Chapter 50 #2
For reasons that were not entirely clear to Joseph, over the centuries the timing of the Easter Vigil had shifted to earlier and yet earlier on Holy Saturday.
Once, the long rite had begun late in the evening and reached its climax at midnight Easter morning.
Now, they lit the Paschal Candle and celebrated Christ’s nighttime resurrection when the sun had barely risen Saturday morning.
This was the greatest moment of the Christian year; by the end of the Mass, it would be Easter, liturgically.
But most of Joseph’s congregation waited till Sunday morning to celebrate.
Only the truly faithful gathered in the Biblical garden for the Easter Vigil.
Tessa was amongst them. Even before her Confession to him, he’d been careful not to look her way during Mass.
But his eyes were starving for the sight of her even more than his stomach was aching from his fast. It took Father Baker a few moments to kindle the New Fire with a flint.
While they waited, Joseph allowed himself a glance at Tessa.
She wore a simple white cotton dress, adorned only with pleats.
She made it breathtaking. Framed by her mantilla, her own eyes remained intent on Father Baker; she did not look to Joseph.
She held her hands just below the point of her bodice, yet they were not clasped in prayer.
In fact, her small motions seemed out of place.
Tessa had extended the first two fingers of her right hand.
Again and again, she pressed them into her cupped left hand and rotated her extended fingers as if she were turning a key.
For a moment, Joseph forgot to breathe. Beneath his clothes, the key to Tessa’s garden felt as if it were burning his chest. His mother was standing behind Tessa; she couldn’t see Tessa’s hands.
The sign was for him. Safe! Tessa’s hands cried.
Or perhaps she meant the pantomime more literally: Use the key!
Either way, it was an invitation. Edward must have remained at the plantation.
But how could she know he wouldn’t return before nightfall?
Joseph dared not risk confirmation. He dared not look back at Tessa.
His part of the Easter Vigil rite had come.
He discarded his violet vestments of Penance, melancholy, and sacrifice.
In their place, he donned white vestments of purity and joy—light breaking through the darkness.
If he’d looked down to see their key glowing bright through the linen and silk, he would not have been surprised.
They processed into the cathedral. Joseph genuflected and prayed: “May the Lord be in my heart and in my lips…” Joseph clasped his hands before him and sang for joy. But it was Tessa in his heart and in his lips, as much as God.
“Ex-ul-tet…” the hymn began: Rejoice… Joseph let the ancient words flow through him: the plainchant whose beauty belied its name.
This was an aria to surpass Mozart and Donizetti, all the more elaborate for its lack of accompaniment.
Lifted by jubilation and weighted with yearning, every syllable rose and fell, dipping and turning like the incense that billowed around him.
For a quarter of an hour, he stopped time.
For more than a thousand years, men of God had chanted the Exultet on this day.
Before celibacy became compulsory, how many of those men had been husbands? Ever since, how many had sung these words to a beloved hidden in the crowd? Even now, Father Wallace must be chanting the Exultet to Sarah.
“O truly necessary sin…” Joseph sang. “O truly blessed night… The sacredness of this night dispels wickedness, washes away sin, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to those in sorrow…”
After Joseph bowed his head and the last note died away, the twelve lessons began. The first reading was from Genesis: “And God said: Let there be light. And God saw the light that it was good…” With his eyes, Joseph saw the Paschal Candle; but in his mind, he saw Tessa’s blue lamp.
When Joseph laid Christ’s Body on Tessa’s tongue, she closed her mouth so quickly, her lips brushed his fingers—like a tiny Baptism. The memory of her warmth remained with him beyond the last “Amen.”
As soon as he’d unvested, Joseph longed to run after her. But it wasn’t even noon yet. Tessa’s slaves would be in the house. He must wait the ten excruciating hours till sunset.
He blessed the homes he hadn’t blessed on Epiphany.
He returned to the cathedral and heard the Confessions of parishioners who planned to receive the Eucharist at the Easter Mass.
It was only mid-April, and already the closeness of the booth felt oppressive.
He did not visit his own confessor. Joseph knew what the man would say.
By late afternoon, Joseph was exhausted. He must conserve his strength, or he would faint before he even caught sight of Tessa again. He allowed himself a little water, since this was permitted during the forty-hour fast.
Before he lay down, he knelt by his bed and prayed for a sign. The key felt like a millstone around his neck. Was he truly about to do this: skulk into another man’s home to ogle his wife? On Holy Saturday? It wasn’t too late. He could still decide not to go to her.
Somehow Joseph managed to rest; but he did not dream.
He rose only to kneel in prayer again. “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Above all, be merciful to Tessa.
I am her Priest; her soul is in my care.
If this is mortal sin, let the punishment fall on me alone.
Give me a sign that whatever I do, she will be saved…
I do not pray as Saint Augustine did in his wicked youth: “Grant me chastity and continency, but not yet.” Instead I beg You: Grant me chastity and continency—and Tessa.
Grant me the strength to live without the touch of her flesh, but do not ask me to live without the sound of her voice and the sight of her face.
The sun was setting; but David would still be awake. Joseph must wait an hour or two longer. This was his last chance to think things through, to make the right choice once and for all.
He browsed the books in the library downstairs.
Inscribed on these pages, there were a thousand reasons to remain in this sanctuary, to turn his back on Tessa.
He’d read and recited the arguments so many times, they rattled around in his head—admonishing him, condemning him.
“It is necessary, above all things, to abstain from looking at women, and still more from looking at them a second time. … Our intercourse with women should be passing, and as if we were in flight.”
Joseph noticed that someone had left a pink ribbon in one of the books.
It was Saint Teresa’s Interior Castle—his own copy, though he hadn’t read it since seminary.
He’d lent it to Tessa and later to Hélène.
He opened to the page with the ribbon. Someone had underlined: “it is not so essential to think much as to love much; do, then, whatever most arouses you to love.”
Joseph released his breath. Saint Teresa was speaking of loving God; but Joseph had asked for a sign.
Writing in someone else’s book, the pink ribbon—these were traces of his sister, surely.
She was guiding him even now, his Hélène—his light.
Joseph closed his eyes, then the book, and pressed it against the key still nestled close to his heart. “I hear you, Ellie.”
He wondered if his sister had read Juliana of Norwich. Hélène would have liked her. Perhaps they were conversing even now.