College students were sprawled on couches, thinking up prayers.
“Jesus, hear us.”
“Lord, hear our prayer.”
“We always say that.”
“Be with us, Lord.”
“He’s there already, though?”
“And he’s coming in Communion.”
“So he’s there already, but he’s coming in Communion and then we’re praying that he comes?”
“Hey, God, listen up!”
Theological quandary averted and not even discerned, the girls laughed. There were three of them. Lynn sipped a pink can of Tab and twirled a complicated set of keys. Becky was lying down, her legs stretched over Lynn’s lap. Her pen was poised over a yellow legal pad.
Patricia sat across from the other two on another couch. She shook out a few M & M’s from a bag into her palm. She was new to this, new to the other girls and had barely spoken so far. She’d helped plan Masses in high school, but what was that about? Arguments over Bridge over Troubled Waters or Dust in the Wind for Communion meditation song, that was all. Now she was – if she could ever get an idea - writing actual prayers for Mass that everyone would listen to, hundreds would say. Scrambling around in the blankness in her head, she wondered again why she was here. The nudge, of course.
A literal nudge from her mother on Sunday night – her parents (alumni) had come for the game, and accompanied her to Mass before they headed home. Father Mark (Patricia wondered how anyone could call a priest, even a cool one, by his first name, but they all did. Maybe someday.) wryly attached the word dwindling to his thank-you to the writing-the-prayers committee at the end of Mass, a vague sort of appeal. Patricia felt her mother’s elbow in her side, and the elbow spoke: You helped with school Masses. You’re an English major. And it also said: You need friends. All of that was correct.
Her father did no nudging and said nothing until they walked outside, when he erupted: “What the hell was that?” and “Did I even go to Mass in there?”
Mark had drifted through the room earlier that night, Wednesday night, asked the girls how they were doing, didn’t pause long enough for them to answer, waved a hand in their direction, chuckled bless you my children and continued out the door to campus, into the night.
We trust you, Lord worked, they decided.
It was different, and that was most important. It also sounded more mature than little kids begging, which was also important.
Becky had come up with it, but with Father, not Lord at first. Lynn had frowned. She’d been Sister Jackie’s right-hand woman during the workshop on Women in Today’s Church in September. Sister Jackie wasn’t on staff at the center but managed campus ministry for the whole diocese and came around sometimes to lead a workshop or confer with the priests. She wore her greyish blonde hair in a bob and favored light blue denim-like shirtdresses, colorful chunky necklaces and strappy heeled sandals. On her first visit that fall, she had preached the homily and welcomed the freshpersons to Sunday Night Mass.
A few years down the line, Lord would become problematic as well. Sister Jackie, a few sizes larger, her hair now completely white but still favoring the strappy heeled sandals, would point this out in another workshop in another place, but today was not that day, nor was it the day to add Mother to the mix, and probably would not ever be at this particular southern Catholic location. But Father? Lynn shook her head. She knew that at least.
Now, what to pray for.
The wall clock next to the poster of laughing Jesus, head thrown back, as familiar to them – it had hung in every classroom at Patricia’s high school - as sad-eyed Jesus pointing to his bloody Sacred Heart had been to their parents, ticked away. It was close to nine. Early, in College Standard Time.
They needed five or six at least. The last one was always for sick and dead people, so make that four or five. What was going on in the world? They didn’t have televisions, they rarely saw newspapers so they didn’t know much about it. That new Pope? Something about peace, Becky thought. Peace in the Middle East, she was sure. People starving. Those were always happening. For the poor.
“Oh, “ Lynn tossed her feathery head of hair. “We should pray for Sandy.” She and Becky locked eyes, maybe even souls and Patricia immediately felt as if she was observing them through a window. In some ways, it turned out, college was no different from high school at all.
“Oh my God, yes!” Becky crowed. She sat up and pretended to write. “Let’s see…for anyone who’s experiencing um….”
“Temptation!”
