaction with Anne—were good ones for doing physical labor.