Reddish golden rays colored the cold earth as far as his eye could see. It was the first day of the year. The Spanish sun was descending into the horizon. On the backseat of the moving car, he kept turning his head to look west, hoping they would reach their destination in time for him to take a picture of the sunset. As soon as the car stopped, he went out and rushed to the edge of a precipice where he planned to use his white camera, but when he got there, the mountains of Loeches had eclipsed the sun.
He took consolation photos of land crests and troughs silhouetted against the tangerine twilight. A few steps to his right, one of his companions, a misionero entered a house where the elderly founder of the community that thrived on the property lived. The misionero wanted to check on the aging padre and the confrere who cared for him, a man young enough to be the old priest’s son and glad to be so, if only in the Holy Spirit.
He heard the misionero inquire with the young priest if their guests could join them on a latter visit to another priest in the city of Madrid. He could not apprehend the reply. His mind was divided between taking a series of frustrated sunset shots and negotiating the desire, welling in him, to see the near-nonagenarian founder. He had seen only pictures, but read a few and heard plenty of stories about the man. He felt tickled in the mind whenever he remembered two of the stories.
In the first, the founder, after presiding over a long retreat somewhere on another continent was sent off at the airport by a couple of misioneras. “Stay poor,” he told them for his parting shot. A couple of hours afterwards, the misioneras found themselves poorer. They had to cede their car to brigands.
In the second story, the founder hopped from town to town in response to invitations to celebrate Mass. Residents in some places, however, got nervous when they got wind of his imminent arrival. The founder preached so memorably on the subject of life everlasting that whenever someone passed on later—or sooner—it looked like Providence deigned to support the preaching with an occasion for auditors to grow in the belief that for the Christian, life is changed, not ended.
As he reviewed digital pictures, he noticed the tall misionero stepping out of the house and coming up to him. The misionero posed the question he longed to hear. Would you like to see the founder? He nodded. His other companion, a mother who was with her husband and their daughter said she wanted to see the founder, too. “I feel shy,” she said. He echoed her sentiment. They all shuffled into the founder’s parlor.
The founder sat there on a chair, wearing a pair of glasses through which his kind, grandfatherly eyes shone. His arms were folded across his chest such that his hands were partly concealed. From him came incessant, unfathomable groans.
Age had diminished his frame. Alzheimer’s ravaged his brain. But no one could not contest the kindliness of his mien.
The founder was only seemingly withdrawn. When the male guest signaled to shake the founder’s right hand, the latter instead reached out, drew to himself his visitor’s left hand—and kissed it.
* * *
He shuddered inwardly.
At 32, he remained a novice in life. He missed his deadlines, broke his promises, failed to turn up at key moments for his loved ones, planned his days with lots of indecision and tolerated acedia. He could not, though he had neither the weakness of old age nor the pangs of Alzheimer’s, even make up his mind swiftly enough to be the one to kiss a founder’s hand. He had done nothing to merit a kiss from a father who had walked with God and taken care of souls since his teen years.
The new year rolled on. Twelfth Night was around the corner. He thought about the gifts the magi gave the Christ-child on the first such night, nearly two thousand years ago. He thought of gold and frankincense, but focused on myrrh. In a mountain parish on his home island half a world away, he once learned from a young priest that the myrrh stood for the fact that the Christ-child, in time, would freely suffer and give up his life to redeem all from sin and death. Those He left behind would need the myrrh to anoint his corpse. His was a body that the Blessed Mother and the Beloved Disciple washed with their tears, a body that they, in the visions of artists, covered with many a kiss.
He resolved to remember the founder’s kiss in this light.
He had yet to embrace life with every one of its challenges and hardships. He had yet to love even when it really hurts and make his word his bond.
He had yet to die.
Yet somewhere, his myrrh, that oil of anointment that reminds mankind of a lofty calling was already given him. As in the visions of artists, the anointing always comes after the kiss.
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