The Bishop Tripped, Episode 8

©Randall A. Beeler, 2011

This installment of theComedy is part of an original novel I am writing, called The Bishop Tripped: the story of a man, who, disillusioned, seeks to escape his life, only to be mistaken for a bishop--all the way to the miter, crozier, and diocesan bureaucracy.

None of this writing is edited. It is written as it happens, with every post I blog. No premeditation, other than a story trajectory in my imagination and the characters who will take it and run with it.

To start at the beginning of the story, either scroll down to, or click on, Episode 1.

So, live and as it happens, here is the next installment of The Bishop Tripped …

"Your Excellency, you do realize that the Papal Nuncio will be in attendance at your installation Mass." The Diocesan Vicar's eyebrows were raised. "You have to at least concelebrate. And I still don't see the wisdom in having me preside."

"Let the Papal Nuncio concelebrate. I will kneel at the Altar rail as an unworthy servant should," said Michael, waving his hand in the air, weary of the discussion.

"But Archbishop, I-- I-- it's not my place to celebrate this Mass. Let the Nuncio preside."

"No, Mat--I mean, Monsignor Morelli. I am setting a precedent for my visits to the parishes of the Archdiocese."

Matt, apparently also wearied by the debate rubbed his brows and murmured, "Well, Bishop, it's certainly not a precedent you set in Santa Fe. You said all your own Masses there, at every visit. And you are known for your preaching--"

"I will still preach a word for the weary, Monsignor. I just don't need to be front-and-center."

Matt sighed. "I just don't understand, Your Excellency. This is highly irregular. Rome will inquire."

"These are highly irregular times, Monsignor. And if Rome inquires, I will obediently answer. Subsidiarity is still a hallmark of the See of Peter."


At the Mass of Installation, the Nuncio did indeed show a reaction--which was no reaction. He stared straight ahead, but his eyes saw everything. Even when the Nuncio's gaze seemed to be taking in the congregation or the mosaics that lined the far-away vestibule, Michael felt they were looking straight into his lie.

The only time Michael was relieved of their yoke was when he preached, as he had said to Matt, "a word to the weary." If only the gathered knew how much of it was a word preached to himself:

Fresh from the waters and resplendent in these garments, God’s holy people hasten to the altar of Christ, saying: I will go in to the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth. They have sloughed off the old skin of error, their youth renewed like an eagle’s, and they make haste to approach that heavenly banquet. They come and, seeing the sacred altar prepared, cry out: You have prepared a table in my sight. David puts these words into their mouths: The Lord is my shepherd and nothing will be lacking to me. He has set me down there in a place of pasture. He has brought me beside refreshing water. Further on, we read: For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I shall not be afraid of evils, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff have given me comfort. You have prepared in my sight a table against those who afflict me. You have made my head rich in oil, and your cup, which exhilarates, how excellent it is. 

It is wonderful that God rained manna on our fathers and they were fed with daily food from heaven. And so it is written: Man ate the bread of angels. Yet those who ate that bread all died in the desert. But the food that you receive, that living bread which came down from heaven, supplies the very substance of eternal life, and whoever will eat it will never die, for it is the body of Christ. 

Consider now which is the more excellent: the bread of angels or the flesh of Christ, which is indeed the body that gives life. The first was manna from heaven, the second is above the heavens. One was of heaven, the other is of the Lord of the heavens; one subject to corruption if it was kept till the morrow, the other free from all corruption, for if anyone tastes of it with reverence he will be incapable of corruption. For our fathers, water flowed from the rock; for you, blood flows from Christ. Water satisfied their thirst for a time; blood cleanses you for ever. The Jew drinks and still thirsts, but when you drink you will be incapable of thirst. What happened in symbol is now fulfilled in reality.

After Mass, one of the acolytes, a young graduate engineering student named Daniel, kept staring at him as they disrobed in the sacristy. When the other celebrants had left, he approached Michael, tentatively. "Int-teresting hom-m-ily, B-bishop Christ-t-t-opher," he stuttered.

Michael looked at him hard. The stutter was not so much out of trepidation--rather, the young man had a speech impediment. Under that sincere gaze, Michael felt more exposed to the light than he had with anything the Nuncio said or did. He answered as honestly as he could. "I felt I needed to hear it--as a reminder of what the Eucharist is. I--I … don't ever want to toy with it."

Daniel now stared at him harder. "They w-weren't your words, Your Excellence, b-but they were g-good words, and you had the c-courage to p-p-preach them to us."

Michael's brows rose higher than Matt's ever could. "You have a good ear, son. And you're well read. They aren't my words--their Bishop Saint Ambrose's from roughly 1,600 years ago. And I needed the courage to preach them to me."

Daniel paused and finally looked down. When his eyes met Michael's again, a smile curled at the corners of the young man's mouth. "I wish m-more Bishops would p-preach the Church Fathers. All of us n-need to hear them n-n-new."

Michael blushed and stuttered out, "I had nothing else to say. I'm-I'm empty."

Clear as a bell, Daniel answered, "It is in your weakness that He perfects you."

As the young man left him, the Noon Angelus bells were ringing in some universe in the Cathedral far above the sacristy. And Michael saw himself in the mirror again as a new man.