Nowadays it can be difficult to find parishes where Mass is offered daily. This reduction in the dependable frequency of Mass happened after-but not as a direct consequence of-Vatican II. The drastic and escalating shortage of priests, in no way foreseen by the Council, takes its toll on Daily Mass.
As challenging as it may be to find parishes with daily Mass, it is even more difficult locating parishes having more than one full-time parish priest. Parishes that traditionally had three, even four, assigned priests are now fortunate to have one.
People continue to get married and people continue to die. So weddings and funerals that used to be handled by a relative abundance of priests, now are the burden of the lonely pastor. Thus, to avoid being Massed to death, many pastors have cut back daily Mass to only a sprinkling of days in the typical week.
But there are a few holdouts still. Among these was Father Robert Koesler, who, no matter how many weddings and funerals accumulated, gleaned something special out of the sparsely attended early morning Mass. For him it was an appropriate time and an ideal way to commune with God.
It didn’t matter that Sister Janet had asked him to offer the 8:00 a.m. Mass. He would have been there anyway if only to concelebrate with whichever priest happened to have the Mass. As it happened, Marygrove’s chaplain had not yet returned from vacation; thus the invitation to Koesler.
At 7:30 he was kneeling in the ornate, vaulted chapel, gathering thoughts and prayers, taking stock of what yesterday had brought and what today might offer.
Last night he had been so relieved and grateful that the detectives were not angry at his blunder in calling them, and so exhausted from the Krieg-inspired psychodrama that he had drifted off to sleep earlier and slept even more soundly than was his custom at the rectory. So he felt extraordinarily refreshed as he prepared for Mass this morning.
Though distractions invaded his consciousness, he no longer fought them as he once had. By this time, they had become something with which one lived. Not infrequently they were welcomed in to become part of his prayer.
By any measurement, yesterday’s high point had been the nonmurder of Klaus Krieg. In his memory, Koesler could see clearly that clump of flesh lying on the floor, blood all over its clothing. I wonder, he thought, what they used for blood. Clever having those rivulets of red from the mouth and nostrils.
A question kept recurring and as often as it surfaced he rejected it. The question was, “Why?” Why had Krieg insisted on a psychodrama whose central theme was his own murder? Koesler kept dismissing the question because he had no acceptable answer for it.
What a strange man! Did Krieg have to be in control of everything he touched? Surely he alone had been master of last evening’s happening. The only other person who knew what really was happening was Sister Janet. Yet she was no more than playing a role in the drama. He alone directed the event.
And why would he stage his own murder? It was as if Krieg had been an invisible guest earlier when the others were expressing their strong feelings toward him. They certainly left no doubt that they disliked him intensely. Didn’t one of them as much as say the world would be better off without him? And the others had seemed to agree. It required no great stretch of the imagination to extrapolate a death threat from such a vehement expression.
How could Krieg have known how strong their antipathy was? How could he know that they disliked him enough to wish him dead, if not murdered? Yet he had to be aware of all this. Having staged his own death, he had to have anticipated that, somehow or other, they would all become suspects in that death.
And finally, why did those otherwise godly people feel such animus toward Krieg?
Deliberately, Koesler had avoided the TV ministry of Reverend Krieg. On the other hand, Koesler eschewed all televangelists. Hearsay had it that Krieg was considerably lesser than Billy Graham-who was probably the most sincere of all-and only slightly above Swaggart. Yet no matter how greedy and/or dishonest Krieg’s television program proved, nothing would explain the intensity of the animosity the members of this group held for him.
P.G. Press came closer to accounting for the hostility Koesler sensed in the group, and that only because, while the TV program could be avoided with a mere turn of the dial, the publishing house tried actively to recruit them. And P.G. Press might have snared one or another of them had they not had the good fortune to get good advice.
Even though this hypothesis did not seem a likely cause for the group’s strong feeling toward Krieg, it was as close as Koesler could come to solving the puzzle.
It was the immoderate intensity of their feeling that confounded him. Krieg had given them adequate reason to dislike him. But, that much?
He checked his watch. Ten minutes to 8:00. Time to investigate an unfamiliar sacristy. While vestments and accouterments for Mass were roughly identical anywhere in the world, in an unfamiliar setting there was no telling where everything was kept.
On entering the sacristy he found, to his relief, that someone-Sister Janet? — had laid everything out for him-vestments, chalice, wine and water, altar breads, key to the tabernacle, lectionary-everything in place. Or, as Canon Law liked to put it, omnia parata.
He slipped the alb over his head, ran his arms through the sleeves and let the white garment fall, hoping it would reach the floor-or at least nearly. No luck; too short again. The sleeves ended about halfway between his wrists and elbows. The length was midway between ankles and knees. Why, he wondered for the zillionth time, why don’t they make vestments-particularly the alb, which should cover the priest completely from neck to ankle-in large sizes? One can always roll up the sleeves or tuck up the surplus length over the cincture. But if it’s too short. .
There was still time to look for a more suitable alb. He began rummaging through the clothes press.
Gradually, he became aware that he was not alone. Startled, he turned from the armoire to see David Benbow standing there looking amused.
“Don’t tell me,” Benbow said. “You can’t find an alb that’s long enough.”
Koesler returned the smile. “How’d you know?”
“I have the same problem when I go visiting.”
The first thought occurring to Koesler was that, yes, Benbow would have that problem since he was only slightly shorter than Koesler. The second reflection was that Benbow was, indeed, a priest, an Episcopal priest. How religiously chauvinistic of him not to be cognizant of Benbow’s priesthood.
Benbow broke the awkward silence. “I saw the notice upstairs about the Mass at 8:00. Martha and I decided to come down. I thought you might need some help. But I see somebody has set things up.”
“Yes, everything but a decent sized alb. The most charitable thought that comes to mind is that whoever did this didn’t know I was going to say the Mass. Either that, or she thinks one-size alb fits all.”
“Er. .” Benbow paused. “. . you don’t mind if Martha and I attend your Mass. .”
“Of course not.” Koesler felt foolish; it was such a modest request.
On Koesler’s second thought, by some lights the request wasn’t all that modest, after all. It was one thing to attend Mass. No law against that. Questions arose when Communion time arrived. There could be an awkward moment should either or both Benbows present themselves to receive Communion.
The program began when England’s Henry VIII couldn’t get a decree of nullity from the Catholic Church. Without the Church’s declaration that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was null and void, he was unable to contract a Church-sanctioned marriage with anyone else, more particularly in this case, Anne Boleyn. So, Henry split with Rome, declared himself head of the Church of England (which became the Anglican Church, of which the Episcopal Church in America is a branch), and bestowed on himself the desired nullity decree. . and the desired marriage with Ms. Boleyn.