The Third Revelation by Ralph McInerny Read Free Book Online Page B

the morning at Saint Cyril’s, but only she and Father Krucek knew that it was her first. From then on, she went to Mass every day, sometimes on campus, usually at Saint Cyril’s. After she got her degree, she wrote to Laura and asked if there were any openings at Empedocles. There had been a write-up about Laura in the Boston College alumni magazine. Heather was asked down for an interview, she and Laura had a pleasant reunion, and she was offered a job in purchasing.
    That had been three years ago. However good it was to see Laura again, and however much Heather knew she owed her friend for her job, they just didn’t click the way they had in college. For one thing, Laura’s life was lived in a blur these days, always at the beck and call of Mr. Hannan, off on trips with no forewarning, busy, busy, busy. How could she call her soul her own?
    â€œWhen do you have time to think, Laura?”
    â€œI’m not paid to think.”
    â€œHa.”
    She had thought that now that she was a Catholic, they would have that in common, too, but Laura did not find it an exciting subject. Except to brighten up and say, “My brother is a priest, you know. In Rome.”
    Heather decided that what now chiefly interested her was not easy to talk about, nor was that necessary. What do you say about prayer?
    How odd it was that such a simple word, one she had known all her life, turned out to hide things of which she had never dreamt before. One Christmas vacation, she had read through all the volumes of Churchill’s account of World War II and had been particularly struck by a surprising locution in his instructions. “Pray do this, or pray do that.” The French would have said je vous en prie , the Italians, prego . The English equivalent had all but dropped from usage, which is what made Churchill so different; praying now meant asking for something, the way she had prayed she would get the job with Empedocles. Had she thought of it as an answer to a prayer?
    Now she began to read Teresa of Avila, first the autobiography. And second, too. When she finished it, she immediately read it again. The saint seemed to speak directly to her across the intervening centuries. From that point on, she was more happy than sorry that she and Laura had not again become close. Oh, it wasn’t the gossip that flew around about Laura and Ray Sinclair. There was no protection against what people might say. God knows what they thought of her. She had become reconciled to the fact that her enthusiasms were not shared by others.
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    The house she had bought was isolated, on a country road, surrounded by woods that seemed to offer protection as well as seclusion. When she came home from work and turned into her driveway, she could feel her spirits lift. It was the first house she had ever owned, and it was furnished like every other house, more or less. The difference was in the lower level, which the previous owner had used as a home office. Carpeted, freshly painted, it had become her oratory. Reading about hermits and consecrated virgins as well as the Carthusians, Heather had in effect founded her own religious order. There was a prie-dieu, an altar with a portrait of Teresa of Avila flanking the crucifix. After a swift supper, she descended to her oratory and her real life.
    To pray is to put oneself in the presence of God. Since we are all already there, in His presence, that sounds easy, but the realization of it took quiet, an inner silence, waiting. She had no expectation of mystical experiences—reading Teresa had informed her of the danger of such expectations. All she wanted was to realize that simple statement. To be in the presence of God. Saying the rosary helped put her there. She had come to love the rosary, its repetitious prayer, each decade devoted to some great event in the story of salvation. It had surprised her when she came upon Mr. Hannan on his knees in the grotto behind the main