Another Garden

Conference On the Renewal of the Religious Life.

Liberation Theologics

At the table earlier in the evening he had allowed himself to indulge in the warmth of her smile. Across the table, on the diagonal. In the midst of a lively conversation. The smile. Such a breath taking sensual contact. Surely at the edge of his vow of chastity but so warm and endearing.

After supper he had gone to a charismatic session in the large chapel. A very moving experience. An "experimental project" as the church authorities saw it. It was an attempt to acknowledge the validity of the emotional, the passional, and the intuitive side of the experience of faith and religion. To give it voice and respect in a public and a liturgical context. So much of his experience of religion had come to involve a type of spiritual rationalism coupled with emotional repression.

Perhaps the males who dominated church leadership were simply afraid to express their religious emotions. As a result the institutional side of religion had become more and more heartless. God had become more and more heartless. Little wonder Mary played such an important role in popularity devotions. The suffering mother would understand pain, would be compassionate, would plead for mercy on our behalf in the face of the wrath of God the Father.

In chapel, for the first time, the contemplatives spoke in their own voice. Voice was accepted as sacred. Voice for something more than the canonical and the liturgical formulae. Voice to the spirit within.

"Jesus suffers in the ghettoes. Jesus suffers in Vietnam."

He realized when he "opened himself to the Spirit," as it was called, that he had experienced this type of openness since he was ten. It began when he first served mass for Father Reid. Father Reid was about the oldest person the little altar boy knew. Mass was early in the morning, before school, and Marcel would help with the liturgy, the ritual of the Mass. He liked to assist Father Reid because of the passionate quiet that he generated. To young Marcel, this was holiness. And he was sensitive to its energy. The actions of faith were concrete. They were no longer assertions of fact to which one gave assent. Father Reid's piety, holiness, and faith appeared as an oasis early in the morning in the solitude of the dim church. And Marcel knew, at a passionate and intuitive level that some thirst in his soul was being satisfied. Of course at the time he could not articulate any of this. Now, in the charismatic session, it was to this first experience, to his first experience, of passionate, emotional, and intuitive faith that his imagination opened. He began to chant softly, deeply, as Father Reid had done, "Kyrie eleison."

"Lord have mercy."

He had chanted many times in chorus with the other monks in his monastery, but this was the first time it was in the form of a completely personal prayer. "Kyrie eleison." An ancient musical form, a more ancient language, and a prayer going back to our earliest experience of consciousness and self consciousness.

"Kyrie eleison." "Lord have mercy."

"Do not forsake us, have mercy on all of us."

He let the tears flow. Healing. There was no pain in the silver crucifix above the altar it was in the streets of inner cityies, in the jungles of Vietnam. That's where the crucifixion was taking place.

The experience "moved" him to go into the quiet of the garden, the solitude of the night, the cathedral of God's own Earth and Sky. He got up and left the chapel.

He was full of passionate, cathartic, warmth as he walked the garden. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the moist evening air.

He saw Sister Teresa come out of the nuns' residence and cross over to the sister's chapel, the small private one. It was there, this evening, that the Eucharist, the consecrated bread of the Mass, ". . . and giving thanks, Jesus took the break and broke it and gave it to his disciples saying take and eat . . . ," was being venerated as as an act of common liturgy between the Catholics and the Episcopalians.

He followed her in, but with the type of absolute discretion one uses when one successfully hides things even from one's self. He wasn't admitting it, he couldn't possibly admit it. The type of sin we commit when we don't even admit to ourselves what we are doing.

Something psychopathological.

He hesitated just long enough to have it count as coincidence, then he entered the chapel. It was dim. He let his eyes explore the interior but without appearing to look for anyone. He first looked towards the pews. She wasn't there. He felt the absence. He had missed her. As he turned towards the alter he lost his breath. She was in front of the altar, on her knees, but also bent over in a position of prostration with her forehead to the floor. As I said, it took his breath away, or she took his breath away, or his own imagination left him breathless.

