"Coyne, John - The Shroud" - читать интересную книгу автора (Coyne John)

"I guess you know," he began slowly, holding the unlit cigar in his left hand, looking at each one in turn, the women in the doorway as well, seizing each one for a moment with his brilliant blue eyes, "why I wanted to come down to the old Cathedral and spend the day with Monsignor O'Toole and this young-" A smile caught at the corners of his mouth, swept across his face like a sunrise. "-this young mсisdшen."
They all laughed at the Irish expression, and Monsignor Kane even led a brief moment of spontaneous applause. The Rosary Society smiled, too, but more uncertainly. They glanced among themselves, not quite sure what the Cardinal had said.
Sitting at the right of His Eminence, the young priest could feel himself blush, and he realized again how much he loved this man. The Cardinal had raised him, trained him, and brought him back home. Now all the young priest wanted was to do his best, to be of service.
"You're aware, I'm sure," the Cardinal continued, "that we celebrate two birthdays this Christmas Eve." His voice picked up its cadence and broke quickly over the audience. He had stepped back slightly from the table, planted both feet as if to defend that corner of the room. He was large and imposing, a block of a man with a massive head, stout neck, and a square, solidly built body. He looked as if he had been chiseled whole from hardwood.
"Our faith is renewed and enriched tonight as we celebrate the birth of Our Savior. Tonight Christ is born once again in a cold manger in the town of Bethlehem, the son of Mary and Joseph."
His Eminence paused, searched their faces with his blue eyes. His voice had softened and his thick brogue lilted like a lyric. "Remember tonight at Mass that the priest's life is the most humble of all. Remember who we are: priests, shepherds of God's flock. We are the link with the centuries of Christians who have carried the good word forward, from one generation to the next, kept alive this flame of hope and everlasting redemption." His hands swept out, blessing them, drawing them closer, as if into an embrace.
The Cardinal stopped and before they could prepare, changed tones, said offhandedly in mock seriousness, "The second birthday we celebrate tonight is only slightly less auspicious." A roar of applause greeted his words. Again the young priest felt everyone's eyes on him.
His Eminence remembered his cigar then and used the moment of laughter to light it. A thick cloud of smoke rose above his gray hair like a halo.
"And how old would you be tonight, Father?" the Cardinal asked innocently, looking down at the young man.
"Thirty-two, your Eminence."
"Thirty-two?" The Cardinal repeated. "Thirty-two, you say? Well, you're making me an old man, Jamie. Are you sure about that figure?" He glanced sideways at the other priests. "I mean, Jamie, you never were much good with numbers."
More laughter and applause. And now, Jamie knew, the Cardinal would tell the story.
"I was still in the seminary myself," the Cardinal continued, speaking slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, "and was helping out down here at this old Cathedral for Christmas. Of course, in those days this was quite a parish. There were half a dozen young priests, all kept busy morning and night, and grateful for another pair of hands.
"It was Christmas Eve, a snowy one like tonight, and I was coming home from visiting the sick. The priest I was accompanying had gone on to see his own family, and I had walked back alone along McCarthy Avenue, then crossed over at Benton Place. Where they built the A&P, the one that burned down during the riots." He gestured, making sure all the priests knew exactly where he meant.
"I had come along Church Drive and was going up the side steps of the Cathedral when I heard this baby crying." He stopped then. He always stopped at that point, the young priest knew, to build suspense. When he continued, his voice was hushed, as if the events that followed were truly miraculous.
"It was a windy night and blowing snow. I wasn't sure at first if it really was a child, and not some small animal caught out in the cold. Or maybe nothing at all. I stood there on the steps, nearly knee deep in snow, and listened.
"I wasn't sure which direction the crying had come from; the snow was whirling about me. I was cold and damp myself, and thinking only of getting inside and dressing for Midnight Mass. Then I heard this cry again, and I knew for certain it was a child."
He stopped again. The young priest glanced up and saw His Eminence tending to his cigar, flipping a thick, perfect ash into the saucer of his cup. He was the only one smoking. The priests, all silent around the table, stared up at him and waited.
