Speaking Words of Wisdom

The arms of the church folded around my family and me as we sat close to the back entrance. It was much like a copy of one of Italy’s best Renaissance basilicas, so close was the architecture and the paintings of the saints to their original inspirations. Columns of marble surrounded us on all sides, the statues of the saints looking down around the congregation with assurance that God was truly watching over them.

Sitting in the uncomfortable wooden pews, I was having second thoughts about that. Have you ever set your tush into a pre-Vatican II, German carpenter’s handiwork? Those things are built with torture in mind! The next Inquisition is right around the corner, so the carpenters working in the Vatican should be assured that their jobs are in safe hands.

Nobody is comfortable while sitting through Mass.

I had placed myself near the back of Saint Francis of Assisi Church, a Roman Catholic creation of my hometown’s German settlers. You could almost swear that the German Catholics of my mid-size town had deep, deep-seeded issues about not being comfortable while praying. I’m sure there’s some Freudian insight there if you go fishing for it. Personally, I believed in being at ease while talking to God. I had formerly attended this Church’s corresponding school of the same name, and its first, clearest message still hit me every time I drove down this street: “God’s Will, the End of Man.”

Yeah, I don’t get it either. Why would anyone place that above a kindergarten through eighth grade school’s doors? Does that scream: “I’ll take perfect care of your child, impart them with valuable skills and teach them volumes of church history?”

What can I say? That message above the door sticks with me in the worst ways.

Taking place this fine Spring afternoon was my younger cousin’s Confirmation, the Sacrament close to Easter that said: “Yes, God, I’m a good Catholic, and I plan to remain one.” I remember my own Confirmation clearly, though a few things were starting to blur at the edges of my memory slideshow. Today was my cousin Andrew’s big day, and I could just see him a few pews away from the front.

As for myself, I chose a place near the rear entrance; you never know when you’ll need a good escape. That, and there was something about church that made me feel claustrophobic, despite the volume of the church itself.

I couldn’t see who Andrew had picked as his sponsor—whoever was sitting next to him—but the memory slideshow started to roll.

It started with a venerable man, a collection of wooden beads on a silver chain, and a little reason to help me pray.

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Clasped in my hands was a black leather pouch with a small gold cross stamped on its front. Taking the rosary out of its pouch, I first noticed how cool it was to the touch. I am certainly no Sherlock Holmes, but I could tell this rosary had seen some love, probably a good deal of worry, and above all: faith. Yes, this rosary could likely tell many interesting stories if it could talk, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t speak a word about any of its previous owners. Each black bead was wooden, not cheap plastic, or expensive jewels and stones. No, I could tell these beads had been individually rubbed at while the previous owner prayed and hoped. The original, unpainted wood shone through each bead like a golden pinpoint of light. Instinctually, I put the rosary around my neck like a necklace, even though it was not designed to act as such.

“Nervous, Aaron?” Grandpa asked surreptitiously, the words coming out of the corner of his mouth as he spared a glance over at me. He was dressed in a navy suit that helped accent the dark navy trousers and spotless white shirt I was decked out in. The teacher organizing this shindig, Miss Q., already designated that each boy be an honest-to-God clone.

Miss Q., at five foot small, was a terrifying figure in our school; skinny as a rail, and for some odd reason she chose a haircut reminiscent of one of The Beetles.

Like I said: terrifying.

“Do you think it’s too late to make a run for it?” I asked dryly.

“Not if you give me a head start,” Grandpa fired back, winking at me.

I started rubbing the black wooden beads, wondering where they had been, whose hands had held them before mine.

Almost as if he could read my mind, Grandpa said, “It was mine, that rosary.”

“Really?” I asked. I couldn’t help but be curious. “Why did you decide to give it to me?”

“Because, I know it will be in safe hands,” he said, chuckling. “Besides, I have plenty of others. I didn’t want to just give you money, because I knew you’d spend it.”

We both laughed quietly. I had a predilection with holding onto money.

“Most kids today will probably get cash from some relative or another, but Confirmation is about something bigger than money. It isn’t easy to just pray a lot and hope you get into Heaven. Today is about a choice of who you intend to be as a member of Christ’s greater body. Saying the Rosary got me through some tough times, saw its share of strife. I thought maybe it could be of some help to you.”

“Thanks, Grandpa. Where did you get it?”

“Oh, I went to a Spanish Mission in Arizona many years ago and bought it there. The Crucifix and central medallion are made of silver.”

