Anastasia's Grail

by Mary Pearson

five bucks to give that guy another soda and say it’s from Mom.” Her sister snorted. Stacy nudged her mother’s arm. “I think he likes you,” she said. As her mother looked up the man lifted his glass and winked at her.

  “Stacy,” Rose frowned with mock disapproval, “what did you say to that man?”

  Stacy and Emily dissolved into laughter.

  After the family had polished off two large pizzas: one sausage and mushroom and one small pepperoni—Reecie only ate pepperoni—they all went for a swim. The teens and Reecie played with a beach ball in the pool, which was tolerably warm, while her mother and grandmother soaked in the hot tub. Within an hour the adults went back to their rooms and Stacy took a turn in the hot tub. She shut her eyes, lolled back and let her mind drift over the past day’s events. She opened her eyes lazily to a soft touch on her arm. It was Arthur. She glanced at the larger pool and saw that Zeke and Emily were happily torturing Reecie with a game of monkey in the middle. Stacy smiled lazily.

  “I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” Arthur stammered a bit. “I don’t exactly know what happened during the Mass, but when you left you seemed pretty upset.” Arthur was blond—one of those in between shades—and had brown eyes that were round and soft. He wasn’t as tall as Ezekiel but they were both muscular. Uncle George, among other things, was a fitness enthusiast, and he kept a bunch of weight lifting equipment in one of the upstairs rooms at the factory. He also had a treadmill which Stacy had been known to use from time to time. All of the teens had good muscle tone. “I just wanted to let you know I’m here,” Arthur finished quietly, “if you ever need someone to talk to.”

  “Thanks.” Stacy’s eyes met and held his. “I’m really not sure what’s going on with me right now. I almost feel like I’m on the outside, looking in. This whole place is so different from our normal reality. It makes you stop and think—only right now I’m not quite sure what to think.” She flashed him a quick smile. “I appreciate the offer and I might take you up on it.”

  The next day was a blur of lectures. The first was by Fr. John Corappi. He told his conversion story. He had been a teen football star, had joined the military, become a high-stakes realtor and had gotten into drugs and partying with rock stars. He became an addict, lost every penny of the millions he had earned and ended up sleeping on a park bench. Then, by simply reciting one Hail Mary a day to begin with, he was extricated from the depths into which he had fallen and went on to become a priest—and not just any priest. He was ordained in Rome by Pope John Paul ll. Now in his fifties, but still a striking and charismatic figure, Fr. Corappi was a contemplative priest with no possessions of his own. He gave inspirational speeches and relied on God’s providence.

  After a ten minute break there was another lecture—this one by Fr. Pablo Straub. Fr. Pablo was a little older gentleman with a thick Mexican accent. He talked about how much Jesus loved each person—so much so, that if there had only been one person, He (God!) would have given His life just to save that one person. Fr. Pablo said it was as though God was “in love”with us! He was so much in love with us that, not only did He give His life for us at the crucifixion, not even was that enough, He also continues daily to give Himself as food. An analogy would be that it was as if a person loved their puppy so much that they—to save the puppy—became a puppy. But, more: not only did this person become a puppy, he became for that beloved pet—puppy food. The thought was almost blasphemous, but it was exactly (no, not exactly, because God was no mere human, but the Creator of the universe, and what He did for us was vastly greater) what God did. Stacy’s head hurt from thinking about this. She excused herself and took a walk to clear her thoughts. Wandering through the complex, Stacy eventually found herself in the adoration chapel. She knelt on the prie-dieu in front of the monstrance and contemplated the Wafer—which was no wafer—that was on display therein. The concept was mind boggling. She wanted to know Him, but it was hard to connect the morsel of bread in front of her with the God-man who had died on Calvary two thousand years ago, still less with the Creator who had knit her—and specifically her—in her mother’s womb eighteen years previously. “I want to know You,” she whispered under her breath. “Please let me know who You are. What did you look like?”

