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THE INTRODUCTION TO THE NUN'S
TALE
"Bravo!" the bartender cried. "Well
done, I say!
I recognize them all! That's just the way
We carry on,
we folk of venal sin,
All fully liable for the fix we're
in!
"But Sister, now it's your turn next to tell
A tale for us,
if that would please you well."
"Well it would," the nun said with good
cheer.
And so began the tale that you shall hear.
THE NUN'S
PROLOGUE
If you will just bear with me, I
will pray
To God and Christ, and to the Virgin Mother
Before I start
my tale. It is my way
To ask for Heaven's help, I know no
other,
Though most of you, I realize, would not bother.
But I have
little talent and less skill,
And so I must add faith and hope to
will.
O Lord, whose word across the Earth has spread,
And whose
love encompasses us all,
The living and the still-awaiting dead
Who
shall arise the moment that You call;
And Christ, Whose sacrifice
reversed our fall:
Please help me tell this modern miracle
With
feeling, grace, simplicity, and skill.
And blessed queen, who loved
your martyred child,
Yet knew the sacrifice for which He came,
Knew
that on your soul Heaven had smiled,
Yet knew how sharp would be a
mother's pain,
Help me, too, I pray, this tale sustain
Of a mother
who would lose a son
Who'd save his killer through his martyrdom.
THE NUN'S
TALE
In Chicago there lived a single
mother
Who had one child, a boy named Lionel.
She had just one, she
could not have another,
And so, perhaps, she loved him far too
well
For both their good, as shortly I will tell.
She made a meager
living caring for
The elderly, as poor as she was poor.
She
would not send her child to public school,
For the local one taught
little and cared less,
Ruled by gangs, ubiquitous and cruel,
Who
would for sure cause Lionel distress.
And so, with little, she had to
do with less,
And sent him to a Catholic school, though she
Was not
religious, nor wanted her child to be.
But little Lionel soon fell
in love
With the Virgin Mother, and prayed to her each day,
Looking
up towards Heaven, where above
His ceiling, cracked and peeling, angels
lay
Their heads upon her lap, or oft would play
Their harps and
sing, full of love and joy
That touched the heart of this unearthly
boy.
Often he would sing a childish song
That he was taught in
school, that went like this:
O Mary, Mary, Mother of God, whose
Son
Shall save all who believe in Him for bliss,
Come to us, and all
our sorrows kiss
Away, as once you did for God when He
Was still a
child and sat upon your knee.
He sang this song on his way to
school
In his little sing-song childish way,
And also swinging when
his mother Jewel
Would take him to the park to romp and play,
Until
the toughs who to that park did stray
Could stand no more of it, and
took offense
At words that spoke of love and innocence.
They
planned to silence him, but only when
His mother wasn't sitting right
nearby.
They had to listen to him until then,
Sick to death of words
that did not lie,
Though at the time, they could not tell you
why.
Their hearts were hard in preparation for
A life of vicious
crime and outright war.
One day Jewel was sick and could not
go
Downstairs when Lionel desired to play.
She felt bad for him, he
wanted so
To be outside, and so she thought that day
She'd take a
chance and let him have his way.
So down he went to his beloved
swing
Where as he swung it was his joy to sing:
O Mary, Mary,
Mother of God, whose Son
Shall save all who believe in Him for bliss
...
Yet now the toughs could see he was alone,
Which was a
chance they did not want to miss,
And so surrounded him, and spoke like
this:
"Shut up, you little bastard, or we'll kick
Your freaking ass!
Your singing makes us sick!"
But little Lionel, now scared to
death,
Never having had to face before
Such brutal talk, could
scarcely take a breath,
But whimpered in a way that somehow
bore
Resemblance to the song he sang no more.
"We warned you!" one
boy said, whose name was Chris,
And smashed him in the temple with his
fist.
As Lionel fell off the swing, the boys
All crowded round
him, making sure that none
Could see them kicking him, and made some
noise
Like cracking jokes, so none could hear him moan
Until they
stopped, and he lay like a stone.
"That'll teach you," Chris said as he
spat
On him, "to sing a stupid song like that!"
Little Lionel,
with sightless eyes,
Just stared up at them. Nor did his chest,
As
they watched it, either fall or rise.
Chris dared touch him, for the
final test,
Ear to heart, to put all doubt to rest.
"He's dead," he
said. "The little bastard's dead."
And then, in anger, kicked him in
the head.
Chris carried him in the middle of a crowd
So none
could see the nature of his load,
Urging them to joke and laugh out
loud,
Taking care that none of Lionel showed
Until they got the body
safely stowed
In a dumpster, where he threw him in, then leaped
In
himself to bury him down deep.