I nodded along, thinking about what he had said, trying to take it all in. “I appreciate this more than money, anyway. I think I understand what you mean, about—” Before I could continue, we were interrupted by a loud blast of something I wouldn’t quite call music, and I almost grabbed my ears as the church’s big organ started up.

The gigantic pipe-organ was at the very back of the church on the second floor, giving everyone the signal to stand from the Torturous Pews, a name my best friends and I had come up with, so inspired were we by the effect they had on one’s general well-being. Now began all the pomp and circumstance that would define that day as an elderly man in a ridiculously high hat came walking down the main aisle of the church. He carried a remarkably detailed golden crozier—a sign that the Church’s pocket money wasn’t hurting—and the Franciscan friars that inhabited the friary next door to the church walked behind the man I vaguely recognized as the bishop for our diocese. I’d never met the man, so it wasn’t like I could pick him out from a crowd if I wanted to. If you wanted to get the layman’s explanation, I would tell you this: that the bishop was the big cheese for our district in the state of Illinois.

On a recipe card I had folded in my pocket were the various things I was supposed to say to the bishop: my name and the name of the saint I had chosen to emulate. I had chosen Saint Michael the Archangel, an angel I had picked out and prayed to ever since I was a little kid. You may ask the question: What would draw a little kid to such an ethereal figure as an angel? Well, I can tell you this simple fact: I don’t exactly know. I thought it was cool that he was a warrior angel—not the baby-faced cherubs—who carried a sword, smote some demons, and—ahem—kicked ass. Mostly, though, it was because I had dreamt about Saint Michael the Archangel since I was little, possibly before I even knew what angels and saints even were. My parents had questioned it at first when I was still little, I had certainly questioned it, but you know who hadn’t questioned it? My grandparents. “There is an important reason such an angel would visit your dreams, sonny boy.” Grandpa had told me. “He has work for you.”

At first that thought had simply been too much for my teensy brain to process. As I got older, and my sense of Saint Michael the Archangel grew stronger, I began to pray to him on a regular basis. Therefore, I had chosen Saint Michael—or perhaps he had chosen me—and “Michael” would be a sort of new identity for me, someone to try and live up to.

No pressure.

It was my turn to get out of the pew, and I’ll admit: the moment of moments came and I got a little nervous. I alone had to get up there and face the Bishop’s music. Instead, however, as I tried to move forward, handing a card to the Bishop with my identifying information on it, I stood with my Grandpa’s hand on my shoulder, reminding me of his steadying presence in my life. He stood guard over me, showing me he was always going to—like the song—stand by me. According to our practice run of the ceremony, each of us got up singly, with the sponsor staying in the pew. The teacher who had overseen this ceremony expected me to get up alone when my name was called. Grandpa, however, stood with me. Gosh, when did I get to be as tall as him?

“Go get ‘em, sonny boy.” He gave me a warm smile, and I went on my way right up to Bishop Whoever (sorry old chap, my dustpan brain needs cleaning) saying all the “Yes, Bishops,” I was supposed to say.

I walked back to my pew, where Grandpa was still standing, and he enveloped me in a big hug, saying, “Welcome home, Aaron Michael!”

He welcomed me with grace.

Looking back on everything that has happened since then, I can say I used that rosary with fondness, even when I held it in my hands during the worst of times. The fact was, a piece of Grandpa lived in the memory of those beads. They got me through some rough times, and I like to think that I valued and used it with all the right intentions.

As I met that day again in my mind, I was met with a tide of emotions. The feelings were usually mixed, sweet and sour. Andrew hadn’t been given the kinds of experiences with Grandpa the same way I had, because shortly into my first weeks as a high schooler, Grandpa had suffered a stroke, leaving him an echo of his former self. Echoes have a way of coming back to us in unsuspecting ways.

I had to get out, get some air—there were too many people in there!

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I walked outside the church into a brilliant, warm day. This day was a big reminder of why I didn’t do church stuff anymore. Faith and the Church were such an integral part of who Grandpa was, going so deep as to define him. It was such an important part of Grandpa’s life, and I guess I expected life to be fair to him as he got older. When I was a freshman in high school Grandpa got Sick. Everyone gets sick with a capital S at some point in their life, and I’d seen Grandpa make it through surgeries and flus before only to bounce right back with a vibrancy even I couldn’t manage.

When he got Sick, and none of the family or the doctors knew why, I got my rosary and prayed, because prayer was the only activity I could think of doing. So, I said dozens of “Hail Mary’s,” and a good number of “Our Father’s,” too. I said so many permutations of the entire Rosary that I thought I could do it in my sleep. All that happened was he got sicker. I got bitter about faith. Eventually his overall health declined enough to put him into a nursing home.

