Eden Burning (11 page)

Christ knelt, placing his hands against the rough scaly bark, with its comforting mysterious hollows and crevices. The olive tree with the man continued to watch. The crickets sang. Their noisy call carried on a warm breeze. Father Anthony imagined Christ looking over his right shoulder seeing Peter, James and
John asleep on the grass, mouths open, snoring, untroubled. No-one awake but the man in the olive tree watching, alert, conscious with him. Thick viscous tears like blood slowly squeezed from each tear duct and rolled down his face. He now knew that he was alone. There was
no
man in the olive tree. A terrible loneliness arose in the silence. The crickets stopped singing.

“Can you not watch one hour with me?” He whispered. No-one heard. Alone – no-one listening. He slowly prostrated himself onto the ground. His nails dug into the earth, his head pressed against the spiky short grass. He moved his head to one side and felt the weight of his body settle and sink deeper into the ground. His body churned with an inescapable infinite nausea. He breathed deeply, opening himself to the sensations of disgust, despair, grief, shame, guilt, fear, anxiety and alienation. He drank from the chalice of the pain and poison of the world’s past, present and future – all concentrated within his body, churning within his gut. Alone, in solitude, he stretched his arms across the earth and wept.

In the hour before Mass, sitting alone on his chair, Father Anthony bent forward, held his head in his hands and also gently wept. “It is me who is making Christ suffer. I am part of the horror he sees. I am the one who is breaking his heart – the one who can’t spend one hour watching with him.”

In that moment Father Anthony did not know that later that day he was going to commit the biggest sin of his life. It was a strange fact that Father Anthony was capable of having his deepest insight into love and also of being capable of betraying that love within twenty four hours.

Loneliness was the problem. Father Anthony hadn’t yet realised that loneliness had a purpose. It was like a pain in his chest warning him that he wasn’t well. Loneliness was the song
of God singing in his heart, calling him home. Father Anthony couldn’t hear the song. He didn’t know where his heart was. The heart where God was singing wasn’t the organ pumping blood around his body. The heart where God was singing to him was everywhere. It was the steady pulse of the Universe within and without, calling him home. When not heard, it sent the sweet sense of loneliness like the perfume from a candle in a window, lighting the way home. Father Anthony was too busy turning his ears towards the thoughts in his head and turning his eyes to imagine Maria. He could see her now – long sandy hair falling over her shoulders, kneeling at the altar rail. Her eyes closed, chin raised to receive the Eucharist. “Amen.” She smiled at him before opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue. His body flooded with warmth and energy, a soft and deep connection as he looked at her closed eyes. He bent closer, his finger and thumb holding the host, touching the soft wetness of her tongue. Maria’s face was shiny, like a pearl, her nose rounded like a baby’s, her lips fine and smiling.

“The Body of Christ.”

“Amen,” Maria answered.

Father Anthony was thirty-five years old and had been a priest for thirteen years. His faith had been previously unshakeable. It was not a faith of rational beliefs. These were unimportant to Father Anthony. What was important was his sense of the presence of God who guided his steps, shaped his thoughts, informing him of what he had to do. He had a sense of the immanence of God within every cell of body, permeating his being, bringing certainty, peace and hope. It was impossible for him to imagine that there was an alternative to this – not to walk hand in hand with God in life – not knowing a God who desired him to exist, who created him and who loved him into being. This God was his real Father.

Then when he was thirty five, without warning, he realised that he no longer had that sense of faith or comfort in a God who was close to him or who cared for him. He experienced his life as shrunken within the container of his head with seemingly little or no connection to anything visceral in his body. He was like a genie withdrawn from the world unable to escape this cerebral prison. He felt a fraud. He contemplated the words of St Augustine – ‘It is with the interior eye that truth is seen … Our whole business therefore in this life is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen’. He couldn’t see God. He couldn’t feel God’s presence. The memory of his previous sense of knowing God now seemed immature. It was a childish imaginary unreal God he had created. It was at best an adolescent infatuation or a projection from a feeble mind. It was nothing more than a balloon-filled idol which he now burst. He was left with dry theology, abundant ideas and beliefs about God sticking in his throat like a flaky water biscuit.