When Chris climbed out, they heard a
voice sing this:
O Mary, Mary, Mother of God, whose Son
Shall
save all who believe in Him for bliss ...
It was Lionel, it could
be none
Other than he who sang, the only one
Inside the dumpster,
from where the faint voice came,
And so Chris sighed and jumped back in
again.
Digging down through garbage, he got to where
Lionel was
buried, but the singing
Stopped, and all he saw beneath him
there
Was a dead body. There was no point in bringing
It back out of
the dumpster, or in swinging
Over the side himself, and so he
stayed,
Hoping he'd hear nothing, but afraid;
And then, clearly,
once again heard this:
O Mary, Mary, Mother of God, whose
Son
Shall save all who believe in Him for bliss ...
Coming from
the body, which alone
Could be the source of that uncanny song.
Amid
the garbage, Chris got on his knees
And prayed, "O God! Dear God!
Forgive me, please!"
And sweet forgiveness came to Chris's
heart,
But with a price that he would gladly pay,
A love from which
he could not bear to part,
That sang from little Lionel as he
lay
Amid the garbage. Again Chris knelt to pray,
To Whom he did not
know, but he knew this:
That somewhere beyond death lay life and
bliss.
Chris waited for Lionel to sing again in vain.
Instead of
miracles, there came a shout,
A voice possessed, calling Lionel's
name,
Desperately a woman crying out,
Lionel's mother, Chris had
little doubt.
"Here!" Chris called. "He's here! Here in this
bin!"
And Chris stood up, garbage all over him.
Jewel turned to
see a motley specter rise
Up from the dumpster, dripping bags and
slime,
Motioning down as if to some lost prize,
A monster making do
with pantomime
As though in horror at some ghastly crime.
And then
she knew, and screamed a scream that tore
The sky in two, till she
could scream no more.
Years later, she finally visited Chris in
jail
Where he was serving life without parole.
He was strong and
healthy, she was frail;
His life was full of meaning, rich and
whole,
While she was still in mourning, sick of soul.
"I cannot give
him back to you," he said.
"But he's in Heaven. Don't think of him as
dead."
"There is no Heaven!" she almost growled in pain.
"Only
life here. And after that, just nothing.
You took from me all that I
had. Refrain
From pep talk, please, or fairy tales, the puffing
Up
of truth to salve your conscience. The thing
That is true is that you
killed him! That fact
Is all there is. No talk can take that
back!"
"I wish you could have heard his body sing!"
Chris said.
"It was a miracle, no doubt
Of that. One that would my lost soul
bring
To Christ and love and goodness. Hear me out!
My call for your
forgiveness was not about
My need but yours. It came to me in
prayer
That in your suffering, I should be there.
"It is a cruel
irony, I know,
That murdering your son was my salvation.
Can I thank
God for it? The fatal blow
Gave life to me, a pure abomination
That
brought about the grace of revelation.
I would share this with you,
that you might hear
Your dead son sing to me of Mary dear."
"You
brought me here to preach to me?" Jewel cried.
"To save my soul? Wasn't
killing him enough?
I have to see you smug and satisfied,
Full of
this pretense that lets you slough
Off guilt so easily? I'd like to
stuff
You full of just one breath of what I feel,
So you might know
one second that is real!"
Chris wept at this, and suddenly Jewel
saw
The truth behind the miracle of grace,
Something passionate and
ever raw
That lived untenanted by time and place.
"Please, please
don't cry," she said, and wiped her face.
"Of course I forgive you."
And then they wept together
For Lionel, for themselves, and for each
other.
Then Jewel went home, filled with grief and love,
Renewed
by the sweet moment of her tears,
While Chris, chastened, prayed to God
above,
Tormented by the salience of his fears.
"Was it real?" he
asked. It had been years
Since the miracle that had saved his
soul
And made his life harmonious and whole.
No answer. So to
Mary then he prayed:
"Dear Mother of God, did I really hear that
song?
Or was the death of that boy just delayed,
And I have been
deluded all along?"
No answer whether he was right or wrong,
As
though a door had been slammed shut above,
And he was left with nothing
but his love.
He got up off his knees within his cell
And looked
around him, where he'd spend his life,
Fit punishment for killing
Lionel:
No home, no kids, no wandering, no wife;
No safety but his
prowess with a knife;
No Heaven, faith, work, worship, guidance,
goal;
Just love within the precincts of his soul.
If that's the
case, he thought, I answer this:
O Mary, Mary, Mother of God, whose
Son
Shall save all who believe in Him for bliss ...
Embracing
what I have and what I've done,
Forever free, forever not alone!
He
knelt again to pray. We leave him there
In joy and silence, wholly rapt
in
prayer.
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