Patricia didn’t know this Sandy, any Sandy, or any of the other names the girls wove into an evidently hilarious tapestry of passive-aggressiveness. She’d wait it out. She walked over to the small bookshelf by the door and scanned the titles: Hope for the Flowers. The Prophet. The Wounded Healer. The Sexual Celibate? She recognized one of her sophomore high school religion textbooks: Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
“Do we have anything to help us? Like a guide?” Such a thing surely existed. She flipped through a slim well-read paperback, the pages barely holding on. Notes on Love and Courage. Each page had a short paragraph, maybe a sentence. The window is not the view; the window allows the view. This was circled in red pen. She heard it in Father Mark’s voice. He must have used it in a homily.
No guide, no need, they called to her from the couches. Real prayers came from the heart and should, Lynn asserted like it was her job, express the needs of the local community. She motioned, made a circle with her keys. “That’s us.”
Sandy wouldn’t get prayed for, so what else, who else was there? They were at a loss, until Becky thought of the Mass readings. Maybe that would give them an idea. She was standing up, motioning for Lynn’s keys. “Those computer boys are having a party,” she said. They were, she said, reading movie scripts out loud. She wanted to get this moving so she could get over there.
“That they wrote?” Patricia asked.
“No, just movies that they like. Comedies. It’s fun.” Becky smiled. “You can come. You should come.”
Homework, reading, paper. None of that was true, Patricia was ready to use one of them anyway, but before she could, Lynn shook her keys at Becky. “Okay, so go get a missalette from downstairs, ” she said. “It’s,” she picked through the collection hanging on a Garfield keychain – “this one.”
When Becky returned, walking slowly in exaggerated formality – “Keys, please” – Lynn held out her palm – declaiming Old Testament words in mock magisterial tones.
“No, no,” Lynn said,“Not that Isaiah or Jeremiah or whatever. Mark will probably change those readings anyway.” The window is not the view. The window allows the view. “What’s the Gospel?”
Becky squinted. “Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice…”
Lynn motioned. Keep going. Move on.
“They widen their – “ Becky hesitated. “Phi – (long i) lact-eries..” She looked up. “Aren’t those condoms?”
Surely not, but what it could be, they had no idea. She shrugged and read on.
“The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
Patricia couldn’t believe it, but yes, she had an idea. “The pope,” She ventured, “Maybe pray for the Pope. Maybe – “ she motioned to the missalette in Becky’s hand, “that he be like what does it say, a servant to us?”
“For the new Pope – what is it, John Paul?”
“The second. John Paul the second. The first one died.”
“Well, duh. Okay, so for our new Pope, John Paul the second, that he – “ Becky started.
Lynn finished. “That he might help us follow Jesus, blah, blah, blah.”
“Wait, no,” From nowhere, it seemed, Patricia heard a tune in her memory, words flowed. “We could take it from Godspell. You know? Day by Day?”
Of course they knew it, from the movie, from the record, from Mass, and it was practically a theme song, so of course they started belting.
..see thee more clearly
…love thee more dearly
…follow thee more nearly
…day by day by day by day by day…
They kept it going day by day by day until they collapsed, breathless, laughing. It only took five minutes to finish. For the new Pope – wait, our new Pope, that he might help us see – not thee, you, okay – more clearly. Or just for Pope John Paul, that he might – the second, John Paul the second – help us love you more dearly..
Three of those, one for peace everywhere, especially in Israel, one for the poor in the inner cities, and it was done.
Becky finished writing with a flourish, tore off the page and slipped it under the secretary’s door. Lynn twirled her keys and motioned like she was shooing chickens. “Someone’s gotta lock up,” she sighed. “The priests are gone and who knows where.” Patricia threw her candy wrapper away and glanced at Becky, wondering if she’d remembered the invitation.
And they’d tell Ted – well, suggest to Ted, because no one told Ted anything – that he do Day by Day right after the prayers. A perfect fit, Mark would declare at the end of Mass on Sunday. You see how the Spirit works? He’d start a round of applause for the girls who were sitting next to each other in the front row, arms around each other, and they would sing, over and over, day by day by day by day….