St. Bob

     “What is it, Brother Thomas?” The old priest groaned from behind an ancient, cluttered desk. Through the dusty sunlight of his chamber’s singular window, a head that looked like a mottled pink bowling ball dressed in an auburn grass skirt poked out from behind the oaken door. 

     “Pardon the interruption, Monsignor. An emissary from Rome is here to see you.” The young monk sequestered a grin to preserve sanctity. “It’s about Brother Bob.”

     “Christ’s Holy Scooter.” The Monsignor crossed himself prophylactically. “That damn business plan,” he grumbled.

     An officious-looking man in a slender black suit and priest’s collar pushed past Brother Thomas and sat, without invitation, on the spine-straightening chair opposite the Monsignor.

     “I’m Father Clement with the Vatican’s Office of Faith and Doctrine. I’m investigating the Cause for the Beatification and Canonization of Brother Robert O’Hara.” He handed a wax-sealed envelope to the Monsignor, who opened it and began to review the pages within. “I’m here to document the virtuous life of Brother Robert.” The emissary set a fountain pen to the page of a leather-bound journal in anticipation. 

     “God rest him,” the bowling ball giggled.

     The Monsignor glowered which sent the bowling ball in retreat. He flipped through the pages, grimaced, then stuffed them back into the envelope. “It says one of his miracles was turning water into spirits.”

     “Like the Lord’s miracles at Cana in Galilee,” said Father Clement breathlessly. “We don’t get many of these. So exciting!”

     The Monsignor’s eyebrows approached the remnants of his hairline. “And that bit about Bob divining the location of bubbling water in the wilderness?”

     “The Lord’s work springing forth from Brother Robert’s footsteps to quench the thirsty.” Father Clement said earnestly. “Did these miracles not occur?”  

      “That’s a matter of interpretation,” the Monsignor sighed and leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. “Are you familiar with the Bible?” 

     Father Clement shrugged quizzically and pointed to his priest’s collar.

     “Right. Acts 2:15? Peter explaining the odd behavior of the locals to his followers?” 

     “These people are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.” Father Clement rattled off as he sat expectantly, fountain pen poised.

     “Yes, that’s the one,” the Monsignor said while clasping his hands behind his head.  After a moment of reflection, the old clergyman continued: “I’m often troubled by some of these odd verses. This one is beautifully simple, but a headscratcher. People drunk in public before the streetlamps have been snuffed out? After a mad night out, a few sinners may be wandering about with the remainder of drink evaporating from their heads, but surely they wouldn’t be on the approach to a hill’s worth of intoxication – just merely stumbling down the backside of one.”  

     “All due respect, that’s not what’s going on in Acts Chapter 2,” Father Clement replied. “Peter goes on to say:

‘People of Judea, come to me and listen. 

Don’t let the drunken stumbling about fool you. 

In the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. 

Your sons and daughters will prophesy, 

your young men will see visions, 

your old men will dream dreams.’”  

     “Indeed.” The Monsignor nodded. “And Peter goes on for a bit. Things get very dark. Blood and fire and billows of smoke.” 

     “The sun will turn to darkness and the moon blood red,” Father Clement intoned. “The End Times.”

     “Yes. The End Times.” The Monsignor paused then continued. “But all this precedes the coming of the Lord, so not to worry. Just part of the plan, says Peter.” 

     “But what does Acts 2:15 have to do with Brother Robert’s candidacy for Sainthood?” said the younger priest.

     “It’s the logical fallacy built into it. If A is true, the truth of A means B must also be true.” He reflected a moment. “A few years back, I happened upon Brother Robert while out for my morning walk. He had wandered down from the forest, a map and his trusty compass in hand. I say to him, are you lost, Brother?  He says to me without skipping a beat, ‘non omnes qui errant pereunt’.”

     “Not all that wander are lost,” Father Clement translated.

     The bowling ball’s muffled bark of laughter came from behind the door.

     The Monsignor smiled indulgently and continued. “But Bob smells like the bottom of a whiskey barrel. So I say to him, ‘Tell me you’re not hitting the bottle this early’.” 

     “Bob says to me, ‘I am not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning’.“

     “Perplexed, I ask him, what that’s supposed to mean and he says, ‘It’s scripture, Father. Because it is only 9 in the morning, I can’t possibly be drunk. The Bible says so’.”

     “I tell him he’s taken this out of context. He says, ‘Criminy, Father. Then I must be drunk on the Lord’s Spirit. Jayzus! Is it the End Times already?! We should celebrate’.”

     “I doubt that very much, I say to him.”  

     “He smirks and says, ‘So . . . I’m not supposed to believe what I read in the Bible? Then he winks and continues past me on his staggering ramble. Acts 2:15, Father! he shouts over his shoulder’.”

     Father Clement squirmed and adjusted himself. “A Biblical scholar he was not, but the miracles, Monsignor.”

     The Monsignor looked past Father Clement to the smooth, mottled pink sphere poking around the edge of the cracked door. “You want to tell him, Brother Thomas?”

     “You mean about the illicit whiskey still?” the ball replied.  “The one Bob hides in the hills next to the artesian spring?” the ball chuckled. “The one which that drunkard can’t remember how to find?”

     Father Clement flipped through the documents in the envelope. “But these testimonials?” he said incredulously.

     “Isn’t it a requirement that a person be dead five years before becoming a Saint?” the Monsignor asked, eyes narrowed.

     “Yes.” The emissary withdrew a document. “This affidavit of death says he passed five years ago.”

     The Monsignor pointed to the document. “That’s Bob’s own signature at the bottom. You can’t believe everything you read, Father.” He pushed a different envelope across the cluttered desk. “Here’s Bob’s business plan for ‘Saint Bob’s Lost Distillery’.”   

     “Bob’s a true believer alright . . .” Brother Thomas laughed. “A believer of truth in advertising.”