  When she left the Adoration area she found her way into the confession line. There were only a few people lined up again, probably because there were very good lectures going on at the time. Stacy didn’t even stop to think it an odd coincidence when she ended up in the the same rose-smelling cubicle she had been in the previous day, with the very priest she had spoken with before. She knelt and without preliminaries, because she couldn’t remember the preliminaries, she blurted, “I don’t know if I’m Catholic. I know I want to be whatever Jesus wants me to be,” she paused and took a breath, “I just don’t want to get freakish about it.”

  The priest remained silent for a moment. “I want you to go carefully through each of the ten commandments, then come back and tell me every sin that you can remember having done.” In the half-light his eyes appeared nearly black. “ Are you hungry?” he asked unexpectedly.

  Stacy was startled. “Excuse me?”

  “Perhaps you will be hungry tomorrow. He is hungry always.” He blessed and dismissed her.

  The family did lunch at Sloppy Finger Sam’s—who can resist their ribs? There were bag lunches available on premises, but their mother said they really were forgettable, and this trip was supposed to be a family event. The guys especially liked to eat ribs and this joint had all you can eat for $6. The competition to eat the most greasy pork was fierce and it was close, but in the end the group decided Zeke had gotten more for his money, although Arthur made a good showing. None of the others were even in the race.

  Afterward they regrouped in the auditorium, ready for the afternoon’s presenters. On the docket first was a contingent from Stockbridge, MD. They were giving a summary of the life of St. Faustina, the first Saint canonized by the late pope, John Paul ll. Faustina had been a young Polish nun—a mystic. Jesus had appeared to her repeatedly through her 33 year life as a cloistered nun, always imparting a message of mercy. As a preliminary, a man and woman highlighted the major events in her short life, sharing key messages with the audience. Then the audience was told they would experience something that had been discovered by accident in the course of studying this image which had been commissioned by Jesus to be painted, exactly as He had appeared to Faustina. Upon the big screen in front of the room appeared an enormous depiction of Christ. “This,” the audience was told, “is the first painting of Jesus as Divine Mercy, which He asked Faustina to have painted.” The image faded to blackness. “This,” the audience was then told. “is a photograph of the Shroud of Turin—the alleged burial garment of Jesus.” With another click the two images reappeared, superimposed upon each other. They were an exact match. A shiver went up and down Stacy’s spine as she realized the answer to her heartfelt prayer to know what He had looked like when He had walked the earth. The images continued to shift, from Faustina painting to Shroud image, and back again—occasionally both together, while the presenters played a love song about Jesus. “You love me,” Stacy realized with shock. “You really love me.”

  This time she really went to confession. While standing in line, she examined her conscience using the little card the priest had first given her as well as reviewing the ten commandments. She reflected ruefully on the many years that had passed since her last confession. The card said you were to confess by kind, and also by number, your serious sins. How could she possibly remember each and every lie, theft or lustful activity engaged in? Her whole life was a blur of self-seeking behaviors. She would just have to tell the priest she wasn’t sure of the numbers, but the infractions were many and they had become habitual.

  When she entered the dimly lit chamber filled with cubicles she was not at all surprised to be led to the exact station where she had been the two previous times. She would have been shocked if it had not
been the same bearded priest who was waiting for her. He helped her through the formulaic preliminaries and listened patiently as she enumerated her sins, interrupting occasionally to seek clarification or to dig deeper and find other sins she had not even realized she had done, or that they were hurting God, herself or others. At the end the priest sighed. “That was a good confession,” he said. When he pronounced the words of absolution, Stacy felt the shock of a shiver that assailed her body like a wave from head to toe and back again. It was almost like the waves of pleasure that she had occasionally experienced illicitly, but in another way it felt like feathery wings tickling her inside. When she left the confessional she felt so light that it was almost as if she could fly and there was a heavenly scent of roses so strong it almost made her dizzy.

  Even though the lectures had been exceptional, Mass was the high point of the day. Again, the auditorium was packed, all of the bleachers filled to the top. From their vantage point on the floor, but three-fourths of the way back from the altar, Stacy could pick out the individual faces of the day’s lecturers,