Preachers Preach

Story? Famous preacher. Big city parish. Old Monsignor seated on throne of honor at the altar.Preacher enters by side door, erect, tall, clad in flowing black, biretta straight on, cape just so. He strides, not walks, to the foot of the altar, bows, not genuflects, turns towards the pulpit on high. And if imagination could dare say it was true, prances towards its flight of steps. He mounts them, as if in an ascension of his own. At the top, in the hushed silence generated in awe at such an ntrance, hspreads his arms out wide and straight, fingertips of each hand holding that magic cape out like ntwings, and silently counts his breaths all the way from one to twenty.

He begins, a modulated voice, strong, far reaching, pulsing with authority, quite softly, very slowly, inviting all to enter closer with his arms beckoning them to rise and sidle forward. Preacher speaks, “For my topic this evening, I have chosen the Gospel story of the man who fell through the roof. There are three magnificent moments in this story.” And he goes through the first two, noticing easily that his audience is enraptured, almost as much as he.

He resumes, “And now, dearly beloved in Christ, let us approach the third, the most daring, the most courageous, obviously, very obviously, the greatest story of all three….” He pauses, looks up at his right hand raised on high ready to descend like a lightning bolt, turns his face and eyes in a semicircular embrace of everyone in the church, and opens that mouth which always enchanteth all.

And silence oozes forth. Silence. Not a word. Not a single word. The arm flutters down. The face blanches grey. The cape droops in wrinkles. The entire body shudders. Tall preacher shrinks to normal size, humbles down the flight of stairs, shuffles to the altar’s foot, bows, then falls to his knees, hands clenched in puny prayer, as he tumbles forward, prone, the first time since his ordination to the priesthood some 25 years earlier.A few moments later, he struggles to his feet and turns to walk off to that side door, with a little kid’s glance at the Monsignor still seated in the chair of honor.

The Monsignor rises, holds out his arms for the welcome of humility, and says, while blessing the preachless one, “Father dear, had ye gone oop the way ye coom down, ye wooda coom down the way the way ye wint oop.”