praying for both Grace and Grandfather at the chapel where she had once been in the habit of going every Sunday with her own father. St. Joseph’s Oratory stood on the slope of the mountain opposite the Royal Vic, which put both the Catholic and Jewish cemeteries between the two and gave it the highest elevation of any church in Montreal. Aline would never have had enough pretension to travel out of her local parish for the sake of worshipping at this grandest of cathedrals, except for the fact of her being present at a particular Christmas Eve’s midnight Mass, when the relic of Frère André’s heart had bled in public.
This rare miracle had marked her and her father in a bond with St. Joseph’s, and they never afterwards resisted the temptation to worship where God had chosen to bridge the gap between heaven and earth. It seemed an unquestionable sign, a directinvitation to these meekest of the flock to remember that after all, since they would eventually inherit the earth, they might want once in a while to gaze at the riches they would then enjoy.
The Lord of the Poor was never one to stint on His own house, and this one, named after His own earthly father, was no exception. It was purposely erected at the top of a hill so steep it required a stairway like those in Hollywood fantasies of the Ascent to heaven itself. And a funicular for those who could pay the penny. The doors were so large it seemed a giant’s castle. The vaulted ceilings were so high the light-bulbs must have been changed by God Himself, and He probably didn’t have to stoop. Where it wasn’t covered in jewelled relics, embroidered tapestries, enormous stained glass windows or painted biblical scenes, it was merely gilded. The enormous volume of space within its walls produced the requisite booming, medieval echo as the numberless white-and gold-robed priests chanted their way across the altar. The pipes of the organ, pointing straight up to God, loomed so large over the congregation they might have been taken for factory chimneys. The nave seated thousands, so that communion became the endless parade of Judgment Day and the beginning of eternity.
In short, it made Aline feel small, poor, nervous and insignificant.
Just as it, and she, were intended to.
But despite this—or maybe, as they say, because—it made her feel closer to God than any local chapelever could. Especially during that particular midnight Mass.
Frère André—a doorman—had been revered in Montreal and even beyond as a living saint: a tireless worker for his flock, a gentle and generous soul, the very Platonic ideal of a Christian shepherd. He lived a long and selfless life, was much loved and never maligned, and at the last he welcomed the summons of the Lord with a humble contentment.
As a reward for this exemplary life, the faithful tore his heart from his corpse and hung it up in public. What, if any, compensation was granted him by the Lord is not on record; but for what it’s worth, he was beatified by the Pope a decade after he died.
The heart was treated for preservation and mounted on a golden silk pillow, in a case handcrafted of purest silver; it was viewed not through mere glass but through a lead crystal window. It was placed in its own permanent niche in the church, and proved itself a worthy attraction. The devout remained so, the wandering returned to the fold and the curious began to pay a token into the poor box for their visits. Prayers, which had previously been divided fairly evenly between the Lord and St. Joseph, were now just as often addressed to Frère André.
Eventually the heart itself showed the weakness of the flesh, and as it dried and hardened, it darkened in colour until its purple was black. But because it was mounted high enough above the heads of even those who didn’t kneel to gaze at it, no one minded. Or perhaps no one noticed; at least, no one everremarked on it. In time it became another fixture of the chapel, like the
This rare miracle had marked her and her father in a bond with St. Joseph’s, and they never afterwards resisted the temptation to worship where God had chosen to bridge the gap between heaven and earth. It seemed an unquestionable sign, a directinvitation to these meekest of the flock to remember that after all, since they would eventually inherit the earth, they might want once in a while to gaze at the riches they would then enjoy.
The Lord of the Poor was never one to stint on His own house, and this one, named after His own earthly father, was no exception. It was purposely erected at the top of a hill so steep it required a stairway like those in Hollywood fantasies of the Ascent to heaven itself. And a funicular for those who could pay the penny. The doors were so large it seemed a giant’s castle. The vaulted ceilings were so high the light-bulbs must have been changed by God Himself, and He probably didn’t have to stoop. Where it wasn’t covered in jewelled relics, embroidered tapestries, enormous stained glass windows or painted biblical scenes, it was merely gilded. The enormous volume of space within its walls produced the requisite booming, medieval echo as the numberless white-and gold-robed priests chanted their way across the altar. The pipes of the organ, pointing straight up to God, loomed so large over the congregation they might have been taken for factory chimneys. The nave seated thousands, so that communion became the endless parade of Judgment Day and the beginning of eternity.
In short, it made Aline feel small, poor, nervous and insignificant.
Just as it, and she, were intended to.
But despite this—or maybe, as they say, because—it made her feel closer to God than any local chapelever could. Especially during that particular midnight Mass.
Frère André—a doorman—had been revered in Montreal and even beyond as a living saint: a tireless worker for his flock, a gentle and generous soul, the very Platonic ideal of a Christian shepherd. He lived a long and selfless life, was much loved and never maligned, and at the last he welcomed the summons of the Lord with a humble contentment.
As a reward for this exemplary life, the faithful tore his heart from his corpse and hung it up in public. What, if any, compensation was granted him by the Lord is not on record; but for what it’s worth, he was beatified by the Pope a decade after he died.
The heart was treated for preservation and mounted on a golden silk pillow, in a case handcrafted of purest silver; it was viewed not through mere glass but through a lead crystal window. It was placed in its own permanent niche in the church, and proved itself a worthy attraction. The devout remained so, the wandering returned to the fold and the curious began to pay a token into the poor box for their visits. Prayers, which had previously been divided fairly evenly between the Lord and St. Joseph, were now just as often addressed to Frère André.
Eventually the heart itself showed the weakness of the flesh, and as it dried and hardened, it darkened in colour until its purple was black. But because it was mounted high enough above the heads of even those who didn’t kneel to gaze at it, no one minded. Or perhaps no one noticed; at least, no one everremarked on it. In time it became another fixture of the chapel, like the
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