Even before the sacred communion bread, the body of Jesus himself, Brother Marcel experienced this primordial encounter with human sexuality.

And God said, "It is not good for a man to be alone."

He bowed his own head in a reaction of modesty and mortification. His chest felt so full. Something very special, given to him.

His first awareness of his sexual response to her had been when he had caught himself watching her returning from communion that morning. The large silver cross that she wore as part of her religious habit only served to accentuate her breasts. He had caught himself, shook his head, and cast his eyes down to shift his awareness and focus then placed his fingers under his knees as he knelt.

While prostrate before the Eucharist, Sister Teresa presumed it was Marcel whom she had heard come into the sister's chapel behind her. She had prayed like this many times before. Wondering. Doubting. Whether or not there was any real presence, any real encounter. Often she had other sisters come and go as she prayed late at night, prostrate before her doubts. This time Though, something had changed. When she heard his entrance, the large sound of his feet, the swish of the heavy cloth of his black robe, the groan and creak of the wood under his weight as he knelt, sounds never heard when it was one of her sisters who had entered after her, she became self conscious about her posture. A posture that was a sign of devotion and penitence in an all female context took on a new energy in the presence of this man, even if he was a celibate monk, even if she was a nun under vows, even if this was a chapel.

She had to get up, and out of there. It was so awkward. Vulnerable. She thought to herself, she rationalized to herself, "I have to get back to my room and study." There was an exam at the college the next morning. She got up and left the chapel. Teresa tried to fill her imagination with the exam.

Once outside, in the fresh night air, breathing the perfumes of the garden, her determined pace turned into something like floating. Slow, calm, infinite. She paused and stood in the shelter of the alcove at the entrance to the sister's residence. Looking up at the sky, breathing the fresh air.

Marcel followed after her, again after a discreet moment. He knew he would probably miss her but he had to discipline himself. He was under a vow of chastity. It would have been too obvious if he had followed her out. He was heading towards the chaplain's residence at the far end of the property. The chaplain and his family were away on vacation and they had allowed for the male participants to use it as a dorm.

He had hardly taken five paces when she stepped from out of the sheltered doorway that lead to her residence and approached him. She hailed him warmly with her broad smile. And then spoke, "Would you mind if I talked to you?"

She whispered it softly, among the shadows of the night. Reluctant to disturb his recollection. The silence of prayerful meditation. It was a convent garden. During a still summer night. After midnight. Quiet. No one around but the two of them. Sister and Brother. In religion.

Sister Teresa and Brother Marcel. She an Episcopalian, and he a Roman Catholic. She from the Caribbean, he from Canada. Now here, in New England, they encounter each other. Both of them aliens. Refugees and immigrants. Alien and alienated. Never to be part of the community of the United Statesers. Now a moment of personal contact. For all their differences, so much the same. The troubles in Cuba. The troubles in Québec. Outsiders in the United States. Outsiders in their communities. Even alienated from themselves.

And here in the garden this beautiful sweet night their destinies intersect.

He was taken aback by the humility of her request. Actually he was overwhelmed.

"Would I mind ?!" He whispered it but with a dramatic intensity.

"Of course I wouldn't mind. How could you ask such a question?" She had been so quiet, so reserved, but at the same time her face, her body, so articulate, so tuned in. And now and then her warm and gentle smile. "I'd love to talk with you. I'd like it very much."

She was so nervous, and so bold ... at the same time. Watching him, and listening to what he had been saying for the past two days, she had become quite struck by his power. Power in his tall broad stature. Power in his voice, strong, clear, and steady. Power in his mind. When he spoke he climbed up over huge piles of words and complex phrasing, laying out demanding logical strings in philosophy, in metaphysics, and in theology. When she was sitting with the other sisters she could tell that they couldn't follow him. She could see that his questions sometimes stumped everybody. He opened up huge new areas of thought. She knew some of the people at the conference were threatened by him. Threatened by the ease with which he approached the very edge of heresy, and jumped into the void with such simple, obvious, insight.

