Saint Training by Elizabeth Fixmer Read Free Book Online

statues glowed in the dark.
    “Isn’t that something!” Becky added.
    Mary Clare was heartened by their reactions.
    “Let’s see this one,” Tina said. She held up the statue of St. Theresa, the Little Flower of Jesus. St. Theresa was holding a bouquet of pink roses. Before taking Tina and Becky to the closet where the statues would really glow, Mary Clare explained about the roses falling from the sky after St. Theresa’s death.
    “Talk about flower power!” Becky said.
    Mary Clare laughed. She had seen the flower children on television holding signs that said “Make love not war.” How funny to think of the term in relation to St. Theresa—or any saint, for that matter.
    Tina reached for the last molasses cookie. When Becky objected, she divided it in two and gave Becky half. Becky picked up the statue of St. Theresa.
    The girls were responding exactly the way Mary Clare hoped they would. “I’m selling those,” she said.
    “How much?” Becky asked with a mouth full of cookie.
    “Twenty cents each,” Mary Clare said.
    Tina and Becky gave each other looks that Mary Clare couldn’t quite decipher.
    “That’s too much,” Becky said.
    “Yeah,” Tina added. “No deal.”
    Tina set down the St. Theresa statue on the dresser and Becky set the Virgin Mary next to it.
    “Look, it’s already losing its glow,” Becky said.
    Mary Clare had to act quickly if she wanted to make a sale.She thought about what she’d read in the Baltimore Catechism the night before.
    “Look, do you two know what indulgences are?” she asked.
    They looked at each other. “No,” they said.
    “Well,” Mary Clare started, “if you say certain prayers each day, you get time off of Purgatory. For example, if you say ‘O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee’ every day for a month, you get three hundred days off of Purgatory! If you look at the statue every day, it will help you remember to say the prayer.”
    “What was that prayer again?” Becky asked. Mary Clare repeated the words and watched Becky’s forehead wrinkle as she said them.
    “I don’t even know what that means,” Becky said.
    Tina shrugged her shoulders. “Me neither.”
    Mary Clare explained. “The Virgin Mary was born without original sin and we’re asking her to pray to God for us.”
    “Original sin?” Becky asked. “What’s that?”
    “Why don’t you just pray to God yourself?” Tina asked.
    Mary Clare sighed. She couldn’t believe how little non-Catholics knew about theology. It was probably because they didn’t get religion classes in school. This was going to take time and patience, and she might not sell her statues today.
    “I’m not sure my church even believes in Purgatory,” Becky said.
    Mary Clare wanted to argue. She wanted to say that it didn’t matter what they believed, the Catholic Church was the true religion. She wanted to say that Purgatory was a fact, not a belief. She wanted to tell them that—that—that she didn’t know why you prayed through the Virgin Mary and not directly to God, but that was just the way it was.
    “God gives us mysteries,” she said. “Mysteries to test ourfaith.” Mary Clare thought she sounded a little like Father Dwyer when he gave a sermon. It felt good. “We don’t have to know why we pray through Mary or why we get three hundred days off of purgatory for saying that prayer every day for a month. We just have to believe and trust in the Lord. When I have doubts, I just remember that God tests us and that my faith has to win out.”
    “Mary Clare,” Becky said, wearing a serious expression, “you’re weird.”
    Tina giggled. “You really are, Mary Clare. You could be a minister.”
    “Or the Flying Nun on television—giving sermons,” Becky added.
    The balloon inside Mary Clare, the one with faith-filled ardor, burst in a flash of pain. She pictured her own face on the Flying Nun instead of Sally Fields’ face. She pictured flying around