CONVERSATIONS OF PÈRE LAMY
(based on the memoir by Paul Biver)
Curé
of ragpickers, often taken in
by
women who came begging for layettes
to
sell for wine – “I did not know it though,
they
changed their kerchiefs, spoke a different way.
How
could I know they had been here last week?”
“He
let himself be taken in,” jeered Satan.
“He
wanted to do good. How could he tell?
I
should have done the same myself,” said Mary.
She
smiled with eyes as blue as periwinkle,
but
nonetheless – “Please be a little careful
next
time.” He knew she was not blaming him.
One
day they talked about his country childhood,
she
said: “You would have killed yourself, you know,
cutting
your capers in the trees. I saved you
hundreds
of times. And then that frightful
statue!
You
thought to honour me by painting it –
the
yellow sash! You made me very ugly!”
She
laughed with all her heart. “But still I
liked it.”
(Satan
with his fox face was there and listening.
She
turned to him.) “This child sang hymns
to me.
He
had a fresh young voice. I liked to hear
it.
You
tried to kill him in a fire once.
I
wished that he should be a priest. You
see?
He
is a priest.” Her great triumphant eyes
sparkled
with love; her motherly, small hands
moved
exquisitely toward the bent old man.
“When
he was twenty-three and in the army,
he
said my Little Hours every day,
He
fell asleep and, when he woke, his fingers
were
at the end. He thought he had said all
and
slept again. And that is what I wanted!
I
turned the leaves and moved your fingers for you.”
“I
was a simpleton.” They smiled together.
“Now
let’s consider how your days are spent,
my
child – you haven’t heard that ever, have you?
And
that’s all right. What interests me more
is
that for seventeen years, more or less
you
haven’t gone to bed before midnight
seventeen
times. And you are on your feet
by
five each morning. We love abnegation
my
Son and I, when it forgets itself.
You
say Mass well – but still you do not ask
nearly
enough. Ask for much more.” Her eyes
looked
straight at him, looked through him and beyond
to
lands where no cross stood. Her gaze
returned
and
rested on his surplice – “Now that lace ...”
She
touched it. “Imitation, as I thought.”
That
did not bother him; somehow he felt
comforted. He knew she was not fussy,
she
liked things well done, that was all.
The chancel
should
have been washed a month ago at least
and
he would do it if Germaine did not.
“Listen,”
her hands were lifted, “I give always,
my
Son and I, we are not hard to please.
Leave
all to me. The people must do penance
or
war will come again. There must be
order.
Marriage
must be inviolate.” She wept.
Yet
soon she said: “My child, if God in anger
should
smash the world to pieces, I would gather
the
fragments up and take them back to Him.
Do
you know that?” Her eyes blazed love and
pity
*
* *
Later
a sculptress made a statue of her;
the
head was bowed “to be more mystical.”
“My
dear,” said Père Lamy, “you have it wrong.
She
is not mystical at all. She looks you
straight
in the eye ... “
The
old curé is dead now.
Those
who receive help through his intercession[1]
are
earnestly entreated to inform
Monsieur
le Curé de Saint Lucien.
Sister M Jeremy OP
America. 19 October 1946
[1] Sister Jeremy here suggests that Père
Lamy, having lived a saintly, exemplary life, may be raised to sainthood,
provided proof can be given that through his intercession spiritual and
material blessings have been obtained from God.
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