"I heard the cry only once more," the Cardinal whispered in his deep confessional tone, "and I could tell the infant was growing weak. With each cry it was losing strength. I got down on my knees-my hands and knees-because I couldn't see otherwise, what with the blowing snow-and I began to crawl around the steps, feeling my way in the drifts.
"I searched the length of those side steps until I got to the corner, the niche to the right of the entrance, where the statue of Ignatius Loyola stands-or did, until it was vandalized. And there I found a child, wrapped up literally in swaddling clothes."
He stopped again. The cigar had gone out. He held it motionless in his thick fingers, not moving, not speaking. The young priest noticed the women, riveted in the doorway. Unlike the priests, they had never heard the story before.
"We saved that child," the Cardinal went on, still speaking slowly and thoughtfully. "I got the baby to the convent next door and with the help of the good sisters and the late Doctor Senese, God rest his soul, the little boy was saved. Doc Senese told me the baby would have lived only a few minutes more in that freezing cold. It was, you know, as if a tiny kitten had been tossed into the snow. The child was less than six hours old."
"We never found the mother. Some poor helpless woman, I'm sure, overwhelmed by it all and thinking she had nowhere to turn for help. Perhaps she had planned to leave the child in the vestibule, where it was warm, but was frightened off at the last minute by people passing. I don't know." He shook his head as if still seeking the reason.
"I searched for her afterward, asked around in the tenements along the Parkway. We always thought she might be German. It was 1950 and MacPatch, as some of you may remember then, had a small German community, refugees from the war. But I never found her. Never found any trace of her." The Cardinal sighed.
"But the child lived," he said quickly, summing up. "The child lived with us at the orphanage of Saints Peter and Paul, and later went to our prep school and the seminary. He grew up, we can truthfully say, within the warm embrace of Holy Mother Church. The good sisters wanted to call him Nicholas, as it seemed he was our Christmas gift, but I thought it was more appropriate to name him after the saint who watched over him in the niche. That is, after Saint Ignatius."
The Cardinal turned toward the young priest. "Father James Ignatius," he announced, "my own son, I might claim, if I wasn't so modest." He winked at the gathering. "And if I could be sure he wouldn't someday disgrace me." The room broke into laughter.
The young priest could feel the Cardinal's hand on his shoulder, the strong fingers gripping him tightly. He did not look up as the Cardinal said, "And I think if we can get the good ladies from Christ the King to join us, we owe this fine young fella at least a chorus of Happy Birthday to celebrate his day and wish him many happy returns. Monsignor Corboy, would you mind starting us out? We're not your fine citywide choral group, but we can, I believe, all sing loudly, if not on key."
The young priest stood and turned to the Cardinal. He was taller than the older man, but slender, and beside the bulky Cardinal he looked younger than he was, with his thick, unkempt blond hair, strong cheekbones, and pale blue eyes the color of a clear winter's sky.
"Thank you, Your Eminence," he said softly and moved to kneel, to kiss the prelate's ring, but before he could genuflect, the Cardinal pulled him into a tight embrace.
The outburst of affection from His Eminence surprised the gathering, momentarily silencing the priests. These men were not used to displays of affection; were, in fact, conditioned against behaving that way with each other. But the genuine love between the Cardinal and Jamie Ignatius touched them all and they burst into the chorus of Happy Birthday that the Cardinal had prescribed.

Now, hours later, Father Ignatius was still moved by the embrace. He could still feel his cheek being squeezed against the big man's shoulder, still smell the sharp scent of the other man's after-shave lotion.
In the semidarkness of his room, he glanced at the clock. Six. An hour before it was time for early Mass. In that time he had to dress and unlock the front doors of the Cathedral, but there was still time to meditate. Still he did not move.
He had begun to meditate a few years before, while studying in Rome, and he had found it a wonderful way to pray. When he first began he had read enviously of Saint Teresa of Avila who had fallen into raptures while meditating, losing all feeling in her body, all knowledge of her surroundings. He had prayed it would be that way for him, but now he was afraid.
