Father Briar and The Angel by Rita Saladano Read Free Book Online

that you’d stayed with
me all night and you were there for breakfast, too.”
    “ That is
paranoid.”
    “ No, it is logical. What
would you think if you arrived at church to find a woman there with
the priest? Especially that early in the morning? We’d be
pilloried.”
    “ People would just think
I’m here helping!”
    “ You don’t know the people
in this town yet, Jewels.”
    “ Don’t call me that. I
don’t like that nickname.”
    He smiled, trying to be
patient.
“Yes you do.”
    “ Don’t tell me what I
like, and don’t tell me what I know. Or who. I’ve been in town for
a few months now. I’m looking for a job. I’m making friends. I’ve
met a few people.”
    “ That is all news to me,”
he said, trying to keep his face composed. He wanted to look calm
and in control, not taken aback.
    “ You don’t know
everything. You don’t need to know everything.”
    And he didn’t.

    Monday morning Father Briar
awoke to new snow on top of the old snow. Although he had no way of
knowing it, the very morning in Rogers Pass, Montana, the coldest
temperature ever in the contiguous United States was recorded, the
thermometer reading a horrifying minus seventy degrees
Fahrenheit.
    There were still wisps of
tinsel fluttering about the trees on the grounds of the church. A
discarded Christmas tree was browning near the garbage collection
area; the “sanitation engineers” hadn’t been out to pick it up due
to the roads being so slick with black ice.
    The special Christmas
hymnals had been put away, the lights unstrung and spooled up (only
to somehow become mysteriously tangled up over the upcoming months)
and the tree was browning out back of the church.
    In 1953, the entire Mass
was still being said, recited, chanted and sung in Latin. Cedric’s
command of the language was good due to the rigor of the education
required and conducted by his Order.
    The congregation kept
silent. Catholic mass was not an “interactive fan experience,” had
the term even existed. Silence was kept because it was thought to
enhance the reverence toward the Eucharistic mystery. Father Briar
loved the quiet and thought that God lived in it, travelling about
from silent spot to silent spot on beams of light.
    While we tend to think of
the 1950’s as a time of conservatism and stagnancy, especially
before the reforms of the council known now as “Vatican II,” but
change in the structure of the Mass as Cedric and the other Jesuits
conducted it, and changes to the Holy Sacraments themselves were
common, almost commonplace.
    The most significant change
in discipline came in 1953. It was the introduction of afternoon
and evening vigil Masses. For these Masses the Communion fast was
set at three hours for food and at one hour for non-alcoholic
beverages.
    Cedric was still adjusting
to this change, although he appreciated it. Holy Communion was an
important sacrament, more important in Father Briar’s mind even
than Confession. That maybe he himself would’ve had sins, sins he
could be defrocked for, to confess, might’ve contributed something
to that.
    He had to be up and around
early. The parish school children attended the 9:00
a.m. Sunday Mass as a group and also came Wednesday mornings.
Their masses had recently changed, too, and he was struggling with
the naughtiness of a couple of the boys. Brett and Ryan, he
thought, “were just nasty kids. No hopers.” Although in his heart
of hearts, Father Briar didn’t really believe any boys were without
hope.
    Back in Spokane, Cedric had
in his parish a couple of African American kids, brothers, who’d
both served as altar boys. As he was preparing his church this
morning, he thought back upon them, how cute they looked with their
shining teeth and soft, childlike smiles.
    Not that there were any
African Americans in Brannaska, but the schools were still
segregated, and would remain so, for another few months. Another
few months in legality, anyway, as the Supreme Court’s