Father Elijah

by Michael D. O'Brien

  It was not a literal depiction of a scriptural scene, he concluded; although it might be the artist’s imaginative rendering of the temptation in the desert? But there was something out of character in the way Christ leaned into Satan’s embrace and listened with such attention.

  He stared at it for a long time. Suddenly, the meaning of the mural became clear, like a scene viewed through lenses revolving into focus. The blurred shapes of reality drew together into a sharp, piercing landscape of moral disaster.

  The figure held in the devil’s embrace was not Christ but Antichrist.

  Elijah understood why Don Matteo had wanted him to see it. Now he knew why the old friar would not tell him the reason for his request. Matteo had wanted Elijah to discover the secret of the mural for himself, and in the process, to observe the mechanics of perception.

  “What you staring at?” said Billy.

  “The Antichrist.”

  “That’s not the Antichrist. It’s the Lord.”

  “Look at it carefully. Pray as you look.”

  Billy obeyed and a few moments later he shuddered.

  “I see what you mean.”

  “The painting seems to operate at a number of levels”, said Elijah. “On the surface, it tells a dramatic tale, a narrative. On another level, it is a moral lecture about sin and betrayal. On still another level, the artist is reaching for the deepest organs of perception in the soul. The artist wants us to hear a soundless cry, an alarm, a warning.”

  “That might be stretching it. Were those fifteenth-century painters such sophisticated theologians?”

  “Some of them were. Some were mystics as well. In those days, the civilized world was Catholic. Life was short, eternity was always just a breath away. Salvation and damnation saturated the normal atmosphere of life. Even so, the painter was compelled to attempt a most urgent warning. I think he’s saying that if we can be so easily deceived by a few strokes of the brush, by art, which of its very nature is a medium of illusion, how vulnerable are we to the power of the senses? Couldn’t a flesh-and-blood Antichrist far more effectively create the appearance of goodness, while hiding his attachment to evil?”

  “Theoretically. But he’d have to be quite a conjurer.”

  “This Antichrist resembles our traditional images of Christ. What if he should also imitate Christ in his public actions?”

  “Granted, it’s possible. But I can’t believe a man who’s that evil would be able to fool the whole world for long.”

  “What if the world desired to be fooled?”

  “You’d still have hundreds of millions of believers on guard. They’d spot him.”

  “Do you think so? We are presently in the midst of a massive apostasy. Never in the history of the Church has there been such widespread loss of faith. In a few years, will there be any faith left on the earth?”

  “You’re rather pessimistic today, Davy.”

  “Scripture says that unless the days be shortened even the elect would be deceived.”

  “Well, I suppose the eye could be deceived, but what about the mind? Any Christian worth his salt could tell when your hypothetical Antichrist was preaching false doctrine. Couldn’t he?”

  “But what if for a generation or two before his appearance, the formation of Catholics were to fall into confusion? What if a generation of religious illiterates had been formed, unable to distinguish between religious truth and religious sentiment?”

  “All right. It could happen. And I get your not-so-subtle point. You think we’re that generation.”

  “I do. But there is another important message at work in this masterpiece.”

  “Hold on, half a mo’! The soul has powers. It can detect things the eye and the mind can’t see, don’t you think? I mean, even if an Antichrist were to fool our eyes by appearances, and also deceive our minds by plausible lies, wouldn’t there be something deep down inside of us that was uneasy? A faint warning bell that rang and rang until we answered?”

  “I agree. But you know as well as I do that this warning system can be deactivated. Sin can cover it with layer after layer until eventually we hear nothing. We forget it ever existed.”

  Billy sighed heavily.

  “I need a cup of coffee”, he declared with solemnity.

  He went out, leaving Elijah alone with the mural.

  * * *

  With Billy at the wheel, the Jaguar was cruising at one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour on the superhighway between Rome and Naples. Elijah tried not to pay attention to the speedometer. He buried himself in his breviary and prayed the office.

  When he was finished, he closed the book.

  “Napoli in half an hour!” said Billy with false cheeriness.

  They drove on without further exchange.

  When they passed Capua, Billy said, “Something’s wrong.”

  “With the car?”

  “No. With the Monsignor.”

  “What’s wrong, Billy?”

  “Something’s crazy here, Davy. I wasn’t myself at Assisi. No, I don’t mean that exactly. What I mean is, I was my old self. My bad old self.”

  “I could see you were struggling with something.”

  “I wasn’t my real self. It scares me.”

  “Was it a time of temptation?”

  “Yeah. But different from the usual stuff. Usually, it’s like a tennis match. Ho-hum. Today I batted away ten urges to overeat, five invitations to impure thoughts, and one impulse to gossip about an enemy. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, it’s business as usual. Some days are better than others, but I work hard at being faithful. Really, I do.”

  “You are a good priest, Billy. I know it.”

  “The Holy Father’s a good priest. Stato, Dottrina, they’re good priests. You’re a good priest. But I know what I am.”

  “Are you feeling depressed?”

  “Yes, dammit, I’m depressed. But that’s not the problem. I’m a fat, spoiled, middle-aged man who didn’t grow up. I try to be good. Mostly, I am good. But I’m not the stuff that martyrs are made of.”

