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The falsetto rasp of the
aluminium rings on the bar as the curtain drew open then closed roused Father Popieluszko from his troubled thoughts, but the voice from behind the confessional grate quickly called him back to them.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two days since my last confession."
It always took Father Popieluszko a moment to recognize Novice Kowalska’s words. The voice that bore them was so pure in tone, yet stirred by
hidden harmonies, that it was like losing oneself in the lullaby of a mountain brook only to realize it was speaking to you.
"There was some trouble at Vespers last night, Sister?"
Against the grate of the confessional pressed the black hood of the girl’s habit as she leaned her head down in misery. "Oh, Father, is God angry with me?" she sobbed.
"No, child," Father Popieluszko whispered soothingly. "He may have been angry with Sister Theresa’s pots or the flowers within them, but He is not angry with you. God glories in your singing."
"But why did the pots shatter?" As Maria’s quiet anguish took on an edge of anger, Father Popieluszko could feel the frustration of her words thrumming against his sternum. The curtain rings began to shimmy in agitation. "And what about Sister Helena last week?"
"Softly, child, softly . . ." He waited for her to take a ragged breath and then a calmer one. "Sister Helena is fine, just a lingering headache. And we have no idea whether it was your singing that caused her pain. The doctors want to keep her in the hospital for a few more days before making any judgments."
Sister Maria paused for a moment before whispering, "I should stop attending Vespers and Matins."
Father Popieluszko’s voice grew sterner. "Sister, we have discussed this before. It is your duty to God to attend. Do you not think it pleases Him to hear the gift he has blessed you with? Would you be so ungrateful for that gift?"
"It is not a gift!" The brass grate moaned as it buckled inward. Father Popieluszko’s breath rushed from him as her shout buffeted his chest. A trickle of blood slowly wound its way from his nose and onto his lip. "Oh, Father!" Her voiced dropped to the merest whisper, yet it still filled the confessional as if her regret poured from a hundred abject mouths. "Father, I am so sorry."
He pulled a handkerchief from under his robes to staunch his nosebleed. He had come prepared. "Sometimes a different light is required to admire the beauty of God’s gifts—"
"Oh, Father, please don’t make me leave!" She gripped the grate with pleading hands. Dirt from the garden darkened her nails. Her blue eyes cringed in fear.
"The only one who can make the choice to leave is you. But, Maria," he said, his voice a mixture of paternal compassion and demand, "it is time to think upon why God gave you this gift. Was it so that you could shatter Sister Theresa’s pots during Vespers or was it for some other purpose?"
"But, Father, I have only two months left in my novitiate. I take my vows this summer!"
"Shhh . . . There is nothing I wish more than to witness those vows. But it is God’s wishes we must ascertain." Father Popieluszko reached forward to brush her fingers with his own. She released her grip on the grate and let her hands fall to her lap. "Now, to atone for your sins against pottery, I assign you one ‘Our Father.’ However, on this other matter, I suggest you keep vigil with your rosary tonight until the answer comes to you."
"And what if the answer doesn’t come, Father?" Her voice attempted frailty and hesitation, but its power could not be disguised. Much like the child herself, Father Popieluszko thought.
"Sister, God has already placed the answer within your heart. It is up to you to summon the courage to find it." Father Popieluszko heard a sigh then a rustle of cloth as Maria rose from her knees. "Sister, before you go . . ."
"Yes, Father?"
"Sing me a song."
Sister Maria giggled with shy pleasure, then drew a deep breath and filled the confessional with God’s sweet, soft glory. Father Popieluszko smiled while at the same time his eyes wept at the knowledge that he would never hear her sing again.
Background Story: Part II
"I remember the morning I gave you that rosary, Sister Maria," said Father Popieluszko from the stone garden bench where he sat with his legs crossed beneath his robes. He was a young priest, but he spoke slowly and easily like an old grandfather. The rosary had slipped out from beneath Maria's smock as she kneeled over the empty garden bed digging a hole in the loose, rich earth. "It is comforting to see that you still wear it."
Maria tucked the rosary back under her smock and sank her spade deep into the ground. This was Father Popieluszko's first visit with her since she had returned to the convent. She had thought of him often at the hospital. He was always the one she had trusted the most, and she knew he would have agreed with the doctors.
The doctors had assured her that she had not killed God. And at first she had believed them.