To her it was so clear. Not all the words of course, but the liberty, the simplicity, the authenticity. She already knew quite clearly she herself was a heretic. Her copy of The Book of Common Prayer was full of challenging annotations. One even about the very veneration of the host she had just been participating in.

Both of them were solitary characters. She abandoned in exile by a future that never came into being. Fidel did not disappear. She did not return to Cuba.

He had left his native Quebec to follow God's call and little expected to return home. It was part of his Rule to consider himself dead to his home and family.

They had both come to the United States five years earlier. Teresa, not her given name, had landed in Miami a refugee from the communism of Cuba, Marcel, also his religious name, had crossed the border from Canada at Niagara Falls.

This weekend Marcel was there as a guest at Saint Ann's, her monastery. Here for a conference. An ecumenical conference. Anglicans from England, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics had gathered together to develop dialogue and unity.

He was a Catholic seminarian, as well as a member of a religious order, studying to become a priest. She was a nun, an Episcopalian. It was Teresa who told Marcel that this is what the Anglicans were called in the USA.

Sister Teresa wasn't a participant at the conference as he was. But as a member of the convent she was allowed to attend any of the sessions she wished. Provided it was in her spare time. On this beautiful evening she was actually supposed to be studying for a summer school final. An exam in abnormal psychology.

Sister Teresa had come from Cuba because her parents had been afraid for her. Their son had already gone into the hills with Fidel. And her father had seen her with clandestine pamphlets out around the town square a few times just before the revolution had triumphed.

When the communists came to power her family was worried that her intellect, her idealism, and her personal power would make her a prime candidate for studies in Russia.

Her own grandmother had fought in Cuba's revolutionary war of independence from Spain. This was part of the Spanish-American War. The United States Navel base has the same name as her town, Guantanamo, at the eastern end of the island.

Brother Marcel had read a book in 1959 called The Life of a Private. It was the journal of a young American who fought with Teddy Roosevelt in the same war for the independence of Cuba as Sister Teresa's grandmother. The story touched him deeply. It taught him something of the nature of war from the perspective of the soldiers. It taught him something about the criminal capitalists.

The early days during the Castro revolution were terrifying. It was that anarchistic period between two forms of government. Between to lines of loyalty. No one was sure who was in power, what rules applied. Her sister used to sneak out at night to find news of who had been executed. As Camus once said, as an explanation as to why he wasn't a revolutionary, "After the revolution, comes the guillotine." And there was always the gossip about who had fled by sea. Many, only to drown. Her own sister's fiance had been reported as drowned at sea. The trip between Cuba and Florida, often on makeshift rafts or boats that were less than sea worthy.

Brother Marcel also experienced a revolutionary change in his home of Québec, a province in Canada. It was called "la révolution tranquille", the quiet revolution. Quiet because it was not looking for a violent overthrow of the government, but for a radical transformation of consciousness and attitudes. Some of Marcel's own ancestors had experienced the cultural imperialism of the British In Ireland, in the highlands of Scotland, and closer to home in Prince Edward Island, one of the maritime provinces of Canada. This little island, made famous by Anne of Green Gables, used to be called Ile St. Jean while under French rule. When it was conquered by the British, it was renamed Prince Edward Island and the french language of his franco-canadian ancestors was proscribed or forbidden.

The Franco-canadians in Québec had escaped the worst of this type of oppression but still they were often treated as second class citizens even in their own province. Something like the Spanish-Americans in the southwest of the United States.

But the most revolutionary act Marcel had ever committed was to have read a book by a Québec separatist. Quite a radical act for a sixteen year old english speaking person in Québec at the time. Why I Am a Separatist was written in 1961, chronicling the statistics and facts of the oppression of the Franco-canadians, and stating their aspirations for the future, their future as an independent republic, like France, like the USA. Even though his family did not speak french, he identified himself as a French Canadian. Though his mother used to add, "and half Scots.!" And then his dad's mother, Vangie McCormick, would insist, "and a quart of Irish!"

