Beth firmly believed that Louise was near the end of her days. And that she was suffering. Beth feared that when, inevitably, she would pass, Tony would bitterly regret not giving more of himself to his mother’s needs.
But he seemed to have divorced himself from the drama being played out in his home. Resignation was a word not to be found in Tony’s lexicon. He felt only contempt for them all-for Dr. Schmidt, Father Koesler, Lucy, and, most of all, his brother, whose idea the miracle was.
It was like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in those ancient movie musicals. Always there was some crisis solvable only with a wad of money. So the kids would borrow a barn and suddenly there’d be a wildly expensive set, dozens-hundreds-of Busby Berkeley precision dancers, and an ecstatically successful ending. And the original problem, was, of course, solved.
And so it was with Vinnie and his brainstorm: Lucy would get all of St. William’s school and parish praying for this miracle. Likewise Father Koesler’s parish. Likewise Western Michigan University. Likewise St. John’s Seminary. The result of all this prayer was a miracle to be delivered by Easter. And a happy ending for all.
In either the movie or Vinnie’s script this made for a pleasant diversion. But in the real world, a pile of crap.
In any case, after a few more futile attempts at studying, Tony and Beth closed the books and went to bed-together. The Catholic Church of that era reminded sexually active people, especially young people, that steady dating was itself an occasion of sin: It had a nasty habit of leading to “sins of the flesh.”
Tony and Beth were horizontal proof of that.
Days turned into weeks.
It was fortunate that Lucy was young. The demands of the situation were extremely stressful.
Under ordinary circumstances, much of the preparation, trappings, and folderol of graduation would have been lovingly handled by her mother.
As it was, not only was Lucy shouldering the demands of final exams and graduation, she was also taking care of her mother.
Nothing was working out the way it had been planned. The help she was to have received was minimal at best. Father Koesler had volunteered what turned out to be a completely unrealistic presence to bail out Lucy. He and Vinnie had been swept up in the exhilaration of the moment when Louise’s choice became therapy or a miracle. Doc Schmidt came very close to his promise by dropping in occasionally and keeping the prescriptions coming.
Actually, the one who came closest to fulfilling his promise-or lack of it-was Tony. He had promised nothing. And that pretty much was what he delivered.
Early on, after that pivotal day, Louise got along rather better than anyone could have hoped.
She tired easily. But that had been a symptom even before her illness was diagnosed. She clung to mobility as though it were a sign of health. If she was up and about, she considered herself well; when she lingered in bed, something was wrong. A simple formula.
She attended daily Mass as often as she could-four or five days a week. Everyone in the church these early mornings knew what troubled her. Nearly everyone in the parish-at least the active parishioners-knew. Father Walsh would not sponsor a crusade for a miracle. But he certainly did not discourage prayer. So word got around.
She tried to believe a miracle was in her future. She really tried. And some days she felt so good, so nearly recovering, that she confused small remissions with a miraculous recovery.
Lucy matured dramatically that spring. She was still of an age when death is not quite real. Surely she would never die; she was far too alive. Of course other people died. But not her mother; her mother was still a young woman.
And then Lucy began to see it. It became more and more difficult for Louise to avoid lying down or at least sitting down. Her weight, never much, began to drop. To look in her eyes was to see pain.
Louise bore it all without complaint. She taught her daughter how to pray for and prepare for the miracle. It wouldn’t be a miracle if she recovered from a less than terminal condition. In other words, she’d have to be a whole lot sicker than she was for the reality of the miracle to prove itself.
Louise was aware that a significant number of very sincere people were praying for her. The times when the pain was more intense she consciously fell back on all those prayers. And when she did, the pain became quite bearable.
Father Koesler had been unable to convince his pastor to mobilize a prayer campaign. But Koesler enlisted the prayer and concern of many friends and/or parishioners. Together, he and they learned a lot about prayer through this experience.
Koesler, who talked with Tony from time to time, knew that the young man was neither supportive nor productive-or even encouraging, for that matter. The priest knew that Lucy was doing literally all she could. So there was not all the prayer they had anticipated in the beginning. Still, many good people were storming heaven for Louise’s sake.
The anchor of all this dedicated prayer was Vincent. No one else had his confidence, his faith. He was in the seminary chapel whenever he was not called to another duty. He spent an unaccustomed amount of time with his Bible. He repeatedly called up passages that spoke to him of requited prayer.
With this in mind, it seemed that the entire Bible was a romance between God and mankind, and that the language of this romance was prayer.
Vincent was encouraged by the frequency of prayer stories in the New Testament. It seemed that Jesus was always assuring His disciples that anything they asked the Father for they would receive if they had faith. Jesus Himself, when performing his miracles, would express His faith. Anything, everything was possible through faith.
And Vincent had faith.
He prayed, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” But there was little unbelief in Vincent’s prayer.
He believed. He had faith.
All those marvelous people were a source of encouragement and support.
But this was Vincent’s miracle.
Vincent’s life of prayer and faith so impressed the rector that he relaxed his previous restriction for a one-day-a-week home visitation. Now Vinnie was home from Friday night to Sunday night each week.
Though Vincent was not notably popular among his fellow students and classmates, a goodly number of them caught his fervor and began praying for his mother’s cure.
Each Sunday evening when he returned from home, many, faculty and students alike, asked after his mother. He never tired of explaining that while she seemed to be failing, her faith was strong. The miracle could happen any time now. And the miracle, by definition, could happen no matter how frail she was. Indeed, the more that physical hope declined, the more appropriate would be God’s merciful intervention.
So he encouraged them to continue his prayer with him.
But, without doubt, it was Vincent’s show.
16
Palm Sunday
The gangbusters church congregations for Holy Week had begun. Attendance at Mass this morning at St. Norbert’s was up markedly from what could be expected on an ordinary Sunday. Father Koesler knew the other parishes were experiencing the same phenomenon as his small suburban parish.
He knew also that he could anticipate a full week of virtually nothing but eating, sleeping, conducting liturgies, and hearing confessions.
Confessions would be by far the heaviest burden.
“The Box,” as the confessional was called by some, was not designed for comfort. In many cases it was more a torture chamber.
Penitents knelt in murky obscurity on an unyielding board set below a shelf on which one could rest one’s elbows-depending on one’s size. Short people had better luck resting their chins on the support while tall people could distort their spines trying to lean down. At least the penitents were captive for a relatively short period.