A Little Girl In Church

I was noticing how her veil stayed around her face, as a natural extension of her, not something an adult had imposed. How could this be, I wondered?

Latin Mass, mind you, lasting one and a half hours; Not once did her mother have to adjust it or urge her to keep it on.

I came home and looked at the photo I’d taken. Then I made a second photo, a close-up. I wondered about the two photos (both blurry) and whether this really was remarkable or whether I just thought so.

Photo #1 “Girl In Church”

Photo #2

”Girl In Church, 2.”

Maybe it’s “just me.”

I’m always deeply moved by the sight of children in Church. (Or Temple.)

There was a father who took communion holding one son in each arm as he knelt, and they weren’t that young, or that small, they were maybe 7 and 9 or something. But he held them one on each side, and knelt, and then stood.

All of my life, when I see parents do seemingly normal things, yet things that suggest they care about their children (not just how angry they are at their children, or each other) I want to start taking pictures and writing essays for National Geographic.

“You won’t believe what I saw. “

I notice myself hyper-observing events in Church not as a member of a family, but as an astonished outsider, marveling at every detail.

***

Nobody worse a mask in Church today.

It took me over two years to find a Church that made zero reference to “Covid,” or masks, or sanitizer.

The last time I tried, in upstate NY, the entire congregation was wearing masks and the Pastor was literally sermonizing about Covid PCR tests. So I quietly walked out.

(Follow the Latin Mass, is the moral of this story.)

Not going to Church for two years left me broken and sad. But going to a Church with masks was worse.

I know I should be thinking about the snake venom but I am thinking about all of this instead.

After Mass, in the parking lot, of the Church of St. Mary and St. Andrew, a man came over to me, very unusual, warm effusive energy, clearly not American.

He first said he was Ukrainian, but later he said he was Polish. Maybe both.

“I live in the woods,” he said almost proudly.

“In the woods?” I said.

A friend of his, he explained, who became sick, had let him live in his trailer, half crushed by a fallen tree, and with no electricity or heat. (This is upstate New York mind you.) There was a wife in the picture but she had only invited him to come home in order to have him paint her house, which he planned to do, once he’d raised money for a bus ticket. And his eyes were sparkling with joy as he relayed all this. “A real invitation,” he called it.

This man, whoever he was, was the happiest person I have met, possibly in decades.

We were clearly in some kind of Isaac B. Singer short story. Possibly dreaming, I don’t know, but I think he was an important person I am not meant to forget so quickly.

He explained that his home, in this half smashed trailer, was filled with candles “everywhere—” that he relishes the cold and just prays and talks to Jesus all the time, asking him how he can help him.

“He needs us,” he said. “He needs out voices, our arms, our legs, he needs us.”

I nodded.

Then he raised his arms overhead, spun around slowly, and said, “Each one of us is a living tabernacle.”

On the subject of how he lives in a broken trailer with no electricity or heat, he said he has blankets to keep warm and a “really great” sleeping bag.

He pulled out a small white plastic Rosary and suggested we pray the Rosary together some time.

Then he made me promise to buy two books written by a nun who he said described “every detail” of Mary’s life, including how she apparently made Joseph “fix this place up” before the Three Kings arrived. He claimed Jospeh built a front hall frame and put in a parquet floor and various other things.

I gave him my word that I would get the books. “Have them in your car next time you come,” he said.

He never told me his name. Or did he?

He was just firing off story after story. One was about a nun he once noticed in Church, somewhere, who was only 22, it turned out.

“Do you know what she said to me?” he said, as his eyes filled with tears.

“She said, ‘You bring Jesus joy.’ “

He was now weeping openly, and dried his years with his jacket sleeve.

“Can you believe she said that?” he whispered.

Now I’m wondering if it’s possibly not ok to publish a photo in the way I have. But I wanted to share it.

I wrote thousands of words about Judas and Peter on Good Friday and never finished it. I also read a medical depiction of the crucifixion that shocked me very deeply.

I can’t sleep.