“It began with a scroll Father Fitzpatrick received as a gift...”
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“I see,” Vincenzo said softly as Sister Carolyn finished her story, closing with the details of the cures and miracles at the soup kitchen one floor above.
He had been too fascinated to interrupt her long monologue more than once or twice for clarifications. He had studied her expression for some hint of insincerity, but had found none, at least none that he could detect in the candlelight. And as she spoke he came to understand something about this beautiful young woman. She was deeply devoted to the Virgin. No hint of personal gain or notoriety had crossed her mind in bringing the Virgin here to her church. It had seemed like the right thing to do, the only thing to do, and so she had done it. She was one of the good ones. He sensed a hard knot of darkness deep within her, an old festering wound that would not heal, but otherwise she was all love and generosity. Had she always been like this, or was it the result of prolonged proximity to...her?
He turned to stare again at the Virgin.
“An incredible story,” he said into the silence.
If I were someone else, he thought, or even if I had happened to stumble upon this little room only last week, before my encounter with the Blessed Mother, I would have said they are both mad. Good-hearted, sincere, and well intentioned, to be sure, but quite utterly mad. But I am not someone else, and I believe every incredible word.
“Then you can see, can’t you,” Sister Carolyn said, and Vincenzo sensed that she was praying he could and would see, “that she has to remain here? Remain a secret?”
“A secret? Oh, no. That is the last thing this discovery should be. This is the Mother of God, sister. She should have a cathedral of gold, she should be exalted as an ideal, a paradigm for a life of faith and purity.”
“But Monsignor, that isn’t what the Apostles intended when they brought her to the Resting Place in the desert.”
“Who are we to say what the Apostles intended? And besides, these are different, difficult times. True faith, generous and loving, seems to be on the wane, replaced by wild-eyed fundamentalist factions that call themselves holy and faithful and servants of God, yet are anything but. Think what the physical presence of the Mother of God could mean to the Church, to Christianity, to all of humanity? This could usher in a whole new age of faith.”
“Or mean the end of faith,” Dan said.
The statement startled Vincenzo. “Whatever do you mean?”
He pointed to the body. “Here she is—solid, visible touchable. She cures the incurable. You don’t need to believe that—it happens. No faith is necessary when the proof is before you.”
He was right. Was that what this was all about? The end of the need for faith? If so, it marked the beginning of…what? Peace?
Dear Jesus, it all fit, didn’t it. It all made sense now. The discovery of the scroll, the journey of these two good people to the Holy Land, finding the remains of the Blessed Virgin, removing her from the desert, the Vatican sending him to Ireland and then New York, the apparitions, his cure, his arrival in the subcellar of this humble old church—these weren’t random events. Three times his path and the Virgin’s had crossed: in Cork City, on the streets outside, and now in this tiny room. There was a pattern here, a purpose, a plan.
And now Vincenzo saw the outcome of that plan.
The Virgin was to be revealed to the world. And when she was brought to the Vatican, when she joined the Holy Father in Rome, it would herald a new age. Perhaps it would signal the Second Coming.
Philosophers and academics had been speaking of the end of history for years already. What will they say now?
The staggering immensity of the final sequence of events that might be set into motion numbed him for a moment.
The end of history...all history.
But he couldn’t tell these two what he knew. At least not now. He could, however, try to reassure them.
“There is a plan at work,” he said. “And we are all playing our parts. You’ve played your parts, and now I must play mine. And the Vatican must play its own part.”
“But what if the Vatican doesn’t play its part?” she cried. “What if, instead of showing her to the world, they hide her away in one of the Church’s deepest vaults where they’ll test her and probe her and argue endlessly whether to reveal her or keep her hidden from the world? Don’t say it couldn’t happen. This may not look like much, but here at least she has some contact with the world. People are benefiting from her presence. Leave her here.”
“I can’t make that decision.”
“Once she gets to Rome, she may disappear forever, as if we never found her.”
“That is absurd,” Vincenzo said.
But within he wondered if she might not be right. He was more familiar than she with the internecine ways of the Holy See, and realized it was all too possible that the Virgin might be lost in the labyrinth of Vatican politics.
“Please!” she cried.
He was wounded by the tears in her eyes. How could he separate her from the Virgin? That seemed almost...sinful.
Vincenzo shook himself. His duty was clear.
“I’m sorry, but I really have no choice. I must report this to Rome at once.”
Sister Carolyn began to sob. The sound tore at his heart. He had to leave. Now. Before he changed his mind.
“I’ll be back as soon as I have the Vatican’s decision.”
“Don’t be surprised if you find an empty room,” Father Fitzpatrick said.
Vincenzo swung toward him. “Please do not do anything so foolish as to move her or try to hide her. I found her here. I can find her anywhere.”
He hurried out of the room leaving behind the sobbing nun and the stricken, silent priest.
This is the way it has to be, he told himself. This is the best way, the only way.
Then why did he feel like such a villain?
He would make it up to Sister Carolyn. He would see to it that she was not separated from her beloved Blessed Mother. He would convince the Holy see that Sister Carolyn Ferris must accompany the Virgin to Rome to tell her story.
But first he had to convince the Holy See that the body in the subcellar of this church was indeed the Blessed Virgin. He could do that. They’d believe him. He’d debunked so many reputed visitations in the past that they’d listen when he told them he’d found the real thing. More than a visitation—the greatest find since the dawn of the Christian Era.
And then it would begin.
The Second Coming...the end of history...
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Carrie clenched her teeth and tried to rein in her emotions. What was wrong with her? She’d never cried easily before. Now she couldn’t seem to help herself.
She’d just about regained control when Dan stepped up beside her and gently encircled her in his arms. His touch, and the depth of love and warmth in the simple gesture, toppled her defenses. She sagged against him and broke down again.
“It’ll be all right, Carrie. We’ll work something out.”
But what could they work out? Her worst nightmare had come true.
She straightened and faced him. “They’re going to take her, Dan. They’re going to take her and seal her away where no one will ever see her again, where no one but a privileged few will even know she exists.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that.” Anger was beginning to elbow aside the fear and desperate sorrow. “And I know we didn’t go to all that trouble to find her and bring her here just so she could be locked up in a Vatican vault!”
“But what the monsignor said about a ‘plan’ makes sense. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you sense a hand moving the pieces around a chessboard. We’re a couple of the pawns, Carrie. So’s the monsignor.”
“Maybe,” she said, although she knew exactly what Dan was talking about. She’d felt it too. “And maybe the ‘plan’ isn’t meant to play out the way the monsignor sees it. We can’t let the Vatican have her.”