Teresa's own childhood religion had two principle roots, Santeria and Episcopalian. Santeria was a syncretic combination of passionate Spanish Catholicism and traditional African shamanism and animism. She was not a typical Christian. Her faith system was full of ambiguities and shadows.

Marcel had been aware of her since his first meal at her convent. This young sister had a physical sensual presence animated by her Cuban soul and encouraged by the power of a spirituality that was more present in the drums of a tropical night, that in the tabernacle on the altar.

So petite. Such a bright smile. So receptive. Her smile gave him such a sense of acceptance among so many strangers. Among so many of the old school. The religion of neurotic self denial and self negation. They were both the new generation. A religion spoken of by the compassionate Rabbi Jesus.

Marcel had watched her that same evening. He was in the chapel alone, quite late. He had attended a conference earlier. It had been quite draining. Before this conference his life had been a life of quiet study, prayer, and meditation, so he had come to chapel meditate. To regain his solitude and recollection. His prayer life, as it was called, had become quite simple. He would kneel, let the noise in his mind subside, and let the mystery come more fully into his consciousness. He called it "moving to the precipice of thought." Where words ended and contemplation carried on, out past thought but with ever deepening awareness and realization. It had been the same mystery for a while now. He had first floated out there some months back. The being of God. The Being of being. Who and what. Who and what as one. Before time, outside of space, the origin of being. Quickly his mind moved to the edge and sailed out, beyond words, ideas or concepts. Yet full of understanding, and peace.

Sister Teresa entered the chapel from behind the altar. She had come to set things up for the next mornings services. She didn't quite believe in any of this liturgical religion. But at the same time she didn't want to fool around with the magic and powers that were present. When she was young, back in Cuba, just on the verge of puberty her mother had taken her to see the bruja. They went together past the edge of town, to a area where the under class lived. Teresa's mom was carting fresh flowers as an offering for the bruja. They stopped in front of this shack, chickens in the yard, dirt floor, thatched roof, her mother seemed to hesitate, then she took a deep breath, took Teresa's hand tightly in hers, and went into the darkness. No sooner than they were inside Teresa began to throw a tantrum, she didn't want to have anything to do with this old lady. She was an ancient black woman. A big cigar in her mouth, smelling of tobacco and rhum. Her eyes, red and glazed. Teresa had been brought to her because her mother was finding her too stubborn, in a foolish and dangerous way.

The priestess grabbed her by the arms as she ordered her mother to leave the shack. Teresa twisted in the old woman's grip to watch her mother drop the flowers and duck out the door. She thought she saw fear in her mother's eyes. Fear began to replace her own stubbornness. When she turned her head back to the front, the bruja brought her own face right close to Teresa's. The eyes burned her. Then letting go of one of the child's arms the woman tuned her head and took a big puff on her cigar and then blew the smoke, slowly and deliberately, into Teresa's face. Teresa was frozen. She could hardly breathe. She wanted to stop breathing so she wouldn't have to inhale that smoke. The woman went to her saints, chanted something in a way that was strange and foreboding to Teresa. Then she turned to Teresa and commanded her to pick up the flowers her mother had dropped. She jumped in terror. She did exactly what the woman said. She directed her to place some of the flowers in front of each of the saints that she would point to. Teresa's eyes and then her consciousness began to take in all of the strangeness of this ancient altar to the African gods and goddesses. It fully filled half of the house.

Marcel was distracted by her movement. A woman moving about the altar. There was something primordial about it. He tuned into her style, her rhythm, her devotion, her reverence. It was the first time he had seen a woman preparing the altar for the Eucharist. In a grey habit. Quiet. Modest. A priestess. It was the flowers that captured his imagination. He had seen altars decorated for the liturgy all of his life but this was the first time he had seen someone arrange things asymmetrically. As trivial as it may seem, this simple shift changed the action he was witnessing from something rational and mechanical to something intuitive and organic. It was art, it was liturgy, it was sacred. The priestess was carrying out a personal liturgy.

