The Vigil

A late Christmas story.

From the journal of Fr. Daniel Lessing

Tuesday, 12/24/2012

Morning

I am just about seven months out of the seminary, and, as naturally as winter’s weather comes, I am dreading Christmas again. Of course, there was no chance that alongside the grace of Holy Orders I might receive festivity on top of sacramental power. I am sitting in the pews of my parish, St. Margaret’s, on Christmas Eve morning and I am happy to at least be wearing my heaviest, blackest suit. The church is cold and still, stucco walls accented by dark wood all designed to bring the eye to that large, plain crucifix, with short streaks of blood coming from the five wounds and small flecks around the crown. It is suspended by wires, hanging at the center of the apse, so that if you squint it almost looks like he’s floating. Below it, there is a plain marble altar, with fine golden designs embossed all around. I suppose we will need to cover that all up with poinsettias in a little while, to add a little color to this place.

Holy Hour: Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer. Rosary: Joyful Mysteries. Meditation, from Divine Intimacy: “God’s greatest work, the Incarnation of the Word, destined to enlighten and save the whole world, takes place in obscurity and silence, and under the most humble and most human conditions.”

The decorators will be here soon, around 12 pm. Mr. Allen and Ms. Hopper. I want wreaths near each of the dedication candles. I want another wreath above the baptismal font. I want poinsettias flanking the nativity scene and burying the altar. Wreaths on all the pews, on all sides. Fr. McNamara was nice enough to give me the run of things today. He trusts my eye for this kind of thing. Still, it’s funny to think: nine years in the seminary to direct the good hearted on where best to lay wreaths.

Near Midnight

I am vested for my first midnight Mass. I am wearing the chasuble from my first Mass. It’s the second time I’ve worn it. The altar servers are here already. They don’t understand why I write in this journal. Fine. Let it create an air of mystery around the clergy. We used to have one, of course.

After Mass

Mass went smoothly. Crowded, but not abnormally so. Shook many hands and said “Merry Christmas” so many times that the words have lost all meaning. It started to snow as the crowd dissipated. I went into the church, removed my vestments, and have come back to the same pew, three from the back, where I began my day yesterday. I don’t have to be awake until about ten tomorrow, and only then to greet people coming out of the nine-thirty Mass.

What the hell am I doing here? My homily was about hope. It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad, now that I’m sitting in the back corner of my dark little church on the edge of absolute despair. And why? Well, what was I born for? To serve in obscurity, to die in obscurity. To have some two hundred people know my name, to hear their sins and lift their spirits.

I’m looking at you on the cross above me. You were born to die. The whole point of all this Christmas stuff is that you are going to die so brutally that we’re still talking about you two thousand years later. It’s funny there’s all this business about the nativity, and the crucifixion, but where’s the resurrection? Where’s the reminder of the light at the end of the tunnel? Why, because all that’s there to contemplate is a tomb with no one in it. Good luck putting that into art. Much easier to picture God in his death throes and just imagine the things that come after. All the hope of Christianity and Christmas and the One, True Church is locked away in imagining the day after the day after God died.

Tomorrow afternoon, I will go to see my parents. I’ll shake hands as the twelve-thirty Mass crowd gets out and then I’ll be getting home. Of course, I have to bring the parish’s emergency phone. Another privilege of being the youngest priest at St. Margaret’s, alongside saying the Midnight Mass. I don’t see my parents enough. My father is proud, but confused by my vocation; my mother is straightforwardly disappointed. Celibacy is more confusing from the outside. From the inside, it’s simple: You’re a witness to the eschaton. Lacordaire said it best:

To live in the midst of the world/without wishing its pleasures; To be a member of each family, yet belonging to none; To share all suffering; to penetrate all secrets; To heal all wounds; to go from men to God and offer Him their prayers; To return from God to men to bring pardon and hope; To have a heart of fire for Charity, and a heart of bronze for Chastity. To teach and to pardon, console and bless always. My God, what a life; and it is yours, O priest of Jesus Christ.

Wednesday, 12/25/2012

Evening

My two Christmas masses went smoothly. After shaking the last hands of the last knights of Columbus to leave St. Margaret’s, I went back into the church, said my office, and hit the road for my parents. As I was driving, I got a ring on the emergency phone. It was a woman, weeping.

I recognized her as Mrs. Jacobs. She had been at the midnight Mass with Mr. Jacobs. I asked her what was wrong. She said that it was her husband and that I should get there as soon as possible. I told her that I was five minutes away and hung up. I called my mom and said that I’d be running late. She didn’t seem to mind.

I showed up at her door still in my clerics. I knocked and no sooner had I put my hand in my pocket than the door swung open. Mrs. Jacobs, in her bathroom, grabbed my hand and dragged me inside.

The front door opened directly into their living room. Her husband was unconscious on their old leather sofa. She explained that she found him unconscious on the floor of their bathroom at eleven-thirty that morning. She was too nervous to call for an ambulance. Did not want to cause a stir, especially if the medication wore off. I said quite calmly that she should call an ambulance, or get him to a hospital as soon as possible. I asked if she had been able to get him up. She said just enough to get him from the bathroom to the couch. I nodded and proceeded with the last rites.
“Does this mean he’s gonna die?”
“No, think of it like insurance.”
She looked over, held my oils for me as I anointed him on his head and hands. I tried to wake him up for confession, but all for naught. Mrs. Jacobs went out to the back porch for a cigarette and invited me. I went.

She said to me that he had been saddled with debt and, right before his Christmas vacation was to begin, had been notified that his job was no longer needed. For a man, she said, it makes you feel like you’re no longer needed. He said that he felt useless, pointless, an unnecessary person. She said she didn’t understand. (I did, but I didn’t tell her that I did) She said he left a note. I asked to see it. It said: “It seems like everyday there’s a new problem that would be perfectly solved by my annihilation.” I nodded and told her I’d pray for them and asked her to please take him to the hospital.

When we got back inside, Mr. Jacobs was conscious but barely. He lay still on the couch, eyes open staring straight at their ceiling. He inclined his head to us as we walked in. He told me that he thought I was an angel, that he thought he succeeded and I was the first sign he was saved despite his sin. I said something I probably shouldn’t have: “I’m sorry to disappoint you” and asked if he wanted his confession heard. His wife thought my joke was in bad taste and roused him up and into their bedroom to get dressed before he could answer. She came out quickly to thank me for coming and told me to see myself out.

I got back into my car. I felt nothing. I didn’t feel pity or relief or even a sense of accomplishment. I felt nothing. I was asked to anoint. I anointed. Now on with Christmas.

I drove for another 45 minutes and got to my parents. It wasn’t till I knocked on the door that I checked my phone and realized everyone had gone to my sisters.

Glory to God in the Highest.