Fastening his sandals and preparing for morning Mass, Father Anthony realised that it was not Mass but Maria on his mind. He was looking forward to seeing Maria and he
felt
happy. His body felt as though it was waking up, coming alive. It felt light. He smiled at himself in the mirror, taking longer than normal to comb his curly black hair and splashing his face with aftershave. He
felt
joyful. Life away from Maria was dull, tedious and empty. His whole body longed for Maria’s presence. He didn’t mention Maria in his Confession with the Rector.

The Rector was a tall, athletic man of sixty-five. He was jovial and kind hearted with many years of experience as a Spiritual Director. He simply loved life and was glad to be alive. He was grateful for the gift of life. He pushed his shoulders back, straightened himself, tapped his stick on the ground as though to make the point, “It’s now …and isn’t it wonderful!” His body
quivered like a spring being pulled straight. Father Anthony felt himself energised by the Rector’s presence. He felt an inkling of the Rector’s joy. It was contagious. He only had to touch the Rector’s hand and he contracted the virus of happiness for a few minutes. The Rector’s words struck his eardrums, setting them tingling and vibrating with their wisdom. His gestures to Father Anthony were lightning bolts of energy splitting the air around him, smoking the room with a hazy mystery. He strode across Father Anthony’s cell tapping his shiny mahogany walking stick vigrously on the wooden floor. He took a deep breath, smiled and looked through the window before sitting on a chair facing Father Anthony.

“It’s a day for climbing Cave Hill. Beautiful. How do you fancy a walk along Napoleon’s nose?”

Cave Hill was shaped like a giant sleeping on his back, hair streaming into Belfast Lough. Napoleon’s nose a high cliff edge jutting into a clear sky.

“Maybe another day but not today, thank you.”

A wintery white sunbeam highlighted three black hairs in the centre of the Rector’s otherwise bald head. The Rector smiled again with an open unwrinkled face unusual for a man of sixty five years of age. Some might say even miraculous. His features were strong, angular, chiselled and polished as though from the finest cherry wood. He had the kind of face that you might imagine unfold from a life with few problems, but that was far from the truth. The Rector, on the contrary, had had more than his share of sorrows but it seemed to have affected him differently from most of mankind. He had been left an orphan at ten years of age, left in a workhouse, where he had serious health problems, suffering from a mysterious undiagnosed illness which left him lying in his bed unable to move for twelve months. Aged fourteen he was accepted to study
for the priesthood. Although he walked with a stick, his body exuded vitality. He spoke with energy, emphasis and joy. He laughed his way through life in a way that left Father Anthony amazed, fascinated with a sense of awe, bemusement and bewilderment.

Where did he find his energy, his vitality, his sense of humour? To Father Anthony the Rector seemed a little too perfect. His tortured past and calm and joyful presence had turned him into a superhuman – unreal – someone difficult to aspire to – or to follow. Father Anthony couldn’t imagine the Rector ever committing even the smallest of venial sins – never mind a mortal sin. In his presence Father Anthony felt obliged to hide the whole truth. By doing that he was aware that he was only fooling himself. God could not be hidden from. Yet, what had he done that needed to be confessed? Faith was a gift from God. If God took his faith away, that was not Father Anthony’s fault. Had he done anything wrong? Yes. He had deliberately engaged in his fantasy of Maria.

He knew that there was nothing wrong with thoughts of Maria arising in his mind. What was wrong was his decision to hold onto those thoughts and do something with them. That was the nature of desire. Desire for Maria lured him like the call of the Sirens lured Odysseus. Father Anthony could have asked the Rector to tie him to the mast. He could have explained his weakness, his temptation. He could have begged for help. Yet he shrivelled at the thought of confessing all to the Rector. The truth was he didn’t want to be tied to any mast. He was sliding down the wooden decks with no hope of return. He wanted to slide. So, he said nothing about Maria as he sat facing him in his cell.

The Rector patted his knees as the logs sparkled into life by the open fire. Father Anthony began a half-hearted confession.
What was he going to say? Being half-hearted it was filled to the brim with half-truths.

“Father, I no longer enjoy a sense of the Presence of God. It seems I have lost my faith.”

The Rector slapped his thighs and leant forward on his walking stick.