His consciousness shifted to memories of the dinner table earlier that evening. The conversation as it flowed around and about the topics of the day's conferences. One intervention in particular had struck some of the monks and nuns. Yes! monks and nuns sitting at the same table. It was the statement by a man who identified himself as a psychiatrist and an atheist. He admitted to them that he thought religion an illusion, but an effective illusion, never the less. Especially for children. He spoke passionately in favour of religious separate schools. And what really caught people's attention was when he said that though he was an atheist he still wanted religious schools available for his children in order to be assured that they would receive a thorough formation in values.

One of the themes of the conference was the renewal of the religious life, life in religion, the life of monks, of nuns, of priest, of sisters and of brothers, life in community and under vows. And this type of confirmation of their project, especially coming from an atheist, meant a lot to them.

Except to Marcel and Teresa. Marcel found it to be blatant hypocrisy, and said as much. He knew, as well, from his own studies that there was no evidence that the children that attended the Catholic separate schools grew up to be more moral or more religious than those who attended the public schools.

Teresa was studying psychology, and the double standard this man was promoting, well, she thought it would only lead to problems as the children became young adults. The fairy tale of Santa Claus, she found odd enough, but now to add to it religion, precisely as a fairy tale, which would also need to be discovered as fable and fiction. Something so important, intended only for control. This was too much for the independent spirit she had brought with her from Cuba.

This was too much as well for the spirit of modernism Marcel had brought with him from Québec.

During the flow of that conversation they soon realized they were on the same wave length and they began playing with their wit, wisdom, and boldness around the minds of the others. Their opinions and their powers coalesced. They didn't even know each others names yet but they had mounted a conspiracy against the others. Each of them had a different type of power, and when combined they were quite overwhelming. Most of the others were quite uncomfortable with their critique of the atheist. The atheist's defence of religious education had been a very reinforcing experience for them. The thought of an atheist on their side was encouraging. But for both Marcel and Teresa, it presented a serious threat.

It was Teresa who noticed that the people at the table were beginning to feel anxious. The questions Teresa and Marcel were bringing up were too challenging. Their liberty was too scary. With a smile at just the right moment, Teresa passed him the message that It was time to lighten up. Time to let it drop. These others weren't as deep as they were. Nor as courageous.

Now in the garden together and away from the others their conversation flowed as if they had years of things to say.

Marcel was so talkative and articulate. Teresa so receptive and probing. Both of them in a struggle to find their way in their separate monasteries. Each with their own ideas about the nature and future of religion.

He explained how his presence there was a last minute thing. The monk who had been scheduled to participate was unable to attend. His father had had a stroke and he was given permission to go to his father's bedside. When Father Xavier first asked Marcel if he would like to attend the conference, Marcel had said no. He had been assigned to work in a Catholic day camp and was enjoying the work. It was in a high density working class community in Boston. Teresa knew the area. He was working with two other people, Louise and Gail, who were the actual organizers. Louise was a social worker, waiting to find work and Gail was a doctoral candidate in religious studies. Gail's thesis concerned the elements of Judaism in the Roman Catholic Liturgy. From one he was learning about the impact of urban poverty on families, especially their children. From the other, a sense of Jesus as rabbi, and of the continuity between Judaism and Christianity once you took away the elements of Roman origin. It was like an internship in pastoral work. Pastoral work in a changing church.

He was called in again by Father Xavier. This time he was told he was going to the conference under orders of Holy Obedience.

Well, the children loved him and he loved the children. Deep in his heart he was home again with the sisters and brothers he had left behind. He was from a very large family and missed them deeply. Missed the life of family.

"Dead to the world and even to my family." That was part of a prayer on the wall outside the refectory. He read it every morning as he waited the signal to break fast.

