Читать книгу The Miracle of the Images - Welby Thomas Cox Jr. - Страница 7

The wait for the response from the Vatican was not long in coming. On October 26, six weeks after the September 12th meeting with Father Francis, the Vatican entourage showed up in the small village of Germantown, Ohio. Headed by Monsignor John Voght, a graduate of Notre Dame and therefore readily acceptable to Father Francis. Monsignor Voght also had Father Tim Dalton a native Ohioan to carry his bags and make any advance registrations which might become necessary.

The call to Aldo came from Father Francis. He explained to Aldo that the Vatican entourage had just arrived and would like to come to the farm for a visit the next day if at all convenient. Aldo explained that he had chores that would keep him busy until dinnertime and that would be the most convenient time since they had to eat as well. Father Francis agreed and in the process was given the most direct route to the farm. They agreed that dinner for the four to include Father Francis would be promptly at six o'clock...just after the evening angelus. The beautiful sound of the bells in the bell tower, which Aldo had purchased, completely automated three times daily, to call the farm hands to meals.

Aldo also invited one or more of the priest to stay at the farm. He advised Father Francis that there were no hotels that he could recommend nearby but there were plenty of clean free rooms at the farm and they might enjoy waking to the farm freshness and a wholesome country breakfast. Father Francis was already in Aldo's camp, suggesting that he thought both might stay if Aldo was certain it would be no inconvenience.

The next day Aldo set about preparing for his chores and the evening meal as well. It was not something that he could spend much time fretting over, so he simply put a nice rump roast (adding potatoes, carrots, celery and onions later) into the oven for a slow bake to be completed at the precise hour for dinner. Cooking approximately four hours, the meat would be quite tender and the vegetables could be added about one hour before they were ready to eat or as Aldo figured it about the time he came in for his shower. A simple meal that all should enjoy with some fresh bread and sweet tea which he needed only to drop into a boiling pan of water. Perhaps even a glass of the farms wine.

There would be coffee after dinner with a pound cake picked up from the bakery at Kroger. The convenience of living on the edge of a new mega center which had taken fifty acres from Aldo's farm on the far east side (The worst of the farm acreage which was unsuitable for farming) and which had fetched a reasonable price as negotiated by the farms attorneys, Handmaker & Handmaker who also handled the investment of the funds through the law firm which required no identification from Aldo so long as the fees to the firm were paid. The law firm maintained a list of clients seeking a source of discriminating and readily available funds at twelve percent per annum.

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Aldo started with the big Jersey cows who stood waiting, mooing in low guttural sounds indicating the need for immediate relief from the large bags which hung precariously between the hind legs dripping rich milk as they walked into the prearranged slots for the attachment of the electric milkers as the cows dropped their heads while munching hay from the racks. The electric milkers were additions to the farms milk program in the early eighties. Although it was hard work, Aldo found that he and one farm hand could milk one hundred cows in a setting in just over one hour. Of course there was clean up on the electric milking machines, and the storage of the milk in the large cooler for pick up by the Co-op... but the faun hand dispatched with this chore within a couple of hours and then joined the other hands now working at various chores as defined by Aldo for the balance of the day with a break for lunch at noon, in time for the angelus which called the hands into the farm kitchen for the meal.

Aldo had help with the lunch. He had been fortunate to find a divorced woman with three small children who lived near the farm...enjoyed being up early, liked to cook and clean and the best part for her, was that Aldo paid her in cash each day and she was home in time for her children to come home from school. Aldo had even offered to set up a double wide trailer near the barn for she and her children but she had been able to rent a tenant house on the farm next door and it was an easy commute for her old car. Aldo wanted to help but did not want to make waves.

Her name was Rita McCann...a big Irish woman who knew her way around work, was honest and dependable. She was a wonderful addition to the farm, handling those chores which Aldo had trouble working into his schedule or the schedule of one of the men. Besides it was nice to have a woman's touch around the house and on occasion, the children even came over if they were out of school early for some reason.

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The timing worked out perfectly for Aldo as it most often did. He had completed all his chores for the day and come home to clean up and get prepared for his evening guest. Rita McCann had kept an eye on the roast, adding water periodically and then placing the vegetables into the huge roasting pot. They would be tender and ready for the six o'clock meal.

