LITMIR.BIZ

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fear was almost constant and sometimes goaded the priest to some desperate sermons that brought mixed results at best. His clever—he thought so anyway—exhortation one Sunday morning about not wanting to hear any jingling in the collection plate resulted in a take that was twenty-one dollars less than had been collected on the previous Sunday. Worse was to come after his impassioned plea on another occasion for cooperation on fixing the leaky roof of the church. At first there seemed room for optimism when a group of volunteers arrived the following Saturday with a ladder and roofing supplies. Regrettably, though the spirit was willing, skills were weak and casualties were high. By the time the project was over—or more accurately, abandoned—the list included one broken leg, one scalp totally encrusted with spilled roofing tar, and two men so drunk they had to be carried home. And to make matters worse, a sizable mob of spectators had gathered by then, some of them secretly disappointed when the debacle had ended. The broken ladder that had led to the broken leg was never claimed and in fact gained a sinister reputation for having broken while doing God’s work. For years it could still be seen under the eaves of the church where, oddly enough, all the rungs rotted away except for the broken one that precipitated the calamity. Father Mancuso was depressed about the incident for several days but eventually achieved acceptance and even some relief that the roof leaked only slightly worse than it had before. And more importantly, no one filed a lawsuit.

      This spectacle lead to very hurried Masses on subsequent Sundays as Father Mancuso tried to ignore the evidence of what became known for years around town as The Charge of the Roof Brigade. But how could he ignore it when Bob Bukowski—he of the broken leg and who had never really been a regular at Mass—suddenly became a pathetic sideshow each and every Sunday? He had taken to arriving about five minutes late on his crutches, lurching and thumping his way to the front pew. Once there, he would perform a caricature of a genuflection, grimace painfully, and sit with a thud and a clatter as his crutches banged down beside him.

      As for Norm Kraus, whose entire head was so much more effectively tarred than the roof, he was reduced to sitting moodily in the back pew each Sunday wearing a too large Tyrolean hat that came all the way down to the middle of his ears. After the mishap, Norm had been taken to the small hospital in Bennetsville where the doctor decided that the hair would have to go so that the more important scalp could be attended to properly. Unfortunately whatever the cleansing agent of choice had been, it did not at all agree with Norm and his head promptly swelled up horribly and turned a dreadful shade of purple. This necessitated an injection for Norm and sedation for his wife who had become hysterical. Now some weeks later, Norm’s formerly luxurious gray hair was just beginning to sprout little bristles under the ever present Tyrolean hat, and some unsympathetic souls, who had never liked Norm much in the first place, now referred to him behind his back as the Burghermeister.

      Still, sometimes late at night, when The Readers Digest was put aside and there was just a small swallow left in his brandy snifter, Father Mancuso could reflect that it was not these irritants that left him with a vague feeling of malaise, but rather something deeper that stretched back to the years before he even arrived in Cedar Falls. It was something he kept at bay through hard work and willpower because he knew that to entertain these thoughts might be construed as at least bordering on the sin of pride—one of the so-called Deadly Sins. He had hoped that time would diminish these feelings but quite the opposite seemed to be happening.

      The problem was this: nothing spiritually significant had happened to Father Francis Mancuso since he was ordained almost twenty years ago. Nothing? Well yes, of course he realized that he was present at a miracle each and every day at Mass when the bread and water were turned into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and yes, he realized too that in doing the best he could to guide people in the ways of faith, he was important—at least in a small way—in the unfolding of God’s plan. But he had always hoped for just a little more; not a lot mind you, but just a little.

      If he had ever been asked exactly what it was he wanted, he might have had great difficulty answering in words that didn’t sound pompous or foolish. He might have said he hoped becoming a priest would accelerate and enhance his spiritual growth. Instead it seemed that ordination into the priesthood had brought only a never ending deluge of bingo games, chicken barbecues, sick calls, and church repair headaches. Gone forever were those all night sessions at the seminary where religion, philosophy, and psychology were debated and discussed over bad instant coffee. Even the views of the atheists and the humanists were considered if for no other reason than the thrill of playing with fire. Now he had neither the time nor the companionship for such reflections.

      If pressed further, Father Mancuso might have also admitted that he secretly hoped he might be a witness to something—not just miraculous in a symbolic way—but rather something startlingly miraculous. He knew this did indeed smack of the sin of Pride and even strayed into those dangerous waters warned about in the gospel story of Doubting Thomas. He knew he was not really one of those unfortunate doubting souls. Yet it bothered him that, if God or the Virgin Mary were going to manifest themselves—as it seemed they did sometimes—why was it so seldom to those, like himself for instance, who had deliberately sought out the spiritual life? At Lourdes it was a bunch of seemingly unremarkable kids who had seen the Virgin Mary. And not that long ago another group of kids in Yugoslavia were said to have seen and spoken with her. The Vatican wasn’t saying anything about this yet but interest was piqued. And now there were even reports that the face of Jesus was appearing periodically on a sick room door in Saint Peters Hospital, right down in nearby Albany, New York. This story didn’t seem to last long and resulted in a spate of jokes about the effects of morphine. Still, what if it was true? And it was so close at hand too. Yet for Father Mancuso it seemed his days dragged on and on with a nagging sadness that his vocation would never quite deliver the magic he had always hoped it would. Nevertheless, he knew what to do on those evenings when those thoughts roiled around in his head for too long. He said an Our Father, had another smallish brandy, counted his blessings, and went to bed. But then, out of the blue, on Christmas Eve of last year, something actually happened: something strange, oddly thrilling and unforgettable.

      As usual winter had already sunk its teeth deeply into Cedar Falls and the snow banks along the streets half hid the buildings where narrow shoveled paths weaved from door to door. The air was thick with wood smoke, sweet where cherry or birch burned, bitter where it was elm or oak.

      It had been almost eleven o’clock at night when Father Mancuso came out of his house across the street from the church and started slogging through the snow. His destination was a short walk to the large Christmas tree that grew in the town square. It was cold but the wind was light so he did not cover his face with his scarf as he walked, his rubber boots crunching on the cold packed snow. He had been out earlier, shortly after dusk and watched a new moon and brilliant Venus set into the west side by side. The night seemed charged with mystery and expectation but the priest was resigned to the sad fact that it would be a fleeting feeling that would pass with the ending of Midnight Mass, celebrated after the community caroling that would begin in just a few minutes. He passed by the deserted hardware store that had closed last year, though a new owner was rehabilitating it. The faded red sign that still hung out over the sidewalk creaked as the wind now picked up from the east. Snow was predicted for Christmas day.

      Along the streets that led off from the town square, Father Mancuso could see the houses and shops where Christmas lights shone through opaque curtains. Window sills were crowded with garish Santa Clauses and cozy manger scenes. Brief snatches of Christmas music came from the small brass band warming up beneath the tree in the middle of the square. Soon doors would open and people would be coming along the streets to form a circle around the band and the tall decorated blue spruce that rose high above them. The priest used these minutes to consider what he would say to start off the ceremony. He liked it to be short, hopefully memorable, and different every year.

      He arrived beneath the tree as the last stragglers moved into the circle. Some faces were aglow with the anticipation of warbling loudly with what they thought to be their talented voices, while others showed anxiety that someone might notice they would be just moving their lips rather than actually singing and making fools of themselves. The four horn players kept licking their lips, trying and keep them moist and warm. The trombone player continually moved the slide back and forth as though fearing

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