It would be a soft day.
While the city slept through a mid-April night, warm air had crept northward, easing away a cold front that had belonged to March. By morning the temperature had leaped two months ahead to May. The day was mild and moist, flooded with dampness and devoid of wind. A soft day.
The Reverend Thomas Lynch rose at his usual pre-dawn hour, showered his aging pink body, and combed, with an exactness that revealed a surprising vanity, his thinning white hair. As the eastern sky changed from gravel to roses, he dressed in collar and black suit, emerged from the comfort of the rectory, entered the church proper and knelt before the altar to pray and to wonder.
His morning prayers never varied. But in recent months he remained kneeling after his prayers, the fingers of his right hand clasping the bridge of his nose, seeking understanding and guidance for himself and for the future of St. Eugene’s Roman Catholic Church.
The parish of St. Eugene’s was the smallest in the greater Boston area. The church and rectory, established over a century earlier, had been created when both the power of God and the enduring energy of the Boston Irish were considered equally infinite. Situated on a rise amid a quiet residential section that straddled the boundary between Jamaica Plain and Forest Hills, the church commanded a dramatic view east towards Franklin Park and beyond Dorchester to the Atlantic.
Its architect, a gifted yet practical man, had made the most of both the location and the limited funds assigned by the archdiocese for the construction of St. Eugene’s. He used rough, red granite following lines that advanced and retreated from the viewer’s eye, moulding the structure to follow the hill’s crest. Heavy timbers, among the last harvested from Massachusetts’ dwindling forests in the nineteenth century, were exposed here and there to define the building’s lines and add to its humble, stolid appearance.
The steeple’s impressive height had been decreed not by the architect nor for the greater glory of God but to satisfy the dictates of the bishop, who had been appalled when shown the low lines of the building and who insisted that the cross sail far above other churches in the area.
Through the turn of the century and two world wars St. Eugene’s survived, if not thrived, on the support of Boston’s smallest Catholic congregation. But eventually the solid middle-class Irish and scattering of Italian families began either moving west towards Tudor Brookline, thereby gaining a notch or two in achievement, or drifting north to Revere and Chelsea, losing degrees of respectability and faith in the process.
The parish of St. Eugene’s was dying. Reverend Lynch realized it each time he completed his matins and remained in the quiet light of dawn, kneeling before the carved oak presence of the Virgin. Already the church basement was being leased on a daily basis to a private daycare centre. Years before, the parish itself would have provided the service and absorbed the cost; now it desperately needed the centre as a source of income.
There had been enquiries, subtle to be sure but as plain in their meaning as the first frost of winter, about Thomas Lynch’s reaction to the idea of giving up his church duties to perform hospice work on behalf of the archdiocese. And a black Baptist congregation over on Washington Street was clearly interested in acquiring the church structure (smiling and bracketing their words with “you understand” and “of course”) if it should ever become available.
There should be hospice care for dying churches, too, Reverend Lynch brooded as he rose and crossed himself. The parish support had shrunk dramatically in recent years. Some Sundays, Thomas Lynch mused, he could have taken the entire congregation for a ride in the bishop’s limousine.
He walked to the altar, kissed the crucifix, lit a candle and checked his watch. In another hour Mrs. Kelley would arrive to brew his tea, perform her maid’s chores in the rectory, and grumble about her grandchildren. He would nod and smile and make soothing noises, then give her his blessing and watch as she left with new strength in her spirit if not in her arthritic hands.
I will be the last of my faith to command a flock within this building, he pondered as he genuflected and turned from the altar. He was surprised that the idea neither shocked nor saddened him. For all of his faith, Thomas Lynch considered himself a realist. Life, he often said to console a dying parishioner, is a matter of letting go. We let go of the womb, of the shelter of our parents, of our children and eventually of this life, to be gathered again in heaven.
Thomas Lynch was prepared to let go, as God determined for him.
Something scurried away on tiny feet in the darkness as Reverend Lynch walked down the aisle to the heavy church door. Poor as church mice, the priest reflected. It was a phrase no one seemed to use anymore. “Perhaps they could say ‘Poor as St. Gene’s,’” he muttered to himself. He would speak to the woman who operated the daycare centre, reminding her that no food was to be left anywhere in the church. It just drew the mice, he knew. And he wouldn’t set traps. The mice did little damage—a smile played on his face, then dissolved away—although once, Mrs. Hennessy threw Palm Sunday ceremonies into a tither when a mouse ran across her new pumps from Filene’s. Poor Mrs. Hennessy. That was the thought that scattered his smile. He crossed himself in her memory. Poor Mrs. Hennessy.