Mrs McCann had also cleaned two of the guest rooms. Vacuuming, dusting, changing the beds, washing the windows and placing fresh flowers in vases besides the night stand. Aldo was quite pleased with the work and told Mrs McCann how much he appreciated the extra work while giving her a twenty dollar bill for her effort.

The priest arrived in Father Francis's Buick right on schedule as the angelus sounded from the automated bells Aldo had rigged near the barn. He enjoyed the bells, which rang three times each day...announcing the call to the meals.

Father Francis introduced Aldo to Monsignor Voght and then to Father Dalton. Voght was a big man over six feet five inches tall and weighing in excess of two hundred fifty pounds without being obese. Dalton was willowy...tall and slim he was fresh out of Divinity College at the Vatican. A special college for a select few chosen to serve the Pope in the communities from which they have come.

Aldo welcomed the men into his home. He was proud of its simplicity and the smell of dinner encouraged the entourage to move closer toward the kitchen. Aldo had started a fire in the large fireplace. It was now October 26 and although the days were pleasant, the evenings began to get a slight nip in the air as the sun set. So the fire felt good as well as setting a warm mood for the men.

Aldo offered a glass of wine or sherry. All accepted the home made wine from apple, peach and grape which was placed on the living room table in large cruets for the men to serve themselves. After they had poured the wine and drank to the fellowship, Aldo excused himself and attended to the last details of getting the dinner on the table including mashing the potatoes, which was a specialty of the house with this meal, which also included wonderfully light and rich mushroom gravy, enriched by wine.

The men were invited to the dinning room and seated around the table as though they were family Monsignor Voght said the grace and all filled their plates with the roast, which was so tender it fell to the touch of the fork. All the men ate in silence, not because they had nothing to say but because the meal was simply so tasty and a welcome change from the restaurant fare to which they had become accustomed.

By the second helping, the men began to slow down the ritual of shoveling the food into opened mouths long enough to pass the pleasantries of the day.

"How was the trip from Rome?" Aldo asked.

"Very pleasant indeed." The Monsignor said in response to Aldo.

"We. were able to come direct on Delta from Rome into the Cincinnati airport which as you know is located in Kentucky."

The men laughed at the suggestion that Kentucky wasn't good enough to own up to its largest airport but had been forced to label it with the Ohio Queen city name.

"What about the meals at the Vatican?" Aldo asked.

"Well the meals do not approach this magnificent feast Aldo, but for us poor priest they are a useful respect from the labors of the day. An opportunity for the community to get together, to pray and to enjoy the fellowship of those we love and admire." Father Tim said.

"Of course no one will believe this feast so we may have to kidnap you Aldo in order to prove that all meals do not have to include pasta and bread." The Monsignor said.

"Monsignor has your summer reading list included the DaVinci Code'..." Aldo asked.

"Another Jewish Money-changer...a huckster...say or do anything to discredit Christianity...the real God. This book Aldo is a waste of time, a Hollywood extravaganza at the expense of the deeply faithful. It begins with a historically faulty portrait of the Last Supper, the great DaVinci creation, which never took place.

"How do you mean Monsignor...we have all seen the masterpiece?" Aldo asked.

"Yes...we have seen the masterpiece of the creative genius of Leonardo DaVinci but Aldo, you of all people should know that there is a thing called Artistic License, which permits the artist to paint whatever he or she wants to interpret, in their unique way and call it history...those of us who have spent our lives dedicated to the historical truth, know that Brown's interpretation of the design of the Last Supper is faulty...a lie because the historical evidence is implicit that Jews reclined while celebrating a meal. There was no table...they were on the floor on pillows and low floor hugging sofas." The Monsignor said.

"Well, perhaps the design was inappropriate and, as you say Leonardo took certain license but it seems to me that that does not change the original premise of Brown's research that Christ was not a homosexual but was in fact married to Mary Magdelyn and fathered her child." Aldo said.

"We are certain that Christ was A-sexual and hence his call to priest to be celibate...to not be 'in the body' but 'of the body' of Christ. Certainly Christ loved Mary Magdelyn but it was in the same way that he loved James or Peter or Thomas the doubter." He said.