So here he was in the garden talking to Sister Teresa, under orders of Holy Obedience

Sister Teresa was not actually attending the conference. "I'm supposed to be studying for an exam." She said this with a guilty joy. We all have experienced it when life gives us something so momentous and pressing that exams become secondary. Or so we rationalize.

Marcel felt a twinge of guilt. Here he was keeping her from study. "We should go then." He made a move to get up from the bench they were sitting on.

"Do you want to?" Teresa asked.

"Do I want to leave? No I want to stay here talking forever."

"Forever?" Teresa said this with her broad receptive smile.

He asked, "An exam in what?"

"It's a philosophy course."

Philosophy, he was studying philosophy. He had just completed his own summer course in Phenomenology.

"What area of philosophy are you studying?"

"Ethics." she answered.

"Did you cover any situational ethics?"

"Yes, the Jesuit that is teaching us, that's mostly all he wants to deal with. He says all the other theories are too rational. And I agree with him. The other theories sound like you need a degree in logic to be a good person. They are so heartless. I once heard some one say the only genuine ethics is to live love ... to act in each situation in a way that generates the most love."

They both became a little shy with each other. It must be have been well past midnight. It was a beautiful summer night. Deeply romantic.

"... live love."

"... generate the most love."

Each finally admitted to themselves that it was really time to leave.

Marcel walked her back to the residence.

"I'm sorry you won't get much sleep because of me."

"Oh I wont sleep at all, I'll just study till it's time to go to the college. And it's not because of you. I stayed up because I chose to. I am not a victim in my life I am an agent."

"So You believe in existentialism. Me too. And it's making my superiors quite nervous . . . But that is another conversation and you have to study. Good night, and good luck."

"Thank you. And Good night."

Teresa was taking courses at the local college, working towards her degree in psychology. At the convent school, a residence high school for girls run by her order of nuns. She was teaching Spanish and working with the registrar at present but she hoped to become qualified as a guidance counsellor. To help the students of the school.

Teresa herself has had a rough time since she went into exile. It was supposed to last only a year or two. That was when she was sixteen. Now she was twenty-one and the separation had turned into an eternity. When she turned twenty she had given up hope of ever returning to her country or to her family. She had become so lost and so alienated.

Her family wrote her and told her how fortunate she was to be living in freedom but they didn't understand, could not understand what it meant to be in exile, away from family, friends, language, culture, away from life itself in any way that made sense to her. The first foster home had been so humiliating. She was treated as if she was a live in maid. She was expected to keep to her room when the family did any entertaining. And since she knew so little english the family spoke to her and behaved towards her as if she was a very slow child.

"I am living in a prison." she cried to herself, as she heard the noise and laughter from the other end of the house. But when she tried to explain this to her family in letters they scolded her for being so ungrateful.

She had escaped that prison by coming to this boarding school as a student. That was when she was sixteen. By the time she was twenty she believed herself too old for marriage and besides, she believed no American boy would marry her anyway. So she had decided to commit herself to life in this community of sisters. Especially since there were three others, former classmates together, who were entering the convent as novices. Many of the girls at the school had personal troubles every bit as serious as the ones she had experiences. She knew she had survived and she felt she could now help them.

In a sense Teresa didn't have a vocation, as it was called, at least not like Marcel. He had felt inspired and called to live a life devoted to God and to His service since he was very young. Maybe as young as ten. He felt called to be a priest. Called to live a life of holiness, and to be a minister of peace. As he felt he was doing when he was working with the children. This intellectual work seemed a distraction at times.

Back in her room Teresa undressed. She was going to put on her pyjamas and get down to study but decided to take a shower. It would wake her up. She put her habit back on and walked down the hall to the shower room. She ran the water very hot. The room soon filled up with steam, giving it a dreamy quality. She was so full of all the ideas that had flowed in her conversation with Marcel. She wasn't alone in her independent views. He too accepted situational ethics. He too saw no contradiction between faith and existential philosophy. She felt quite awake now.

