Miracles and Other Reasonable Things by Sarah Bessey

Author:Sarah Bessey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books
Published: 2019-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8 MIRACLES IN ROME

The next morning, we debated staying at the pension and skipping Mass. It was Pentecost Sunday.I Most of our group elected to skip the Mass at St. Peter’s Square as a gentle form of protest because we were not allowed to partake of the Eucharist. Unity and reconciled diversity and ecumenicalism seemed so real yesterday but felt far away in the morning as one after another of our Protestant companions chose sightseeing over being shut out from the Eucharist—a choice that, let’s be honest, I understood and affirmed. As I said earlier, the table’s openness and welcome is deeply important to me. It’s not a reward for good behavior, it’s an invitation to shared practice, to the family. Even though part of me wanted to make the same peaceful protest, we decided to go to Mass in an act of faith, in solidarity with yesterday’s dream of unity. We decided there was a witness to standing there in the crowd, barred from the table but present anyway.

“I think we need to be there,” Brian said as we walked toward the Vatican again. “I’m not entirely sure why. I just know we’re supposed to be there.”

“Look at you, being all ‘hearing from Jesus,’ ” I teased. “Who knew Rome would do the trick?”

On our way there, my body seized up again, and I sat down on the curb. My spine still felt twisted, and my muscles were unable to bear the weight any longer. Beggars were everywhere in the press of people above me. Everyone walked past us on his or her way to Rome. I looked up at the crowd of legs, the children staring at the outstretched hands. It stank down near the gutter: sweat and sour food. Bizarrely, I caught sight of Father Matthew near us—he was crouched down on the curb near me. I tugged on Brian’s pant leg and motioned toward the priest.

“There’s Father Matthew,” I said. I should have been surprised to encounter him by chance here, but I had ceased being surprised. I was beginning to believe Brian’s priest friends: we were all keeping the appointments that God had set here. Everywhere I looked from the curb, I saw the priests, praying for the poor, filling up their cups while tourists passed them by. A woman cried out blessings from the street gutter, and we filled her tin cup. Brian snagged Father Matthew as he rose from his conversation, lifted me to my feet so that I wouldn’t be trampled, and together we walked toward St. Peter’s Square.

When we arrived, it was absolute chaos. No one was getting past the beefed-up security. The square was full, and every road was jammed with people. That morning there had been a terrorist attack in London, and security was on even higher alert, locking down every corner, setting up metal detectors at every entrance.

There was no way we would find our way into the Mass, no way we would find our group in this ocean of humanity.

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