Read Online A Blessing In Disguise by Elvi Rhodes - Free Book Online Page B

difference at all. I hold up each one of them separately, and all four of them together as if they were one, as I would if they were a hundred or a thousand. Don’t ask me how this is possible in the seconds it takes. I don’t know. I only know it is. It is a mystery.
    All four rise to their feet and walk slowly forward, the man almost tottering. They kneel at the altar rail, the man with such difficulty. I’d like to tell him it’s OK to stand but I guess he’d feel that would be less reverent, he must be on his knees. Miss Frazer is the third in the short row, her hands now cupped, ready to receive. It is not until I stand immediately in front of her, the wafer in my fingers ready to give it to her, that she lowers her hands, tucks them away by her sides and – but not before giving me a look of pure hatred – averts her face. It’s all over in about five dreadful seconds. As I move on to the fourth person I try to keep calm inside me, but I am shaking. I feel sick. It is not so much me she has refused, she has rejected and has refused God himself, and in the most insulting way she could devise. She must know what she has done. She has planned this. She has spat in his face.
    I think that what people who insult or reject God through one of his priests, actually making use of a priest for their purpose, do not realize is the strength of the love which priests have for God. It is real, living, passionate love. God, to his priests, comes first. He is paramount. Would people who reject God in this manner do the same to the loved ones of the priests: mothers, wives, children? Unlikely. And if they did they would expect retaliation, but they will get no retaliation, no come-back if they spit in the face of the one the priest loves above all others. They will not comprehend the hurt. Perhaps that ignorance and the lack of understanding is the only excuse there is.
    All four return to their separate pews. I have no idea whether they saw what took place. I consume the wafer I had consecrated for her.
    Shaken though I am – and when I raise my hand to give the final blessing it is visibly trembling – I still have every intention of being at the door first so that I can catch the others. Miss Frazer rushes away, pleased with herself. She will not wish to speak with me, nor I with her.
    No! Wait a minute! Of course I want to speak with her. I am enraged. I can feel, almost physically, the bile rising in my throat. I want to let it all out, my fury, my hurt at this bloody woman, to hurl words at her which have possibly never assailed her ears before – and seldom passed my lips, either. But I can’t. I’m a priest, I’ve just celebrated the Mass, I’m in church. God is here, present. So are others, and I won’t cause a scandal by letting go in front of them.
    How wrong I am – I mean in thinking that she won’t wish to speak to me. I hurry to reach the door first but Miss Frazer is well ahead of the others and she has every intention of confronting me. Alas, while she stands there the other three worshippers seize their opportunities to slide past with no more than a nod, and I watch them walk down the path. Miss Frazer and I look at each other like two adversaries squaring up for a fight. She is the first to speak.
    â€˜I hope,’ she says briskly, without any preliminaries, ‘you are not going to close down this service because of the numbers. “Where two or three are gathered together . . .” as you well know. Your predecessor set great store by this small oasis in the middle of a busy week.’
    Is the woman crazy? Has she no idea what she has done? Does she care in the least? As well as sick to the heart I am filled with fury, spilling over, which is definitely not the right frame of mind after celebrating Holy Communion. So I take a deep breath and determine with God’s help, to keep calm.
    â€˜Is that so?’ I ask.