five “Our Fathers” and ten “Hail Marys”…or ten and a rosary recital and don’t ever do it again unless you are prepared to confess yet again, etc., etc. For Father Connor, it was like administering a placebo to cure cancer.
But he supposed that their faith took them beyond the predictable nature of it all, and genuinely freed them from the burden of their most recent sins. At least he hoped it did. He only wished that he could find the same fulfillment.
It had been too long since he had experienced any of the dynamics that were supposed to accompany his calling. Most of his parishioners took it for granted that he was an enlightened man, that the Keys to the Kingdom were clutched in his certain grasp of the hereafter. They mistook his apathy for some sort of inner peace.
His dilemma was particularly acute when he was called upon to instruct prospective converts to the faith. A man, a woman, or a married couple would sit before him, eager to embark upon the journey to salvation. They would explain to him how they had come to this point in their lives, how they had been moved by something deep within themselves, or by some experience that they could not easily explain away. And he would nod and say, “Yes,” and “yes.” They would glean whatever they needed from that to confirm the rightness of their decisions, and would leave the old priest feeling more and more the useless icon.
He had prayed for deliverance from his weakness so many times that even the prayers had become numb and empty. He was running on pure habit.
But it hadn’t always been so. He remembered clearly his youth, his early years as a firebrand in the Church. His acts, his works, and the passionate delivery of his sermons had earned him respect, and the grooming approval of the Roman hierarchy. It had all served to fulfill him in God. Evan Connor had been a stone-cold believer in his mission.
When he met the young Isaac Bloom, he was at the apex of his calling. And when Isaac had confessed his desire to convert, the priest had taken it as a personal tasking from On High. He had committed himself to the task with zeal. He had wanted to teach Isaac, to foster an appreciation for the wonder of the here and now while offering a glimpse beyond the celebration of the Mass to a mystical place where love eclipsed the weary burdens of the world.
In those first few months with Isaac, he too had come to believe in the possibility of all things. His mind and his spirit had expanded, and his daily partaking of the Host caused him to tremble with visions. At night, alone among the simple furnishings of his room, he would lay prone upon the floor and converse with God.
Then, a year after Isaac’s emotional conversion, Evan Connor caught the attention of a controversial French priest who was doing some anthropological work in India: Pierre Chabot. Chabot had dedicated himself to the overlapping messages of love, compassion and tolerance in the world’s oldest religions. Messages that he saw as a vital bond between all of humanity. Messages that might, one day, rid the world of the plague of war. He had heard of Evan, and had become fascinated by the almost heretical sermons that rang out like warning shots from Connor’s pulpit.
For Connor had begun to question some of the Church’s most fundamental paradigms. He saw a critical need for global birth control, particularly in the starving desperation of the Third World, where thousands of children each day were folding themselves into bony little balls of suffering and death.
Chabot knew something about the charges of heresy. He had been accused on more than one occasion of an over-zealous effort to undermine the teachings of Creationism. And his work in India’s ancient places had taken on the trappings of exile. But above everything, he remained a devout man of God, who saw no threat to Heaven in the mysterious symbiosis of the world’s oldest religions. Even when those religions were more
But he supposed that their faith took them beyond the predictable nature of it all, and genuinely freed them from the burden of their most recent sins. At least he hoped it did. He only wished that he could find the same fulfillment.
It had been too long since he had experienced any of the dynamics that were supposed to accompany his calling. Most of his parishioners took it for granted that he was an enlightened man, that the Keys to the Kingdom were clutched in his certain grasp of the hereafter. They mistook his apathy for some sort of inner peace.
His dilemma was particularly acute when he was called upon to instruct prospective converts to the faith. A man, a woman, or a married couple would sit before him, eager to embark upon the journey to salvation. They would explain to him how they had come to this point in their lives, how they had been moved by something deep within themselves, or by some experience that they could not easily explain away. And he would nod and say, “Yes,” and “yes.” They would glean whatever they needed from that to confirm the rightness of their decisions, and would leave the old priest feeling more and more the useless icon.
He had prayed for deliverance from his weakness so many times that even the prayers had become numb and empty. He was running on pure habit.
But it hadn’t always been so. He remembered clearly his youth, his early years as a firebrand in the Church. His acts, his works, and the passionate delivery of his sermons had earned him respect, and the grooming approval of the Roman hierarchy. It had all served to fulfill him in God. Evan Connor had been a stone-cold believer in his mission.
When he met the young Isaac Bloom, he was at the apex of his calling. And when Isaac had confessed his desire to convert, the priest had taken it as a personal tasking from On High. He had committed himself to the task with zeal. He had wanted to teach Isaac, to foster an appreciation for the wonder of the here and now while offering a glimpse beyond the celebration of the Mass to a mystical place where love eclipsed the weary burdens of the world.
In those first few months with Isaac, he too had come to believe in the possibility of all things. His mind and his spirit had expanded, and his daily partaking of the Host caused him to tremble with visions. At night, alone among the simple furnishings of his room, he would lay prone upon the floor and converse with God.
Then, a year after Isaac’s emotional conversion, Evan Connor caught the attention of a controversial French priest who was doing some anthropological work in India: Pierre Chabot. Chabot had dedicated himself to the overlapping messages of love, compassion and tolerance in the world’s oldest religions. Messages that he saw as a vital bond between all of humanity. Messages that might, one day, rid the world of the plague of war. He had heard of Evan, and had become fascinated by the almost heretical sermons that rang out like warning shots from Connor’s pulpit.
For Connor had begun to question some of the Church’s most fundamental paradigms. He saw a critical need for global birth control, particularly in the starving desperation of the Third World, where thousands of children each day were folding themselves into bony little balls of suffering and death.
Chabot knew something about the charges of heresy. He had been accused on more than one occasion of an over-zealous effort to undermine the teachings of Creationism. And his work in India’s ancient places had taken on the trappings of exile. But above everything, he remained a devout man of God, who saw no threat to Heaven in the mysterious symbiosis of the world’s oldest religions. Even when those religions were more
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