I chose this song simply for the way it made me feel inspired with its powerful lyrics. The thing of it is that I don't even know what the lyrics mean.
The lights were off in the church. The only illumination came from the mid-morning sun leaking in through the skylights and drawing a path from the back of the room up to the lip where the alter rose off the floor. The walls, marbled floors, columns, and ceiling were all various shades of the palest brown and red; the molding that ran along the floors was curiously painted in a St. Patrick’s Day style of green that seemed to serve as the last visible connection to the parish’s Irish roots. A young priest descended from his seat at the altar to deliver his homily. In his mind he could clearly see the copy of the Sunday Boston Globe under which he had left the pages of his speech. He swallowed a lump that had grown in the back of his throat and began to speak.
Mrs. O’Neil was still sitting in the very first room, a remnant from the church decades past and, more recently, the two earlier masses of the day. Every Sunday she would sit through three hours of Catholic service dressed in the same stone-grey suit with black trimming. The priest had noticed her facial expression never once broke from a sort of mindless complacency. Of course, it wasn’t his place to judge. As her passed her by, he was at least grateful for her consistency; the rest of the church was littered with only a handful of other people. The outlying benches, those most removed from the sun’s sharp columns, were all under a thin layer of dust.
The priest continued to rack his memory for the words he had planned to use. It was an easy thing to take about, the Sermon on the Mount. All he had to do was tell the people what Jesus had told his disciples: humility and kindness were part of the equation for getting into Heaven and receiving the grace of God. He paused for a moment and cleared his throat. He had never thought of this lifelong journey as an “equation”. It was such a callous way of describing his life’s dedication. He began saying a silent prayer, asking for the Lord to grant him the memory of the words he had written only the night before.
A mother and her gangly son sat in a row a few spaces behind Mrs. O’Neil. The mother leaned forward to watch the priest eagerly while the son seemed preoccupied with the green molding. Behind them a ways was a young Hispanic woman with her black and silver purse on her lap and pink knitting needles in hand: she was halfway done a small skiing cap formed out of pink acrylic yarn. Farther in the back, almost in the last row, was a man in a suit, and a very nice suit at that. It appeared to be custom fitted.
It happened suddenly that the priest recalled the words he had devoted the past four days to formulating. It was as if a hand had lifted that copy of The Globe and he could see the pages there on his desk in his mind. He drew a deep breath and began to teach the people. His carefully crafted words came forth exactly as he had planned them to. His arms soon joined the fray as he began making sweeping, energetic movements to highlight and punctuate the important parts of the speech. When he had finished, he was a bit short on breath but happy; he gave a silent thanks to God for giving him strength.
Mrs. O’Neil was still only aware of the three-hour sacrifice she had made this morning; her smile gave it away. The mother had leaned back in her seat and at least showed some recognition of what had been said, unlike her son who was now flipping through a Psalm book. Neither the knitter nor the business man had broken from their own preoccupations. The priest’s breath returned to him as he stared around the room. He had to remind himself it was not his place to judge as he stepped up over the lip of the altar and took his seat again.
No comments:
Post a Comment