He pulled aside the iron latch on the inside of the heavy oak doors.
That’s what you do. You deny them food and they’ll leave. Go elsewhere. Perhaps down the hill to the Presbyterian church where they can afford mice. He smiled quickly again, this time at the impishness of his thought.
The door swung open, admitting the veiled sunlight of the early April morning. Birds sang in trees that wore a dusting of green. Daffodils, planted years ago around the building’s foundation and ignored since, were already beyond their prime and growing brown and limp. A cat, surprised in the middle of stalking squirrels on the lawn, froze on the spot and watched the priest with wide, shining eyes. Coming up the hill towards the church, a young man was strolling, an athletic bag in hand, heading perhaps for an early season tennis match. From somewhere he heard a car door slam, and a starter motor begin whining.
There was no catechism to support it, no Biblical teachings he could recall on the subject, but deep within, Reverend Thomas Lynch believed that early risers carried an extra measure of morality. There is a cleansing from the early morning sun that fades by noon, he was convinced. Laggards sleep late. The devil moves in darkness. And angels congregate in dawn’s light.
He walked back to the altar, arranging the thin slate of day’s events in his mind as he went. A chat with Mr. Mullet about clearing the eavestroughs. Setting the landscaping budget. A visit this afternoon to City Hospital to visit poor Patrick O’Hara, dying from kidney failure.
He genuflected at the altar once again. And how many more springs do I have to hold onto my field and my flock? he asked the sad-eyed Mary in silence. Not many, came the reply from within him. As your flock has let go of you and of life, surely you must let go of. . . .
A metallic clatter sounded behind him. He turned from the altar to see a slight figure silhouetted in the open doorway, carrying something heavy at its side.
Reverend Lynch brought his hands together in front of his chest and nodded.
“Good morning!” he called aloud. He raised one hand, shielding his eyes to discern some detail in the person standing in the brilliant light of his church doorway. “Welcome to St. Eugene’s,” he added as the figure remained frozen against the rising sun. Thomas Lynch could see only the head moving, turning slowly from side to side and surveying the church interior as though deciding if it was safe to enter.
Thomas Lynch frowned. It’s someone who needs help, he decided. He glanced quickly towards the old, unused confessional booth. Perhaps they’ll feel more comfortable in there, he anticipated. There is a comfort in speaking to someone you can call Father, safe in the darkness of a space that in its time has heard every sin imaginable.
He lowered his hand and walked down the aisle, beaming his broadest Irish smile. “My name is Thomas Lynch. And yours?”
Thunder echoed through the church as the heavy Gothic door slammed shut. The priest’s eyes, having narrowed against the flood of sunshine through the open door, were blinded in the sudden darkness. He stopped halfway down the aisle and reached one hand out to touch a pew.
“Perhaps you just want to rest here awhile,” he said to the figure, now a crouching shadow among shadows.
He heard the sound of a zipper opening. With his eyes grown accustomed to the darkness once again, he could see the figure reaching into a large athletic bag. It’s the tennis player, he recognized. The young fair-haired boy I just saw ascending the hill. He remembered the faded yellow T-shirt, the baggy track pants, the worn sneakers.
But why on earth does he want his tennis racket out, here in the church? the priest wondered as the young man withdrew a dark, tubular device from the bag.
“Look, if I can help you. . . .” Thomas Lynch said, stepping closer to the silent visitor, a hint of annoyance in his voice.
The young man was standing straight now, the instrument in his hands pointing at the priest. At the end of it a large round black hole could be discerned, obscene and foul.
“My God,” the priest whispered, and the church interior was lit in an explosion of iron hail.
In his final moments of consciousness Thomas Lynch lay on his back, his head against the side of the pew, listening to soft liquid sounds from somewhere near the front of his vestments. His eyes were fixed on the peak of St. Eugene’s interior, where last winter’s snows had leaked through the caulking to stain the precious old oak. It must be repaired, he told himself sternly. Otherwise it will rot, and poor St. Gene’s will tumble down. He felt his breathing grow more shallow and tried valiantly to whisper a final Hail Mary.
Among the last perceptions of a long life devoted to Church, country and congregation, the priest heard someone sobbing. I must not cry, he told himself, I cannot prepare myself for God by crying.
But as darkness gathered behind his eyes, he realized the source of the sobs, and in his final moments he felt compassion for the young man, who was returning the gun to the zippered bag, who cried in agony for the blood he had spilled within a house of God.