Father Briar and The Angel (3 page)

Cedric’s time at Creighton
was focused on classics; Latin, both ancient and medieval, Greek
both classical and modern, Hebrew, with a smattering of Coptic and
Aramaic thrown in.

His time in the seminary
was interrupted. He was about halfway through the long process of
ordination in 1941 and was happily contemplating his future. A
small parish church in a small Midwestern town, maybe a
dog.

But, of course, Hitler and
Tojo had other plans.

Like his brother John, who
by now everybody was calling “Captain Jake,” although he’d not
officially earned that rank yet, Cedric enlisted. Jake went into
the Army, Cedric the Navy.

He had what soldiers and
sailors call “a good war,” if a little dull. The best war is the
war in which you don’t get killed. Jake wasn’t so lucky. He’d been
a fighting soldier.

“
Heck,” Cedric had to
admit to Julianna later, when they’d reminisce about their
families, “he’d been a fighter since we were kids.” He died a
hero’s death (aren’t they all?) on Guadalcanal.

Due to his intense
Catholicism, future priestly calling, and Jesuit education, Cedric
had assumed many of the duties of the destroyer’s chaplain. The man
had been a drunk and a terrible minister, whereas Cedric had
already acquired a priest’s humble touch, inspiring courage, and
quiet, resolute faith. So while he’d officially been trained as a
JOB, he’d taken over the role of counselor, confidante, and
Christian companion to the sailors on board.

After the war, he returned
to Nebraska, to Creighton, to complete his training as a Jesuit.
Before the war, he’d finished his time as a novitiate, which had
taken two years of study.

A novice learns to create a
community of brothers who grow in prayer, knowledge of the Society,
apostolic work, and personal enrichment. He meets the Lord through
the 30-day Spiritual Exercises retreat. At the end of these two
years, he pronounces vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience.

Throughout the war, he’d
upheld his vow of chastity. This made him nearly unique among
sailors. So he had a clean and clear conscience as he resumed what
were called his “First Studies.” This had taken three
years.

During this time, the
newly-vowed Jesuit moved into his academic work as a brother or a
scholastic. Cedric had stayed close to home, teaching at Creighton
first, then at a Catholic high school in Minneapolis, his first
exposure to Minnesota. He studied philosophy and theology, and he
deepens his Jesuit identity through other ministerial work which
strengthens or challenges his gifts.

From there, he moved into
his period of “Regency” and continued teaching around the Midwest,
and at the very end of those years he moved to Spokane.

He then did the deep and
profound study required for the ministry in his period of
“Theology.” During this time, he moved to Spokane to work at a
parish church there as a way to enhance his effectiveness for
ministry.

There he was ordained in
June of 1952.
His mother wept with pride
and joy.

Then came the most
difficult challenge of his young life; the war notwithstanding. He
fell in love with, and was separated from, Julianna.

Julianna was
magic.

The first time he saw her,
she was standing in a field, far away from any houses or buildings,
open, alone, alluring.

She was a portal to the
future. She was ageless and timeless and now. He didn’t know it,
but his vows crumbled right then and there. Not all of them, but
the ones involving celibacy and putting God above all other worldly
and physical desires.

Father Cedric Briar,
Jesuit, never wavered from his duty to his God and his
congregation. Not for the forty years he served, humbly and
happily. But she became his heart.

What a name. Julianna
Warwidge. “Have you ever heard anything so alluring?” he marveled
to himself. “So utilitarian, so unassuming, so
straightforward.

Even her nomenclature
attracted him!

How silly he felt, staring
at her there, standing in the pasture. Some fool had though it a
great idea to try to import buffalo to the great
Northwest.

“
A magnificent substitute
for boring old cows!” he’d declared. “Their meat is mighty tasty
and cheaper by the pound, too. I’m going to make a killing!” the
rancher had thought. But it was the buffalo who’d done the killing,
rampaging through the flimsy fence the wannabe cowboy had made for
them and trampled Mrs. McGuillicuty’s chickens as they slept in
their coop.

That isn’t quite the
tragedy it first appears, their deaths were instantaneous and
utterly painless. A half dozen chickens vs. three hundred thousand
pounds of rampaging buffalo isn’t much of a matchup. Plus,
McGuillicuty was known for breeding particularly ill-tempered
roosters and their hens were doubly vicious just to keep them in
line.

No, the broken fence and
smashed coop and the empty pasture were no tragedy at all, because
Julianna Warwidge was slowly making her way across them to the
little church he was sitting in, sipping a glass of wine and
enjoying both the golden rays of sunset and the Songs of
Solomon.

Like him, she was new to
Spokane, the town in which they’d first met. Like him, she’d done
her service and was now taking advantage of the new stability and
new wealth peacetime had brought. Like him, she was full of desire
for something new and exciting after the years of depravation
during the war.

She looked there, amongst
the stubbly grass, like she was born to it.

Like she ruled
it.

He’d seen wild animals with
that same sort of poise and composure. Although her dress and hair
were prim and conservative, there was certainly something wild
about her.

Later, in letters lovingly
preserved by the family, he’d struggle to describe her beauty and
the feelings she inspired within him. Variously, he would describe
her as a lynx, a fox, a queen elk, a gazelle, a chipmunk (which
wounded her a little bit but he found both adorable and highly
flattering) and a doe.

That morning, though, he
didn’t know how to describe her, other than simply beautiful. She
was doing nothing but enjoying the view but she may as well have
been dancing nude around a brass pole, so aroused was he. When she
started making her way towards the church, he had to still and
steady himself.