  “No one is.”

  “Don’t give me that! I know myself. I’m a weak man.”

  “Tell me why you think you are a weak man.”

  “I went to Assisi all geared up to do penance, pray for hours every day, get close to you, encourage you. I said to myself, Davy’s got a big load on his shoulders, and he needs a pal to help him carry it when it gets heavy. Time to shape up, Billy, I said to myself. Do you know how long that lasted?”

  “How long?”

  “About as long as it took me to get into some cool duds and think of a drink. I’ve been to Frankie’s before, you know. It’s got atmosphere. People there are good folks. You don’t go there for sin. You go in for a scotch on the rocks and conviviality with comfy Catholics. All in moderation of course. Assisi’s sanctified territory. You know what I mean? You go there to have a rousing good chat with rich, devout Americans, exchange stories, get the latest on apparitions and on the regional churches—always loads of bad news in that department—you know what I mean? I wasn’t looking for a lady friend or to get drunk or to pretend I wasn’t a cleric. I wanted some good Catholic fun. I wanted music and a belly laugh.”

  “Is that so wrong?”

  “Not really. I’m a great fan of Chesterton, you know. He once said that he became a Catholic because we’re the only religion that sees no contradiction between a pint, a pipe, and a cross.”

  Elijah smiled.

  “It was a joke, but it had some truth in it. Old G. K. knew when to fast and when to down a good ale. It’s the timing. It’s all in the timing.”

  “There is Christmas and there is Lent.”

  “Bang on! So what bothers me about these past few days is that something inside of me said, dammit, I want it to be Christmas and I don’t care if it is Lent.”

  “It is Ordinary Time.”

  “Listen, I’m serious here. I know it’s Ordinary Time. I’m speaking metaphorically. We went
to Assisi for a retreat, didn’t we? A mini-Lent. We went there to get strong, because something pretty bloody serious is brewing. But when we were driving up the mountain and talking about the spirit of Saint Francis and all that—I don’t know why, but it irritated me. Which is really out of character, because I love Saint Francis.”

  “You were as fatigued as I was.”

  “I know, I know. And we’ve been under a lot of stress lately. The office is smothered in paperwork; we’re understaffed; the diplomatic service is a bloody minefield. But it was something more than stress.”

  “I suspect it was temptation of a kind.”

  “Yeah, of a kind. When I hopped out of the car all I wanted to do was get to Frankie’s, get mellow, bee-bop on the dance floor, and hold court to admiring tourists until the wee small hours. I wanted to slay them with laughs. I succeeded. I didn’t commit a single confessable sin, technically speaking. But the long and short of it is, I just wasn’t around much. I wasn’t there for you, Davy. And I feel sick about it.”

  “God may have permitted it for a reason.”

  “What reason?”

  “There were things I had to learn about myself which might not have been possible with you there.”

  “Thanks a lot!”

  “I mean, if the laughing swordsman had been at my right hand, I might have been seduced into false confidence.”

  “Hmm, now there’s a thought.”

  “So you see, I think you are being a little hard on yourself.”

  “Wrong. It’s about time I started being hard on myself. All my life I’ve been nothing but nice to myself. Since I got religion, the niceness takes a legitimate form, but it’s still pampering. No more adultery, no more drunkenness, no daydreaming about embezzling the Bank of England. But try denying me a third helping of lasagna and an old dusty bottle of dry red.”

  Elijah chuckled.

  “Go ahead, laugh. Laugh if you like. But I’ve got to live inside this weak character, this body, so visibly round, so eminently unadmirable. It’s mine, all mine. It’s me, and I don’t like it.”

  “Billy, Billy,” said Elijah, “you can’t convince me you are such a cad. I have met mass murderers.”

  “You have?” said Billy. “Like who?”

  “I talked with Adolf Eichmann on a few occasions.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I am serious. Let me tell you about him. He was a disciplined man. He didn’t drink or eat immoderately. He was intelligent, quiet-spoken, modest, and, some say, charming. He liked Mozart and roses. He engineered the death of several million people. He had character.”

  “So, what you’re really getting at is that character can serve good or it can serve evil. Right?”

  “Most human qualities can be misused.”

  “Where does that leave me? I don’t have the quality to do either.”

  Elijah looked at him and said with a hint of severity, “That is untrue.”

  Billy kept his mouth closed for several minutes. When eventually he spoke, his eyes were full of tears: “I hate being a weak, fat man.”

  “We are all weak men. I am weak in ways that you are not. You are weak in a way that I am not. These are the thorns in the flesh that keep us both from becoming puffed up.”

  “You needed a saint on this trip”, Billy said bitterly.

  “I have a friend with me. You were the one chosen. Do you think Rome made an error in judgment?”

  “Rome made a big mistake.”

  “Rome did not make a mistake.”

  Billy shook his head and looked glum.

  “You don’t realize it, but you are surely a messenger from God. You have affirmed many things He showed me during this week.”

  “How nice. I suppose I’m to remind you of what not to be. Yes, they knew I’d be instructive at some point.”