"The second premise of Brown falls equally hard in the face of hard evidence to the contrary. It is true that the Knights Templar was the foundation of the Priory of Scion since the Crusades, but it is widely known and accepted that the historical record of the Priory of Scion was systematically defrauded by a Frenchman in the mid-twentieth century seeking to include his own family in the heritage of the Priory, and it was this man who began this entire treatise over the church's effort to exclude women from rightful places in the history of the Catholic Church, including the false story that Christ was married to Mary Magdelyn and fathered a female child who was in the line of succession to the Priory of Scion, the true and rightful heirs to the leadership of the church. The very idea that women were systematically ostracized from the church is categorically challenged by the faithful in the form of the good Sisters who have faithfully served the church and the Holy Father.

"But Monsignor...where are the Sisters now...in the age of Aquarius they slipped away, they tired of the promise that they would have a more defined role in the leadership of the church and more importantly as participants in the parish...as priest. They tired at the lack of oversight toward the homosexuals and abusers among the priest...and they tired at the cover up and cost caused by these recalcitrant and immoral priest.

"Again Aldo...your premise is that the good Sisters were turned away by the church...the fact is the young women of the late sixties were turned off by religion in general...they were as promiscuous and godless as was those young men who infiltrated the seminaries as a place for homosexual contact among fellow seminarians. Agreed that the church was lax in the selectivity process, but let us not forget that many of the young men who might have aspired to the priesthood were being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Therefore the pickings were slim and the church did not do enough to create a climate for religious callings among other nationalities for missionaries from the Africans, the Brazilians, from Venezuela to come and serve the needs of the flock in the United States. That was the failure of the Catholic Church...some of us recognized it, but most were young seminarians like myself and we had no pulpit from which to speak out.

"Finally Aldo...the most egregious part of the Brown book...I could forgive the rest as the Artistic License, but it was, and is, the basic premise of the book that the Catholic Church set out in a premeditated, calculated methodology to murder and destroy the last remnants of the Priory of the Scion. That the Holy Father could and would be a party to a criminal act and act of murder, a felony is, at its heart, so sacrilegious that I believe that it borders on malicious intent to defame and should be defended in every court in the land. Adjudicated to the point that twelve good men and women...the chosen twelve should be given the opportunity to hear the side of the Church vs. Brown and it is my belief that those twelve good folks would return a verdict in favor of the Catholic Church to preclude Brown from ever spending a dime of the millions that he will make from this malicious piece of trash." The Monsignor concluded taking one last drink of the home made wine.

"It seems to me that the Church definitely has an action, but they won't do anything about it...the potential for loss is so great that it may in fact doom the church forever." Aldo said.

"Of course this is a perfect segway to the greater question which has brought us here Aldo...thank you for the meal, the desert and the sterling conversation but shall we get down to business?" Father Tim asked.

The priest were kind enough not to have begun the inquisition of Aldo until they all had settled in the living room with coffee and pound cake frozen with raspberries and whipped cream.

"Is this where the sighting took place Aldo?" Monsignor Voght asked.

"Well the actual event took place up stairs in my bedroom, which I will show you if you like...shall I call you Monsignor or Father?" Aldo asked.

"What ever makes you most comfortable Aldo...we do not stand on formalities during these proceedings." He said.

They walked up the solid stair well with coffee mugs in hand. Aldo assumed that this meant they intended to spend some time up there.

"This was my room at the time of the visitation." Aldo said.

"Show us if you can Aldo exactly what happened." Father Tim asked.

Aldo went to the bed, sat his mug on the stand beside the vase of fresh cut flowers and lay down as he had been on that evening.

"I was in bed and fast asleep by eleven o'clock...that was when the first visit took place. I was awaken by a slight movement of the bed, the wind picked up and blew through the drapes... and then the brilliant lights shown through the frame and holes in the door. They were very bright but not blinding. I opened the door...a woman was elevated... standing at the door and her body filled the space around it." Aldo continued.

"I said nothing but was so frightened that I immediately slammed the door in her face."

"What was she wearing?" asked the Monsignor.

"She had on a long dress...a gown of several layers and veils...it was of a color which I refer to as Blue Heaven." Aldo said.

"And she said nothing?" the Monsignor asked.

"I am afraid that I did not give her time to speak." Aldo said.

"Now this was on August 15, 1955."

"That is correct." Aldo said.

"When did she next appear to you?"

"She returned on the seventeenth of August."

"What happened Aldo?"