"Ifrit, a very power villain," they said. "The stress of your first battle," they explained. "Possible mild concussion from hitting the wall," they pointed out. And she had nodded, the sedatives weighing her chin so heavily it bounced against her chest. But she didn't mind the great weight of her chin The sting in her arm, the small, neat cross of bandage over her vein, the drip, drip, drip of medicine, they were a blessing. Only they had stopped the tears. She had feared the tears would never stop. Impossible to be so full of tears, a dim thought within her had protested. But the tears didn't stop. A waste, the far-off thought chided. A nun's tears should be shed only for Christ. But the tears didn't stop. Only the sting and the cross and the drip, drip, drip of medicine were able to stop them, emptying her of everything but a leaden tiredness. And she nodded her head again at the doctors' calming words, her chin falling like a stone.
She hadn't killed God.
It was Ifrit, not God, who had fallen that morning during the aborted robbery, struck lifeless from the sky above the bank by Maria's hymn. In a daze from Ifrit's brutal attack, she had thought he was God, mocking her weakness, punishing her for her cowardliness. So she had struck back with everything in her power, determined to prove Him wrong, to silence His laughter. And when God fell, she had smiled.
But she hadn't killed God.
This thought carried Maria for a while. It carried her over the days spent sitting motionless next to her hospital room window, the Roman sun heavy against her brow like a mother's hand. It carried her over the sessions with Dr. Cerletti, sitting in the room with the shades drawn and the leather chair cool against the back of her neck. It carried her over the daily masses celebrated in the hospital chapel, the congregants wheeling their IV stands alongside them as they shuffled forward in the communion line.
But the thought dropped her—without warning or care—the night she realized as she slipped her legs beneath the thin, rough hospital sheets to prepare for lights out, "I've stopped praying."
If she hadn't killed God, why had she forgotten Him?
The next morning, she left the hospital. She presented a copy of her freshly drafted resignation from Sanctity to the hospital administrator, so he was forced to release her on her own authority.
Her old cell at the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Crakow was ready for her when she arrived. None of the sisters seem troubled by her silence. When she awoke the first morning in the convent, a tray of steaming oatmeal and buttered bread was waiting outside her door. In a neat pile beside the tray were a gardener's smock, gloves, and bonnet.
They brought lunch out to her in the garden every day and kept her pitcher of water full. They did not ask her to Matins or Vespers. When it grew too dark to see, she stumbled in exhaustion to her cell and greedily slurped down the bowl of soup that always awaited her on her bedside table. When she slept, she was too tired to dream.
"I know you came back to seek answers, Sister," Father Popieluszko continued gently from his perch on the garden bench. "And I know the convent is a comfort to you. But the answers you seek are not in your cell or in this garden. They are in that rosary around your neck."
Maria pulled a stone from the hole she was digging and laid it off to the side. The hole was already a half-foot deep, but she sank her spade in again.
"When I first pointed you towards Sanctity," Father Popieluszko continued. "I encouraged you to pray over the decision. You did not want to leave here, but you knew the power God had placed in your voice He did not intend for you to waste. So perhaps now after what happened in Rome you think your prayers led you wrong."
Maria put down the spade. The hole was deep enough. She reached in a gloved hand and smoothed down the sides of the hole.
Father Popieluszko rose from the bench. He walked to Maria and knelt besides her, not taking any care to keep the dirt off his robes. "Sister, prayer will never lead you wrong. When you first came to this convent, it was because you followed your prayers. When I gave that rosary to you, I told you that God will always listen to your prayers, that He will always put the answer to your prayers in your heart."
Maria took the gloves off her hands. She reached up to her neck and unclasped the rosary. She let the wooden beads settle into her right palm.
"Sister, God put the right answer in your heart when you joined Sanctity. As much as you feel at home here, as much as you feel safe here, you do not belong here. I spoke to the Vatican this morning. They are prepared to take you back. They realize you needed to come here, to speak with God, to make your peace with Him." Father Popieluszko took his hands and wrapped them around Maria's hand and the rosary. "God will make peace with you, Maria. You just need to pray."
He leaned forward and kissed her head. He stood, turned, and walked down the path to the garden gate. Maria did not lift her head to watch him leave. She stared at the rosary in your hand. _You just need to pray_
But what if there was no one there to pray to?
She dropped the rosary into the hole. With reverent care, she pulled the loose dirt over it.
The doctors had assured her that she had not killed God. And at first she had believed them. |