“
Are you Father Briar?”
she’d asked, after finally making her way over. “I’ve heard there
is a new pastor here in this parish and I’m new, too. So I wanted
to come over and introduce myself. I’m Julianna.”

“
Yes, ma’am, the outgoing
father told me. I’ve seen you in the registry.”

Beauty like hers stood
out.

She wasn’t entirely new to
the congregation, like he was. Julianna had been away for a month,
the month while he was transitioning into his role at this church,
St. Matthew’s. She still did work two months a year with the WAC
and had been away in Seattle during his first masses.

“
It’s so nice to meet you,
and it’s so nice you are active in the church. Without the strength
of the parishioners, a church cannot function.”

They drifted into small
talk and coffee. He’d put the wine and the writings of King Solomon
away, they were notoriously lusty songs and poems and he didn’t
want her to get the wrong idea about him.

They sipped weak church
coffee and talked about their recent past. They caught up on each
other’s service during the war years which was only natural, this
was 1951 and it still dominated people’s living memory. He liked
that she’d done her time as a nurse’s aide, like many women; she
loved a man in a uniform.

Did clerical robes count as
a uniform? They certainly must’ve, because her attraction to him
was instant, and so forbidden. How silly she felt, developing a
crush in less than an hour. On a priest, of all people; her
priest!

He told stories of his time
at sea, told them modestly and without mention of his own valor. “A
humble priest on a humble boat,” was how he described his time. She
talked about helping wounded soldiers return to health, crying over
the ones they lost and smiling with pride at the ones they
saved.

Soon the hour was late;
well, not late, but improper for a priest and a single woman. Were
somebody to see them there together, both attractive, both fit,
both young and ready to inherit the good fortune of post-war
America, well, that would give the wrong impression.

Even upon their first
meeting, they had to be cautious.

From word one, she’d
transfixed him. And, as he well knew, in the beginning, there was
nothing but the word, and the word was, as he’d heard the teenagers
say, cool.

From the beginning, she was
cool.

Even before he knew what
the word meant (he was still pretty unsure about it, honestly, and
had misused it a half-dozen times during his youth group meetings
over the last month), he knew she was cool.

Their attraction was
immediate and otherworldly.

This was the word he kept
coming back to, over and over again, “supernatural.” He couldn’t
think of another word; he had been trained to deal with Earthly
matters, and moreover, he’d had a rigorous education in all things
Heavenly.

But this love for this
woman? This was so far out of his realms of experience he felt as
though it had to come from somewhere else.

They’d yet to make love
when he was assigned to the church in Brannaska, halfway across the
continent from her in Spokane. Their celibacy was not because they
hadn’t wanted to make love. No, they’d both wanted to desperately,
but they’d not yet mustered the courage to match their
desire.

Chapter Three: Julianna
in Her Slip Slips Into Nostalgia.

Julianna had a habit of
wandering around her house in a slip. Certainly, most women will
wear a slip to bed, or in the mornings as a cool and comfortable
garment. But most women don’t wander.

“
Nostalgic child, that
one,” her mother often remarked, “even at such a young age, she
loves to live in the past.” And while she wandered, she
remembered.

“
Such tumult in the
weather last year,” she thought, staring out at the snow. Tonight
was a rare night that it wasn’t blowing and her yard looked tidy,
peaceful, safe, even. Her Christmas lights were still out there and
she thought about plugging them in and turning them on, but decided
better of it. No point in her neighbors thinking she was
silly.

A puffy plastic pink diary
lay on her bedside and she picked it up as she walked. It was for a
much younger girl, but she indulged in its purchase anyway; the
girl on the cover was cute and blonde and bobby-soxed; she looked
like she was recording a life filled with love and socially
approved lust (for her husband and her husband alone, of course,
but every night, Jewels figured, and twice on Saturdays, after he’d
had a few bottles of beer). It had a lock over the pages that was
already rusting and didn’t look like it could keep the book closed
from the efforts of a determined kitten, but “what does that
matter,” she said aloud to the empty house, “who would want to read
my thoughts anyway?”

Flipping through the
pages, she went to one year ago today, January
19
^th
,
1953.

“
I’m still in Spokane,
although I wanted to leave today, just like I wanted to leave every
day,” she’d written, in her schoolmarm’s script, “and I thought of
him. I got together with my girlfriends and watched I
Love Lucy
. How I love
that sweet and brassy and funny woman! Oh, to live like her. I’d
find a better man than Ricky, though. I have found a better man.”
There, she’d underlined “have” twice and traced it in #2 pencil to
make it bold. But she couldn’t and wouldn’t name the man, even in a
private diary, that would be too dangerous.

“
Lucy had her baby
tonight. A few of us gals cried. It is supposed to be a funny show
and all, I get it, and we laughed, too. But with so many of us
still single, and without babies of our own, well, we were all a
little jealous of Lucy, and proud of her, too.”

The next day, Eisenhower
succeeded Truman as President of the United States, and Julianna
had cried then, too. She and the nation had been through a lot with
Harry and she felt affection for him; he was small and avuncular
and handsome, in his noble and unassuming way.

And merely two days after
that, although Julianna certainly wouldn’t have noticed it at the
time,
The Crucible
, a drama by Arthur Miller, opened on Broadway. Later, Cedric
would explain it to her.

“
It is about that son of a
whore Eugene McCarthy,” Father Briar he said. It was the first
thing out of his mouth to shock her, but it certainly wouldn’t be
the last. She’d noted that in her diary, too, but she made certain
to make it clear she’d not found that out in a romantic setting and
it wasn’t said by the man she was constantly confessing a crush on
in the pages of that very diary. Still, that was too
dangerous.