'Which tradition?'
'The same as that of Saint Savin. Retreat from the world, come to these mountains, and contemplate the glory of God.'
'Padre, there's something I need to understand. Until yesterday, I was with a man who couldn't choose between the religious life and marriage. Today, I learn that this same man performs miracles.'
'We all perform miracles,' he said. 'Jesus said, 'If our faith is the size of a mustard seed, we will say to the mountain, 'Move!' And it will move.''
'I don't want a lesson in religion, Padre. I'm in love with a man, and I want to know more about him, understand him, help him. I don't care what everyone else can do or can't do.'
The padre took a deep breath. He hesitated for a moment and then said, 'A scientist who studied monkeys on an island in Indonesia was able to teach a certain one to wash bananas in the river before eating them. Cleansed of sand and dirt, the food was more flavorful. The scientist—who did this only because he was studying the learning capacity of monkeys—did not imagine what would eventually happen. So he was surprised to see that the other monkeys on the island began to imitate the first one.
'And then, one day, when a certain number of monkeys had learned to wash their bananas, the monkeys on all of the other islands in the archipelago began to do the same thing. What was most surprising, though, was that the other monkeys learned to do so without having had any contact with the island where the experiment had been conducted.'
He stopped. 'Do you understand?'
'No,' I answered.
'There are several similar scientific studies. The most common explanation is that when a certain number of people evolve, the entire human race begins to evolve. We don't know how many people are needed—but we know that's how it works.'
'Like the story of the Immaculate Conception,' I said. 'The vision appeared for the wise men at the Vatican and for the simple farmer.'
'The world itself has a soul, and at a certain moment, that soul acts on everyone and everything at the same time.'
'A feminine soul.'
He laughed, without saying just what he was laughing about.
'By the way, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was not just a Vatican matter,' he said. 'Eight million people signed a petition to the pope, asking that it be recognized. The signatures came from all over the world.'
'Is that the first step, Padre?'
'What do you mean?'
'The first step toward having Our Lady recognized as the incarnation of the feminine face of God? After all, we already accept the fact that Jesus was the incarnation of His masculine side.'
'And so… ?'
'How much time must pass before we accept a Holy Trinity that includes a woman? The Trinity of the Holy Spirit, the Mother, and the Son?'
'Let's move on. It's too cold for us to stand here,' he said. 'A little while ago, you noticed my sandals.'
'Have you been reading my mind?' I asked.
'I'm going to tell you part of the story of the founding of our religious order,' he said. 'We are barefoot Carmelites, according to the rules established by Saint Teresa of Avila. The sandals are a part of the story, for if one can dominate the body, one can dominate the spirit.
'Teresa was a beautiful woman, placed by her father in a convent so that she would receive a pure education. One day, when she was walking along a corridor, she began to speak with Jesus. Her ecstasies were so strong and deep that she surrendered totally to them, and in a short time, her life had been completely changed. She felt that the Carmelite convents had become nothing more than marriage brokerages, and she decided to create an order that would once again follow the original teachings of Christ and the Carmelites.
'Saint Teresa had to conquer herself, and she had to confront the great powers of her day—the church and the state. But she was determined to press on, because she was convinced that she had a mission to perform.
'One day—just when Teresa felt her soul to be weakening—a woman in tattered clothing appeared at the house where she was staying. The woman wanted to speak with Teresa, no matter what. The owner of the house offered the woman some alms, but the woman refused them; she would not go away until she had spoken with Teresa.
'For three days, the woman waited outside the house, without eating or drinking. Finally Teresa, out of sympathy, bade the woman come in.
' 'No,' said the owner of the house. 'The woman is mad.'
' 'If I were to listen to everyone, I'd wind up thinking that I'm the crazy one,' Teresa answered. 'It may be that this woman has the same kind of madness as I: that of Christ on the cross.''
'Saint Teresa spoke with Christ,' I said.
'Yes,' he answered. 'But to get back to our story: the woman was brought to Teresa. She said that her name was Maria de Jesus Yepes and that she was from Granada. She was a Carmelite novice, and the Virgin had appeared and asked that she found a convent that followed the primitive rules of the order.'
'Maria de Jesus left the convent on the day of her vision and began walking barefoot to Rome. Her pilgrimage lasted two years—and for that entire period, she slept outdoors, in the heat and the cold, living on alms and the charity of others. It was a miracle that she made it. But it was an even greater miracle that she was received by Pope Pius IV. Because the pope, just like Maria de Jesus, Teresa, and many others, was thinking of the same thing,' he finished.
Just as Bernadette had known nothing of the Vatican's decision and the monkeys from the other islands couldn't have known about the experiment that was being conducted, so Maria de Jesus and Teresa knew nothing of what the other was planning.
Something was beginning to make sense to me.
We were now walking through a forest. With the fog all but gone, the highest tree branches, covered with snow, were receiving the first rays of the sun.
'I think I know where you're going with this, Padre.'
'Yes. The world is at a point when many people are receiving the same order: 'Follow your dreams, transform your life, take the path that leads to God. Perform your miracles. Cure. Make prophecies. Listen to your guardian angel. Transform yourself. Be a warrior, and be happy as you wage the good fight. Take risks.''
Sunshine was everywhere. The snow was glistening, and the glare hurt my eyes. Yet at the same time, it seemed to support what the priest was saying.
'And what does all this have to do with him?'
'I've told you the heroic side of the story. But you don't know anything about the soul of these heroes.'
He paused.
'The suffering,' he picked up again. 'At moments of transformation, martyrs are born. Before a person can follow his dream, others have to make sacrifices. They have to confront ridicule, persecution, and attempts to discredit what they are trying to do.'
'It was the church that burned the witches at the stake, Padre.'
'Right. And Rome threw the Christians to the lions. But those who died at the stake or in the sand of the arena rose quickly to eternal glory—they were better off.
'Nowadays, warriors of the light confront something worse than the honorable death of the martyrs. They are consumed, bit by bit, by shame and humiliation. That's how it was with Saint Teresawho suffered for the rest of her life. That's how it was for Maria de Jesus, too. And for the happy children who saw Our Lady in Fatima, Portugal— well, Jacinta and Francisco died just a few months later; Lucia entered a convent from which she never emerged.'
'But that's not how it was for Bernadette.'