  “You misunderstand.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  “You want to be a saint, Billy. But you want to be a saint on your own terms. You want glorious victories with your sword; most of all, you want victories over your personal weaknesses and faults.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “It is a good desire, but it can also be a kind of idealism masking pride.”

  “That’s too complicated for me.”

  “Who is the saint? The one who obeys God in his weakness, or the one who demands to have every admirable quality before he sets forth on his quest?”

  “Put that way, it’s obvious.”

  “You accused me of romanticism a few days ago. Aren’t all of us romantics who want our armor to shine and our swords to flash and our bella figura to draw many admiring glances as we make battle for God?”

  “You can be nasty, old lad.”

  “What I say is true. I know it is true because I am describing myself.”

  “Oh”, said Billy in a small voice.

  “Also, among your many outstanding gifts you have the gift of humor. You make me laugh. I’m a serious person, you may have noticed.”

  “I noticed that. You’re not exactly a funny guy, Davy.”

  “You see, you can’t help yourself. You always say amusing things. That is a gift from the Lord. It lifts the heart.”

  “I used to make the cardinal primate of England laugh too. Court jester I was. He was sad to lose me to the Vatican, but he knew they needed a good laugh over there at State.”

  “You mustn’t demean yourself. The Cardinal Secretary chose you because of your intelligence and honesty. He knows that you love Christ and His Church. He trusts you. Do you think anyone trusts a buffoon?”

  “Maybe you’re right”, said Billy pensively.

  “I think you were hit with more than one kind of temptation during this past week. First of all, you let yourself be drawn away from prayer. You weren’t distracted by evil things, for the enemy knows that you have been converted from them. He drew you away by legitimate pleasures.”

  “Legitimate but untimely, and immoderate.”

  “Correct. That was weakness, simple human weakness.”

  “Say it. I should have known better.”

  “My friend, we should have seen it coming. But we didn’t. And so, we lost a minor skirmish. But we have learned a valuable lesson. And just in time, for a major battle lies before us.”

  “Well spoken. Now, my other temptations?”

  “The second temptation is of a more sinister nature. The temptation to hate yourself because you have not lived up to your ideal. That is pride, and it is very dangerous. It opens the door to much worse things.”

  “All right, I repent of the lot in dust and ashes. What do you suggest by way of penance?”

  “I suggest that we stop at that restaurant over there. We will each consume a single serving of lasagna and a single glass of ale.”

  “Sheer torture. But I deserve it.”

  When they were seated at their table, Elijah rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  “You’re tired, aren’t you?” said Billy.

  “It was a long night.”

  “Temptations?”

  “Yes, my own kind.”

  “What were they?”

  “The past. Old lamentations.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “I would like to tell you about them some day. But they are too close to the surface now, and this is not the best place for it.”

  “To be continued?”

  “To be continued.”

  The window by their table overlooked the Gulf of Salerno. The sea was black and tossing, the sky lowering quickly.

  “How far is it to the marina, Billy? Will we be on time for the President’s boat?”

  “Lots of time. We’re almost there. We passed Naples while you were giving me therapy.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “Didn’t notice Napoli! You are tired.”

  “What is this city?”

  “Salerno. The big man’s private marina is just around that bend. They’re expecting u
s at the dock by seven. Ordinarily, we could make the crossing in under an hour, but by the looks of that water it might take longer. We’re probably going nowhere tonight.”

  They ate their meal making small talk. By six-thirty the sea was raging, and rain was coming down in torrents. It was obvious that a crossing would be impossible. Billy used the pay phone to call Capri.

  “I got ahold of the appointment secretary. He says that the boat’s too small to risk it. He wants us to stay here tonight and see how the water looks in the morning.”

  “Is there an inexpensive hotel nearby?”

  “All kinds of them. But he said we should stay at the boathouse. A place the President owns, about five minute’s drive from here. I got directions; it’s on a side road above the marina. There’s no one there except some employees. He’s phoning ahead so they’ll be expecting us.”

  The Jaguar crept slowly through the downpour until the headlights picked up a gate sign that read: No Admittance! Property of Centra Mondiale Commerciale. To their surprise, the electronic gate opened automatically as they approached. They drove through and went uphill on a driveway lined with thrashing pines and recessed lights.

  The house stood at the crest of a grassy terrace. It was larger than they had expected, ultramodern, constructed largely of stone and glass, designed along lines borrowed from the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The exterior was lit by hidden flood lights.

  “Take a look at the boathouse”, Billy whistled.

  The front door opened as they pulled to a stop, and a man stepped out onto the covered veranda. He was thin, silver-haired, and greeted them with relaxed elegance.

  “Signore Stangsby? Signore Schäfer? Please, enter. The weather is atrocious!”

  “And you are. . .?”

  “I am Roberto, the guestmaster. The President asks me to offer you his regret for the inconvenience. He hopes to meet you tomorrow on Capri.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “I know that you have eaten,” said Roberto, “but may I bring you a cup of coffee in the drawing room? We also have English tea? Cognac? A glass of milk?”

  “Nothing for me, thank you”, said Elijah.

  “But I am dismayed!” Roberto said in a tone of mock disapproval.