For what seems to have been a very long time, I have been cobbling together a story about an Anglican priest. What follows is an excerpt from an early passage. The priest is young and naive and earnest, and has his first parish in a small Prairie city. The period is the late 1930s.
Then it was Christmas eve, a half-hour until midnight, the people of St. John's coming through the snow to Holy Communion. The gravedigger's wife and mother and red-headed children filled the front pew. In rows behind them sat Major Tully; Mr. Bloor, the beekeeper, and his son; the McCauley sisters; a row of youngsters confirmed by the Bishop that spring; the Nortons (Harry in a pool table-green shirt); a middle-aged man pushing a nut-colored woman in a wheel chair; the deeply spiritual Mrs. Broughton, pale and soignee in a black, fitted coat, with her husband, the alderman (and would-be mayor) beside her, chewing gum and looking uncomfortable; a trio of college boys, home for the holidays, with their dates, the boys a little drunk, mickeys bulging in the pockets of their tweed coats, the girls candy-pink and fuzzy in angora mittens and tams; Mrs. Duggan, with her distressingly large goiter; a few uniformed men from the RCAF base; a small, grey man needing a shave, slumped in a dark corner; and many other persons I had not seen before and might not see again. At midnight the pews were full, the candles lit, the prayer book and hymnal racks empty, and the sidesmen seated on Sunday school chairs by the doors to the narthex.
Standing behind the choir, I spoke the words "Unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given." Miss Williston, our rather shrill lead soprano, began the opening carol, and the crucifer--big, 16-year-old George Starkey, who had not been quite the same since being kicked in the head by a horse--led us down the aisle.
It is right, I thought, to be here tonight--not in a metropolitan cathedral of stained glass and incense, but in this frame and stucco church set where the sidewalks have given way to weeds and the kneeling people are red-faced, rough-palmed diggers in soil and keepers of cattle. I thanked God for sending me here.
"...Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful. The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee..." I moved along the altar rail of communicants, their heads bowed, hands extended, holding the silver chalice to their lips, drawing a white, cross-embossed linen cloth across the cup's rim. "...preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." I thought of writing to Mother, perhaps before going to bed, to tell her I had celebrated this first Christmas eucharist with the chalice she had given me. "Drink this in remembrance..." the last person was before me, the small, grey man, collar buttoned to his bristly neck, who had sat in shadows through the service "...that Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful."
The last hands had been shaken at the steps; even the choristers had gone, putting away their cassocks and mortarboards and stepping out into the snow, now flaking in lemon light. There were puddles in the narthex where galoshes had stood. The server had snuffed the candles, the sidesmen had counted the collection (Christmas offertory, traditionally a gift to the priest--I would have to find some good way to use it) and I was alone.
I walked back to the white and gold draped altar and looked around me. What was I looking for? Then I knew. The silver chalice. It was gone.
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