"Walter M. Miller - The Lost Masters - Volume 01" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Walter M)

beatified founder of the Order, if finally canonized, should be addressed as
Saint Isaac or as Saint Edward. Some even favored Saint Leibowitz as the
proper address, since the Beatus had, until the present, been referred to by
his surname.
тАЬBeate Leibowitz, ora pro me!тАЭ whispered Brother Francis. His hands were trembling so
violently that they threatened to ruin the brittle documents.
He had uncovered relics of the Saint.
Of course, New Rome had not yet proclaimed that Leibowitz was a saint, but Brother Francis was
so convinced of it that he made bold to add: тАЬSancte Leibowitz, ora pro me!тАЭ Brother Francis wasted
no idle logic in leaping to his immediate conclusion: he had just been granted a token of his vocation by
Heaven itself. He had found what he had been sent into the desert to find, as Brother Francis saw it. He
was called to be a professed monk of the Order.
Forgetting his abbotтАЩs stem warning against expecting a vocation to come in any spectacular or
miraculous form the novice knelt in the sand to pray his thanks and to offer a few decades of the rosary
for the intentions of the old pilgrim who had pointed out the rock leading to the shelter. May you find
your Voice soon, boy, the wanderer had said. Not until now did the novice suspect that the pilgrim
meant Voice with a capital V.
тАЬUt solius tuae voluntatis mihi cupidus sim, et vocationis tuae conscius, si digneris me
vocareтАж
It would be left to the abbot to think that his тАЬvoiceтАЭ was speaking the language of circumstances
and not the language of cause and effect. It would be left to the Promotor Fidei to think that
тАЬLeibowitz,тАЭ perhaps, was not an uncommon name before the Flame Deluge, and that I. E. could as
easily represent тАЬIchabod EbenezerтАЭ as тАЬIsaac Edward.тАЭ For Francis, there was only one.
From the distant abbey, three bell notes rang out across the desert, a pause, then the three notes
were followed by nine.
тАЬAngelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae,тАЭ the novice dutifully responded glancing up in surprise to see
that the sun had become a fat scarlet ellipse that already touched the western horizon. The rock barrier
around his burrow was not yet complete.
As soon as the Angelus was said, he hastily repacked the papers in the rusty old box. A call from
Heaven did not necessarily involve charismata for subduing wild beasts or befriending hungry wolves.
By the time twilight had faded and the stars had appeared, his makeshift shelter was as well fortified
as he could make it; whether it was wolf-proof remained to be tested. The test would not be long in
coming. He had already heard a few howls from the west. His fire was rekindled, but there was no light
left outside the circle of firelight to permit the gathering of his dally collection of purple cactus fruitтАУhis
only source of nourishment except on Sundays, when a few handfuls of parched corn were sent from the
abbey after a priest had made his rounds with the Holy Sacrament. The letter of the rule for a Lenten
vocational vigil was not so strict as its practical application. As applied, the rule amounted to simple
starvation.
Tonight, however, the gnawing of hunger was less troublesome to Francis than his own impatient
urge to run back to the abbey and announce the news of his discovery. To do so would be to renounce
his vocation no sooner than it had come to him; he was here for the duration of Lent, vocation or no
vocation, to continue his vigil as if nothing extraordinary had occurred.
Dreamily, from near the fire, he gazed into the darkness in the direction of Fallout Survival Shelter
and tried to visualize a towering basilica rising from the site. The fantasy was pleasant, but it was difficult
to imagine anyone choosing this remote stretch of desert as the focal point of a future diocese. If not a
basilica, then a smaller churchтАУThe Church of Saint Leibowitz of the WildernessтАУsurrounded by a garden
and a wall, with a shrine of the Saint attracting rivers of pilgrims with girded loins out of the north.
тАЬFatherтАЭ Francis of Utah conducted the pilgrims on a tour of the ruins, even through тАЬHatch TwoтАЭ into
the splendors of тАЬSealed EnvironmentтАЭ beyond, the catacombs of the Flame Deluge where . . . where . . .
well, afterwards, he would offer Mass for them on the altar stone which enclosed a relic of the churchтАЩs