"... create the most love." was the phrase he had used. And he had said it in a way that was full of the passion of love. Not like when old Father Gottshalk talked of the love of God and made it sound like some rationalist ethical syllogism.

Teresa began to feel quite naked. Quite visible. She hadn't felt this way in a long time. Maybe not since she left Cuba. It seemed to her that the American boys didn't find her pretty. They hadn't responded to her like the young men from her home town. There, the young men had been quite vocal, even dramatic in expressing their attraction to her. After these years in Boston she had come to believe that she was no longer appealing to men. That was one of the reasons she thought of becoming a nun in the first place.

But this Canadian, this huge Canadian. She dropped the soap on her foot. It hit with a sharp pain. "What am I doing thinking like this," she thought to herself, and turned the shower colder.

Back in her cell she stared at the text open on her desk. Reading the title of the chapter, "Situation Ethics." There was a tumbling confusion in her heart, in her mind. "Situation ethics." Her consciousness of the 'situation' began to expand.

At that moment there was a very quiet knock on her door. It was her friend Sister Cynthia. Sister Cynthia was was from New England. She was as nordic as Teresa was latina. Cindy was smiling. Broadly. With a sense of gossipy conspiracy. . With a gleam, a twinkle, a sparkle. Teresa was taken aback. Of course she didn't realize that Cindy was only mirroring what was in Teresa's own deep dark latin eyes. "So..." she said, waiting. When Teresa seemed surprised she added, "... tell me about him."

Teresa was puzzled for a moment, she hadn't quite admitted anything to herself yet. The 'situation' was only just beginning to come into the rational and reflective dimension of her consciousness. Then Teresa remembered the feeling in the shower. She was a nun, there was no "him." There could be no "him." Finally she said, "Who?" knowing how lame it was. Cindy just smiled. She too became more conscious of the contradiction. Both of them were still in their first year under vows. They had been together in the convent high school and now they were in the same convent as nuns.

Cynthia said, "The Catholic priest you were talking to in the garden."

"He's not a priest, he's a monk, but he is studying to be a priest. He's a French Canadian from Canada, but his monastery is in New York."

"What's he like to talk to? Is he really so deep?" Sister Cynthia had been to one of the conferences. It was the one on ecumenism. At one point the audience had reacted with shock to a question he had asked. She couldn't make sense of his words so she didn't know what the mumbling had been about. Sister Teresa had been with her and seem to understand what he had said, but Cindy wasn't sure.

"He's really very simple, he just sounds complicated when he has to use philosophy and theology to explain things. He says everyone is frightened by what he says because they are stuck in the big words.

You know, he wasn't even supposed to be at this conference. One of the other monks in his monastery had been assigned, but his father had a heart attack. Even when Marcel ... "

"Marcel?"

"Yes that's his name or that's his religious name. Well, when he was asked to take the other guy's place, he said no. So then his director put him under "holy obedience," as he called it. That meant he had to come or he would break his vow of obedience. He had been working with children in a day camp in the projects and didn't want to leave them to attend a stuffy conference."

"Where's he from?"

"Canada."

"Yeah but where in Canada?"

"I think he said Montreal."

"That's where the world's fair is going to be. Isn't he lucky."

"Don't be silly Cindy, he's a monk, he can only visit his family if someone is very sick or has died."

"How medieval!"

Teresa was still aware of the exam coming up in the morning. In fact it would be in five hours. She had to get some studying done. "Listen Cindy I really have to get some studying done for my exam, we can talk tomorrow."

"You mean today. Ok, we'll talk later. Relax you'll do well. And besides those Jesuits never grade nuns hard."

"I hope so. Good night."

Finally back to her book. Teresa's mind drifted a bit. Not really drifting as if she was not dealing with the course, more like expanding. After her conversation with Marcel, she began to see situation ethics from a broader perspective. In talking with Marcel she became more aware of the human, individual, and concrete approach of the situationists. Marcel had said, "A prostitute might respond with human compassion and gentleness to the human being she is with, and even that would be genuine Christ-like love."