"I had said the rosary with my family down in the living room. We all went to bed and it was about nine o'clock when I went to sleep. The same thing happened with the bed moving, the wind picked up and the lights came through the door. I got up from the bed and knelt at the door as I opened it. I held up the cross and began to pray the Our Father in Latin."

Pater Noster, qui es in caelis: ( the priest joined the prayer as Aldo lead) sanctificetur nomen tuum: adveniat regnum tuum: fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra. Panem nostrum quatidianum da nobis hodie: et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicuit et nos demittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. Sid libera nos a malo. Amen."

The priest stood in silence.

"She stood there elevated, filling the doorway. She said that she wanted me to paint a portrait of the Holy Family. A simple scene with Mary holding the infant Jesus and Joseph leading the burro."

"I told her that I was just a rudimentary painter and that I would not know how to begin to paint the likeness of the Blessed Mother, Joseph or the Christ Child. She said that I was not to be concerned about the features that they would appear on Mary and Joseph in 2005 on the feast day of the Assumption and that the Christ Child would be disclosed in 2055 on the Feast of the Nativity."

"She told me that I was not to disclose the command to paint the portrait until the first miracle had been completed and then they were to be shared only with the Holy Father in Rome."

"Tell noone Aldo...you are the handmade of the Lord." She said.

"So each day for the past fifty years I have prayed the rosary to the faceless portrait and then on the fifteenth of August I watched as the faces took shape...faces that noone could ever imagine nor can I describe." Aldo said as he made his way to a chair and sat down, seemingly exhausted from the exchange.

"Well its getting late, and I know Aldo goes to bed with the chickens." Father Francis said trying to introduce a little levity into a heavy moment.

"Yes I always pray the rosary...before bed and I invite you to join with me now." Aldo asked.

The priest knelt in place as Aldo began the Sorrowful mysterious. It took little time to pray the five decades and then Father Francis prepared to leave. It was very dark so Aldo turned on the large strobe to light his way to the car. He promised to return the next day, after lunch, to pick up the priest from Rome.

Was the parking strobe light, the light, which awoke Aldo? Father Dalton thought to himself.

As the visitors prepared for bed, Monsignor Voght requested to stay in Aldo's boyhood bedroom where the visitation took place. In only a few moments the house was quite and all the lights were out. Aldo was extremely tired and it was now an hour past his bedtime. In a moment he was fast asleep. Father Tim Dalton was feeling the effects of the flight from Rome. He tossed for a few moments and then fell into a deep and peaceful sleep as the sounds of the night prepared a cacophony of sounds and lights unheard in the city. The Monsignor wasted no time and seemed to be asleep before his head hit the thick goose-down filled pillow.

Then it happened...the wind picked up and whistled through the windows of the Monsignor's bedroom...the bed began to shake. The Monsignor woke and held the sides of the bed, which seemed to be adrift at sea as it rocked from side to side. The lights, which Aldo had described, blasted through the frame of the door and through the cracks as well. Monsignor Voght attempted to pick up his two hundred fifty pounds from the rocking bed... put he was unable to gain any momentum. The door opened, but the Monsignor saw no one...he called out!

"Who is it...Blessed Lady, I adore and worship you. I lay down my life for you, please grant me this moment so that I may die in the peaceful knowledge of your loving embrace."

There was no vision... the light dissipated, the wind calmed and the bed set down on the floor. The Monsignor got out of bed and went to the door. He looked out from the doorway and down the hallway... only silence unfolded. He knelt down where the light had been so intense and he felt a field of sensation throughout his body. The hair stood on his head, neck, hands, legs, arms and pubic area. He did not know how long he had been kneeling in this place but his knees seemed to have been frozen...locked into the floor so that he was unable to get up. The Monsignor first sat down on the floor and then he rolled over on his side and tried to straighten his legs. They would not permit him to do so without intense pain but slowly the pain began to subside. He lay there flexing the knee joints and then he got back into the bed.

He began to smell coffee and frying bacon. He knew that the incident had taken him through the night. A caller leaving him with a thought from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner... 'He prayeth best, who lovest best...all things large and small.' The Monsignor could not sleep so he prayed as he watched the formation of the sun and then new day.

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Aldo had completed the breakfast and set the table in the dinning room before he called for the priest to come down. Father Dalton had risen to the smell of the coffee and bacon, showered, shaved and dressed in his compulsory black suit and white cleric collar. The Monsignor had on the same dress code with the exception that a small slice of red had been sewn beneath the white cleric collar to denote his rank as a Monsignor.