Since returning that October to Saints Peter and Paul, his experience of meditation had changed. While contemplating Christ, he found himself reaching a place beyond reality, in a world beyond the physical. But it wasn't Christ that he was finding there.
Abruptly Jamie left the window and went to his bed mat. He had to keep trying. Not all of his meditations led to the experiences he had come to fear. And perhaps they were only sent to try him, to see if he would persevere. Well, he told himself, he would.
His bedroom had been redesigned for meditation. Its original furnishings had been heavy, dark furniture, walnut and mahogany from the turn of the century. In his first week he had moved all those pieces to the basement, painted the walls white, and moved in a thick mat for a bed. His desk consisted of two filing cabinets and a piece of plywood; a few plastic cartons served as end tables and bookshelves.
The white walls he had left bare, except for a single crucifix, and one picture portraying Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. It had been painted by Duccio di Buoninsegna in the Middle Ages, and he had found a reproduction one day in Rome, while sorting through the offerings of a flea market outside the Colosseum.
The painting showed Christ kneeling in the Garden, his white-robed body leaning exhaustedly against a rock, his eyes staring upward, while a dozen yards away Peter and the two sons of Zebedee slept peacefully, unaware of his torment.
In his bedroom, Jamie always felt good. The bareness of the walls, the silence and dark shadows, the absence of possessions, this he found comforting. He glanced at Duccio's painting and saw again the sorrowful figure kneeling alone against the rocks of the hillside. It was time now to reach out to Christ, through meditation.
"Lord, I have sinned against you. Lord, have mercy," Jamie whispered. Slipping off his shoes he sat down carefully in the center of the mat, crossing his legs and laying his arms on his thighs, opening his hands and turning the palms upward.
Jamie sat straight, his head held high, his eyes closed, beginning the process of calming himself, of slowing down his body. He imagined a cord of energy running from the base of his spine down through the brownstone rectory, down three stories into the earth, tying him tightly to the ground. He took his time, let the image develop, felt the tug of the cord as it pulled him tightly to the center of the world.
Slowly he began to count the exhalations of his breath, concentrating on that simple exercise, cleansing his mind. Over and over he counted from one to ten. A dozen minutes passed as he gradually disciplined his mind, moved his attention deeper and deeper into himself, went closer and closer to an awareness beyond sleep, reached for a state of rest deeper than dreams.
He thought of Jesus Christ. He let the name of God float in and out of his consciousness, let it grow fainter, let the word draw him into that space where he no longer realized he was meditating. Jesus, he prayed, you are truly present at my center, at the ground of my being. I love you, Lord, I am one with you in your love. Jesus, be my all. Jesus, draw me to yourself.
Ready now, he moved across that psychological ledge he feared, moved once again through silence and solitude to touch the darkness of his own soul. And then he asked God the only true question of his life: Who am I, Father?
The priest waited. Waited for that question to move him further, to let him slip beyond his consciousness, but nothing happened.
He began again, counted out his breaths, tried to slow down his body, put away his worries and reach in his mind, throughout his body, a peaceful, restful state. He gazed at the Duccio and thought of Jesus. He let the name of God float in and out of his consciousness, but still he could not relax, could not lose his self-control.
Jamie sat back, rolled off the mat. It was no use. He was too excited from the long evening with the Cardinal. Picking up his cup of tea he walked back to the bay window, stood looking at the falling snow.
The snow was still heavy, in the thin light of morning he could see it blow across the vacant lots, swirling, drifting, and settling on the brick rubble, the remains of the houses that had burned in the riots. The snow was so thick it distorted his view, and it was several minutes before he realized there was someone out there, someone wandering among the ruins. He leaned forward.
At that distance he could not tell if it was a man or woman. The figure was bundled up in overcoats, and stooped with the weight of two shopping bags. The bags dragged in the deep snow, leaving behind a path, like markings from a sled.