As she skimmed the text for the key concepts she felt her confidence building. She began to look forward to the questions she would be asked. She felt bolder. Ready to give her own responses to the questions. Less willing to give back only what she recalled from her notes.

When Marcel returned to his billet he found a half a dozen of the priests and monks talking in the living room. He was surprised they were still up. Outside on the street out here in this Boston suburb at two in the morning things had been quite dead.

"So how is Sister Teresa?" It was one of the Anglican Benedictines who spoke. Marcel's face must have flushed. Brother Cornelius asked the question just like one of the guys back in high school. The type of thing the boys said if they had seen one of their group talking in the park with a new girl.

"Just fine, Corney." Addressing him with a childish mocking nickname. Everyone laughed at the repartee between these two young monks. One a Catholic, one an Anglican, one dressed in a white robe, the other in black. Everyone knew what it was really about.

Marcel had met Cornelius in the refectory at lunch time, he was sitting next to Sister Teresa and they were chatting together when he had first come to the table. Deep in his secret heart he envied Cornelius.

Marcel was genuinely surprised. He had no sense of anyone observing him, observing "them." Of being a "them" to be observed. He accepted the teasing easily, because he felt no guilt. And also because the group were quite receptive. Ribbing, but not hitting, not jealous or looking to find fault. They all seemed to be enjoying, in a vicarious way, this romantic encounter. Several among them had seen Marcel and Teresa together on the bench in the garden.

Saw them lost in conversation, so animated, so full of smiles and laughter. I don't know if anyone really admitted to themselves that what they were observing was love at first sight. An awkward thing to acknowledge among a group all committed to a vow of chastity. But at the same time it was clear to all of them that there was genuine love. The same love that all hoped to bear witness to in their own lives. These two, this couple, the glow of love on their naive faces. What a transcendent liberation had taken place.

Saturday morning.

The conference had come to a close with the celebration of the last liturgy the Anglicans and the Catholics would have together, maybe for a long time. The monks and nuns were moving about on the grounds, saying their good bye's and getting their stuff together to return to their monasteries and convents.

Marcel saw Teresa saying goodbye to Cornelius. He was so envious. Her smile was so warm, so beautiful, so receptive. He wanted her to like him. He didn't have enough sense to see the nose on his own face. He stayed in the distance. He had some time yet before his ride would take him back.

Teresa watched him carefully. Careful not to be visible. Maybe not even to herself. This huge Canadian. Such power, such gentleness. So intelligent, so simple. Cornelius left. Teresa lingered in the garden. Looking absent minded. Marcel went to her. All smiles.

"How did your exam go?"

"OK."

"Sorry I kept you up so late."

"Oh, that wasn't your fault. I wanted very much to talk. Besides I am sure I will pass, I don't think the Jesuits ever fail nuns."

They knew it had come to an end. Neither had any desire to chatter. The were still satisfied from the night before. Maybe even embarrassed.

Marcel did something strange. He put his closed fist up against her cheek and gave her the most delicate right jab.

Teresa had never been touched like that. Maybe something from way up there in the north. It was so huge, there against her face. So much force, so softly.

Marcel felt embarrassed. What a dumb thing to do, to a girl, to a nun.

There was something from childhood in it. A little boy not knowing how to relate to the little girl that had captured his heart.

"Father Edward is waiting back at the Priest's house. I'm going to drive back with him."

Teresa just kept looking into his face, into his eyes. How much he spoke with his deep eyes.

He knew she understood, when maybe no one else did. She turned with him as he headed out of the garden towards the street.

They paused again just outside the gate. Teresa had reached the limit of her territory.

They were about to part, never to see each other again for the rest of their lives, when Marcel spoke. Offhand like, as if the content of what he said had no more significance than nice day isn't it.

"Maybe we should start an international, interdenominational ecumenical, heterosexual, community of our own."

Then, shy, smiling, warm, satisfied, they parted. He, up the street, she, returning to the convent, both floating.

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