American Saint: A Novel by Sean Gandert

Author:Sean Gandert [Gandert, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542048965
Published: 2019-08-19T16:00:00+00:00

ANNA FISHEL

A church isn’t a building. That’s what Father Gabriel would say when it was just us, or maybe just us and Father Manuel at the office, relaxing at the end of a long day in those uncomfortable thrift-store chairs from a few doors down. He’d be futzing absentmindedly with a deck of cards—he always liked doing little tricks for kids, though he would get embarrassed if you brought it up—humming with his feet up on the desk. A church was people, and the rest was window dressing. The building could crumble to the ground, burn up in a fire, blow away in a tornado—it wouldn’t matter. Our Lady of Guadalupe was here to stay. Mass would continue so long as folks showed up and wanted to worship Christ—for where two or three were gathered, that was all it took.

But the definition, he said, was easy. What was harder was his follow-up question, and here he seemed to turn to us for answers: What was the purpose of a church? Or more specifically, what was the purpose of our church?

“What is it we can offer that they can’t get from the church down the street—from San Ignacio or Hoffmantown? Or from praying at home?”

“You,” I said with a smile, only half-joking. After all, he was why I found my way back to Jesus, why Father Manuel suffered his excommunication with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. I liked to think folks stayed around because they saw the truth of what Father Gabriel said, that they didn’t just hope for a miracle every week like he was some new form of live entertainment. But regardless of why anyone stayed, he was at least why we all first showed up at that old theater, word made flesh.

I could tell Father Gabriel didn’t like my answer, even when I said I was only joking.

“I think we can offer them a little more than that,” he said. “At least, I’d like to hope we can. I know we’re all tired, but why don’t we start brainstorming what else we can do for the community?”

Things began small, with AA meetings in the back room and community meetings at night. We set up weekly volunteer hours at the Roadrunner Food Bank and served meals from our own makeshift kitchen, huge vats of green chile stew and posolé cooked by parishioners. We collected sleeping bags and socks for the homeless and partnered with a nearby women’s shelter to help give supplies and even occasional refuge when needed. We began monthly singles nights at O’Niell’s and family picnics at a nearby park. No proposal was rejected out of hand. We would just try to expand to keep up, recruiting new volunteers when all of us already had too much going on, trying to keep from dropping the plates we had spinning while adding new ones.

Father Gabriel worked nonstop, really, propelled by an endlessly refilled thermos of coffee, and that made the rest of us work harder.

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