“You haven’t lost your faith. Faith has nothing to do with a sense of the Presence of God. A sense of the Presence of God is a consolation of faith – a gift from God and only a part of your spiritual development. True spiritual maturity takes you beyond that. You are equally happy with the sense of God’s absence as you are with his presence. His absence purifies you from all feeling, from all attachment to his manifestation on earth. Faith has everything to do with what you do when you no longer feel the Presence of God. Faith is openness to the unknown, to the mystery. It’s not a sense of belief.”

“Why the Creed?”

“The paradox. We proclaim what we believe but at the same time we are open to the mystery of knowing the limitations of belief.”

“What if I don’t believe in God, in the Trinity?”

“Act as if you do.”

Father Anthony shook his head. The Rector laughed.

“It’s not so difficult. St Augustine said, ‘Love and do what you will’. So act now with love. Let faith and belief take care of itself.”

Father Anthony returned a weak smile.

“How do I know that what I do is from love rather than a selfish desire?”

“What do you think you should do? It’s simple. Trust your internal Master. You know what to do. Don’t lie to yourself. Be honest.”

“How do I listen to my internal Master?”

“It’s simple – stop thinking. Sit with your loneliness. St Ignatius advises us to absorb our loneliness as if it were drops of water falling onto a sponge. We are the sponge. Don’t try to escape this loneliness. Stay awake. At such times the ego will do anything to survive. Don’t allow for rationalisation. Conscience is snuffed out like a candle with rationalisation. I have seen it happen so many times before to others. Live with confusion.”

Father Anthony brushed away the beads of sweat from his upper lip.

“Go to the place that hurts and stay there. Open up to the pain. It will teach you everything you need to know in the right time.”

“Sometimes it feels so difficult to get from one minute to another – from one second to another.” Father Anthony searched the Rector’s blue eyes for some recognition of what he was not saying.

The Rector smiled as he rubbed the palms of his hands against the back of his black cassock which was warming like a hot air balloon with the heat from the logs.

“I know you feel the space immense between each moment. You want to fill it.” The Rector took two steps towards Father Anthony and pulled up a chair beside him.

“You feel an unbearable emptiness of being between one second and the next – don’t you?”

“Yes.” Father Anthony felt his eyes stinging with tears. One rolled out of the corner of his left eye. He knew the Rector had seen it. He knew also that he had heard the tiny gasp of his in breath.

“Is it emptiness or is it angst?” The Rector leaned his head to one side and peered into Father Anthony’s eyes.

“Aren’t they the same?” Father Anthony found his voice a little stronger.

“No.” The Rector whispered.

“They’re not. One gives birth to the other. Find out which does which and you will be more than half way there.” He laughed gently, tenderly ruffling Father Anthony’s dark hair which felt silky beneath his fingers, like bows circling an Easter egg.

“I will try. Thank you Father.”

“Don’t say you will try. Do it.” The Rector thumped his walking stick on the floor. “Just do it and don’t think about it.”

When Father Anthony said, “Your sins are forgiven. Say three “Our Fathers” and resolve never to sin again” Maria maybe should have known that something was different. Her normal penance was one “Our Father”. She said, “Thank you Father.”

Maria left the Confessional. Father Anthony sat in the darkness, listening to the soft tread of her shoes taking five steps to the wooden bench where she knelt to say penance. He heard the swish of her skirt against the kneeling board, the rustle of her rosary being folded into a small black leather purse which snapped closed. He heard the clickity-clack of her heels against the marble floor, walking towards the holy water font where she blessed herself on the forehead, lips and heart. The wooden door slammed shut. Father Anthony bowed his head in the Confessional. His hands throbbed. His breathing was shallow and fast. He closed the wooden shutter to his left, turned off the light before opening the confessional door, lowering his head to exit, letting the door swing gently closed behind him as he walked quickly to the back of the church. He lifted the brass latch, pulled the solid mahogany door towards him. It banged closed as he descended the steps two at a time. A silvery light
from a full moon fell intermittently on the ash and oak trees. Clouds scattered, sending dark shadows into the depths of the Grove. Father Anthony took a deep breath as he jumped the last three steps onto the gravelled path.