“Hello,” I said into the receiver. “Is your sister home? Well, isn’t she supposed to be going to school in an hour? Okay, I’ll wait.” The seconds ticked by. Finally I heard Mary slide across the linoleum in her slippers. “I was just about to head to class and I was thinking about you,” I said. “I can’t wait to see you. Will you be here Sunday? Actually it’s 7:58. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that when I’m lying in bed tonight, just before I fall asleep, I’ll be thinking about you. If you think about me at the same time, it’ll almost be like we’re in bed together.”
The second bell rang as I approached the classroom door. I turned the handle and bounded in when the ringing stopped. Father Gregory looked up from his notebook, then back down again. “Our first class together and you’ve already used up your one and only favour. Take your seat, William, then you can tell us your thoughts on transubstantiation.”
“Transubstantiation,” I said, en route to my desk, “is...a...central tenet of our faith.”
“Sit down.”
“Turning bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ,” I said. “But the appearance of bread and wine remains.”
He flipped through his folder and read something, while we sat at our desks writing the date at the top of blank sheets of notebook paper. The entire junior class was there, staring straight ahead, waiting for the start of what should be the easiest course of the semester.
Usually, if you just took part in class discussions and did the homework, religion was a bankable A. The only problem was that Father Gregory hadn’t taught a course in over five years. He’d been too busy with administrative duties to teach a class. No one knew what to expect.
We waited and waited. Father Gregory was a great lover of the pregnant pause. Eventually he took a deep breath, then snapped into action. “My apologies for starting this class a week late, but as you know we’ve all had to make allowances in Brother Stephen’s absence.”
He grabbed a pile of papers and handed them to Eric, who was sitting in the front row. Eric got up and distributed them around the class, the intoxicating aroma of mimeograph fluid spreading like a billowing cape behind him. When I got my course syllabus, I held it to my nose and inhaled deeply. It was still wet from the machine. I practically inhaled the purple letters right off the page, and I wasn’t alone.
“Stop smelling the syllabus,” Father Gregory ordered. “You men are juniors now. Act like adults.”
The reading list was long and intense. The Council of Trent, Vatican I, and Saint Thomas More were among the highlights. We scanned the coming semester as Father Gregory revelled in our dismay. “Before we discuss the syllabus and the reading list, I want to start off the class with a discussion. I want to talk about Our Blessed Mother.”
Pens clicked in a well-conditioned response.
“No need for notes yet. I only want to talk. Tell me, is Our Blessed Mother the way to heaven?”
That was a heavily loaded question. While we could all see the trap he was setting, Eric was the one to raise his hand.
“No,” he announced. “She is not the way, but she guides us along the way. To her son, Jesus.”
Father Gregory pursed his lips. “Then that leads me to another question: Do we worship Mary?”
“No,” Jon said. “We’re supposed to venerate Mary. We worship God alone.” We’d covered this fine distinction last semester. “But let’s talk reality here.”
Father Gregory pushed some papers aside, tossed the back of his scapular out of the way, and sat on the edge of his desk. “I’m all for reality.”
“Reality is that people like the Mexicans and the Polish worship Mary. They don’t just ask her to pray for them. They worship the Black Madonna and that other one, Our Lady of Guadeloupe. You can’t say people who can’t even read know the difference between venerate and worship.”
“Wrong.” Eric turned in his seat and confronted the heretic. “Poland and Mexico and Fatima...and Lourdes...and a few other places all have a special relationship with Mary. They know who God is. They know who died on the cross. They’re just giving her the honour she deserves—and people in Poland can read!”
Jon shook his head. “They worship those statues. They say some of those things cry and bleed and stuff like that. They get down and crawl on their knees along roads and up mountains to visit a picture. Sounds like worship to me.”
“I can’t believe you! What’s your problem?” Eric shook his head. “These people are only following her to her Son. You sound like a Jehovah’s Witness or something.”
Father Gregory raised his hand. “Let’s keep away from personal attacks, shall we? Stick to the issues.”
Connor had had his hand up since the battle had begun. Father Gregory pointed to him. “Who w-w-was the only one to stick by Him w-w-when He was on t-the cross? His disciples skipped out. Mary w-was the only one.”
“No, she wasn’t,” Jon, corrected. “So was Mary’s sister, plus Mary Magdalene and that other Mary, the mother of the apostles James Major and John. Besides, what does that have to do with anything?”
I forced my way in. I had no idea why Jon was so agitated, but it seemed as if he needed backup. “What about the fact that we pray the rosary every day? The full rosary is made up of a hundred and fifty Hail Marys and only fifteen Our Fathers. I’m not keeping score, but it seems like she’s ahead ten to one.”
Eric turned his back on us. “You’re sick. You know you’re supposed to be thinking about God when you say the rosary.”
Jon wouldn’t let it go. He was tainted, after all. His dad was born a Lutheran. “Why don’t we just pray straight to God? I mean, is she going to tap him on the shoulder and say, ‘Give this kid a break as a favour for your mom?’ Seems kinda weak to me.”
Father Gregory’s arms were folded across his chest. He started picking lint off the front of his black scapular. “Jon, you bring up an interesting question, but I think you’re being confrontational for effect. However, these are the kinds of issues we’ll be discussing this semester. We’re going to get to the bottom of a lot of misconceptions and find the truth.” He looked out the window and paused. “Essentially we have two pillars of our faith. Anyone?”
Jon and Eric raced to spit out, “Scripture and church teaching.”
Father Gregory continued. “Our Christian brothers outside the church have the scriptures, but they’ve turned their backs on the nearly two thousand years of tradition and dogma. We have those teachings as our inheritance.”
“But Father...” Jon threw his pencil onto his desk and folded his arms. “When you pray—I’m not talking about Mass or the rosary—when you pray by yourself, do you just pray to God, or do you cover all your bases and pray to Mary and the saints, too?”
“It’s not a game, Jon. Prayer is prayer. Have a look at those books on your reading list and then look into your heart. You’ll see the truth.”
“You cover your bases.”
Father Gregory hesitated, then stood and straightened his habit. “Yes,” he sighed, “I most certainly do.”
On the way to lunch I saw Father Albert with a tennis bag. He always looked ridiculous strolling through the seminary in his black habit, his big gut, and the bright blue tennis bag, especially since we knew what was really inside.
The monks were against television. In the entire monastery and seminary there were only two TVs. One was kept locked in a closet in the seniors’ classroom—to be turned on by a member of the faculty and only for legitimate educational purposes or for sporting events. The other was small, completely