The state of my faith back then was not the sort of effect that every wave has upon reaching the shore: it comes back with just as much energy and force. The main problem is that when I called out to the Archangel Michael in my dreams, when I said my Rosary’s—I didn’t do it with enough effort. I’d been hollowed out by all the hospital visits. I’d worn that rosary just as I had when I was still a kid, like a necklace. I had counted and recounted those beads in my hands, and I knew how Grandpa had worn the black paint off those beads.

It was right then, as I reached my car in the overcrowded parking lot, that I was seeing a bigger picture for the first time. Andrew was in the church, hoping and waiting to see me. What good would my not being there do for him? I continued walking to my car, pulling open the passenger side door, and BOOM! I opened the car to a sauna. I backed up, took a breath of much-needed oxygen, and opened the glove box. Shoved inside were the decaying receipts to so many different purchases, parking tickets that reached all the way back to high school but were never paid…even a disturbance I’ve not felt since…

“He doesn’t deserve that.”

I heard the gentle voice of my Grandfather behind me, making me leap in fright, my fist having found purchase on something beckoning from the glove box.

“Andrew deserves this more than I do.” I said to the ghost of Grandpa for the first time.

The last time I spoke to Grandpa it was in similar situations: I was holding the same thing then as I was now, and he was still…a memory.

“I would say Andrew deserves his cousin more than that.” Grandpa said, pointing to the package in my hand.

“I agree. The point is, I think I can give him something else he doesn’t have right now. Maybe it’s something you can give him, too.” I said to the echo of the man I saw in my mind’s eye. He was real enough that I could swear his phantom held the intimacy of memory.

Closing the glovebox, I shut my car door on a ghost.

“Not a ghost, Aaron Michael. A memory born from love. Remember that, and all you need is love.”

“Wait, when am I going to see or hear you again?” I asked him out loud. God, if someone drives by and sees me talking to myself in the parking lot…

“Only when we’re standing face to face and I can embrace you the way a father does to his son.”

With that, I hurried back to the church only to hear music from the God-awful organ music playing to the tune of something bright and Spring-oriented. It was obvious to me that it was the one and only song the aged woman playing the organ remembered how to play: How Great Thou Art. Just between you and me, I had grown to develop a distinctive dislike for it over my many years spent going to Mass. The Bishop—a new one, just to be clear—had exited the church along with the Friars, and quickly took his ridiculous hat off— it was better suited above someone’s chimney. Looking at him with his Holy Accoutrements, he only made me think of the famous Looney Tunes cartoon with Elmer Fudd hunting Bugs Bunny to the tune of an opera, Fudd emphasizing his—“spear and magic helmet!”—it was just the right level of humor to lift any sour mood I had.

I let my experience remembering everything I thought I had lost fall away from me. Grandpa had made sure the gift I held would serve its proper use, while through me another gift could be given in a way only God knew.

“Aaron!” I heard Andrew’s voice—still adapting to puberty—squeak a bit and I saw him rush over to me a second before he gave me a big hug.

Gosh, how long will it be before he doesn’t hug me anymore? He’ll be too cool to show much idol worship soon.

“Hey, my man! Congratulations!

He tried to slough off the commendation and I said, “Hold out your hand, I have a gift for you.” He reached out, then I playfully smacked his hand away, saying, “Hold it, buster, close your eyes at least!”

He groaned, I laughed. Andrew grabbed the small box I’d given him, opened it. His eyes narrowed, and he looked up at me. He’d withdrawn a small black leather pouch with a zipper down the middle. I nodded for him to go ahead. He unzipped it, withdrawing a string of black wooden beads and a silver crucifix on one end.

“I thought this was yours?” Andrew had seen it in my hands once, at least once.

“This, my good boy, was Grandpa’s. In fact, it was given to me on my Confirmation.”

“Why would you give this to me? I thought Grandpa would want you to have it.”

“Well, I have other rosaries, but through this one, I came to know Grandpa better. I think that even though you might get other rosaries in your life, this one comes with a piece of him in it. Do you want it? Besides, this way I know it’ll be in good hands.”

“Um…yeah,” Andrew uncoiled it, then put it around him, like a necklace, just as I originally did. “And Aaron?”

“Yeah, bud?”

“Tell me more?”

I was brought back to the faith I thought I’d lost, and to the man who never really left.