Shoes of the Fisherman, The by West Morris

Author:West, Morris [West, Morris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Vatican, Political, Novel, Fiction
Publisher: The Toby Press
Published: 1963-01-15T03:00:00+00:00

“It’s a leap into the dark,” said Ruth Lewin gravely. “I’m not sure I can make it.”

“Is it any less hard to stay where you are?”

“It’s harder, I think.”

“But you have already made one step into the dark.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You could not condone this murder, even of a monstrous birth.”

“Not wholly, no.”

“And you have turned to me for help, not for yourself, but for the children.”

“I just felt so inadequate. I needed someone who could act…”

“Perhaps,” said Kiril the Pontiff softly, “perhaps that is part of the meaning of pain—that it challenges our arrogant possession of life; that it confronts us with our own frailty and makes us aware, however dimly, of the sustaining power of the Creator.”

“I wish I could believe that. But how do you see God in a human child that looks like a fish?”

“It’s not a new mystery, Ruth. It’s a very old one. How do you see God in a dying criminal nailed on a gallows tree?”

“It isn’t enough to say that,” said Ruth Lewin harshly. “There has to be some loving somewhere. There has to be.”

“True…. There has to be some loving. If the mystery of pain is not a mystery of love, then all this…” His crooked hands embraced the ornate room and all the Sacred City beyond it. “Then all this is a historic nonsense. And my office is a role for a mountebank.”

His bluntness took her by surprise. For a moment she stared at him, caught by the contrast between his crooked, quizzical face and the religious formality of his dress. Then she said:

“Your Holiness really believes that?”

“I do.”

“Then why can’t I?”

“I think you do believe it,” said Kiril the Pontiff gently. “That’s why you are here to see me. That’s why you act within a context of belief, although you are still wrestling with God.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.