The breakfast table was as inviting as was the dinner table. A large platter of scrambled eggs sat in the middle of the table. A platter of fried country cured ham, Job Bacon from the smoke house and sausage patties which Aldo had rendered from the hog killing last November after the first real hard freeze. A bowl of homemade applesauce sat beside cruets of freshly made strawberry, grape, peach and pear preserves. Steam rose from the biscuits and the gravy containing bits of sausage delivered the pungent smell of the sage in the sausage. The coffee filled the mugs with steaming darkness and a small pitcher of cream, which had been separated from the milk in the dairy processing on the farm sat nearby.

The table with its farm fresh goodness on display was accentuated by two large freshly cut bouquets of red roses. The table took on the appearance of Thanksgiving...a celebration of the harvest and the bounty of God's own land.

Father Tim expressed his gratitude to Aldo for the peaceful night after such a beautiful meal and evening. He complemented him as well for the feast they were about to partake and then the bell to the front door rang. Monsignor Voght jumped noticeably. Aldo went to the door and there stood Father Francis as though he had been orphaned. Aldo invited the good priest into the hallway and lead him down the hall to the dinning room where the other two priests were sitting waiting patiently for the host to say the blessing.

"Father Francis has come to say the blessing of the meal and the day." Aldo laughed.

"Father Francis, I'll set you a plate as you prepare." Aldo withdrew to the kitchen and returned with a setting of china and cutlery.

Father Francis said the grace and then he read a short passage from his Marian Missal, after which the priest filled their plates with the morning morsels of goodness from down on the farm.

"Aldo, I have said it before...we are going to abduct and carry you back to the Vatican as the personal cook for his Holy Father." Father Tim laughed as he commented.

"Well we've only just elected the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI and it would be wonderful to think that his reign will be as long as that of his Holiness Pope John Paul II but, I doubt a diet containing all of this goodness would be in his healthy best interest." Father Francis smiled.

"Interestingly," Aldo chimed in, "All of the items which you see here are natural including the preserves...with the exception of the spices there are no additives and it is a fact that my parents, the great parents and the great, great parents who were all products of this farm and this life lived well into their respective nineties. Well above the mortuary table of the expectation of the life table set by the actuaries."

"Now Monsignor Voght, you seem to be a bit under the weather." Aldo said, "You have touched very little of your breakfast...perhaps I could get you a bowl of cereal or perhaps some very nice oatmeal."

"Thank you no, Aldo...but I am well...its just that something happened to me in the night...I think...perhaps a visitor. I am not at all certain if it was a dream brought on by the exhaustion of the trip, the food and the wine but after I had fallen asleep, I was awaken by the wind whipping through the drapes and the rocking of the bed. Then a strobe light pierced the frame of the door and the cracks as well. I went to the door, opened it and knelt before the light but nothing happened...I held the crucifix in my hand and prayed but no one appeared. Then as quickly as it had commenced all the elements including the light disappeared.

I knelt through the rest of the night. I do not know how long this took place. I was unable to get up because my weight had settled into my knees and I seemed paralyzed...attached to the floor. I was finally able to sit down and then to rollover on my side and begin to flex the joints of my knees. Throughout the experience my entire body seemed to be energized by an electric field which caused the hair on my body to stand on end." He said.

The Monsignor lifted his hand to give testimony to the condition and the hair on his knuckles was standing as though someone was holding a comb filled with electrical current over it. The hair waved and danced with the motion...and the emotion of a morning, which had started with so much promise and now played out a moment which none of the participants could explain. Something had indeed transpired but none where prepared to attempt an explanation...after all this was a Monsignor... a man of the clothe...a man not given to hyperbole...an educated, grounded man of God whose life had stopped in this small agricultural community one thousand miles from where he had been born to Irish immigrants in the south of Boston.

Now... the others knew that Monsignor Voght was in charge...that the lady had come in the night and taken him to the mat...but had it been a dream...was it a manifestation of the trip and the aura surrounding the reason for the visit? They had been effectively taken out of their game...how do you fashion a new defense or offense after your star player has been neutralized? How could they now return to the Vatican with a report that confirmed the evidentiary existence of a phenomenon without and before the portrait had even been examined? Surely it would make the case for bringing Aldo back with them...along with the portrait?