Woman of God

Chapter 108

IT WAS forty-five nippy degrees in New York City this Sunday morning in February, and I was excited that I would be saying Mass at the opening of the three hundredth JMJ church.

St. Barnabas was a stately, gray stone church in the East Village, built on a green in the eighteen hundreds, which over the last two hundred years had become a neighborhood.

The church had been closed by the Archdiocese of New York in 2008, along with more than two hundred and fifty other churches that had fallen into disrepair. A benefactor had bought St. Barnabas at auction, and it was now to be reopened as a JMJ church.

I walked anonymously through the throng of Sunday shoppers on East Fourth Street in my long, navy-blue coat and knitted hat and found the old church wedged between a Comfy Diner and an antique print shop, graffiti-free and perfectly intact.

When I entered the church through the red-painted doors, I had expected to be welcomed by Father Hubert Clemente. But the young priest was not alone. He seemed a little awed and off balance as he introduced me to Father Giancarlo Raphael, who wore his black vestments and cummerbund with European flair.

Father Raphael said in heavily accented English that he had just arrived from Vatican City to see me. He looked pleased and confident, but I didn’t get it.

“Pardon me. Could you say that again?”

As congregants flowed past me into the nave, Father Raphael explained, “Forgive me. I should say I’m here on behalf of Pope Gregory. I hope to have a few words with you.”

I was startled, to say the least. I managed to say, “Father Raphael, I am deeply humbled, but, as I have just enough time to get ready, can you wait? The congregation…”

“Of course. I am eager for your Mass.”

After I finished a walk-through with Father Clemente, he introduced me to his rapt congregation.

“Good friends,” he said, “you know all about our guest, who has become a guiding light to so many Catholics who have felt sidelined by the Church.

“She eschews any title but likes to be called, simply, Brigid. And that humility, that belief that we are all the same in the eyes of God, is the essence of JMJ principles that we will be adopting here.”

I felt welcomed and at peace as I began the Mass, but I couldn’t quite stop thinking about Father Raphael, the pope’s messenger, sitting three rows back on the aisle.

He was waiting for me when I left the sacristy in my street clothes, as were dozens of congregants. I shook hands and exchanged kind words, and I signed scraps of paper to commemorate the occasion. Father Raphael stood to the side until I was finally alone.

And then he had all my attention.

“Brigid,” he said, “I have a special invitation for you.” He took an envelope from his coat pocket. My name was inscribed in calligraphy, and in the corner of the envelope was a coat of arms, the emblem of the Holy See.

Father Raphael held the envelope out to me, and when I took it, it felt warm to the touch.

“His Holiness Pope Gregory would like very much to meet you. These airline tickets are for you and your daughter, and my card is inside, too. Please let me know when it would be convenient for you to come to the Vatican.”

Chapter 109

THE PEACEFULNESS of flight above the clouds gave way too quickly to the near riot that was waiting for Gilly and me at Fiumicino Airport.

We were met just outside customs by two very fit men wearing the smart blue uniforms of the Corps of Gendarmes of Vatican City State. Our driver was Alberto Rizzo, and our guard was Giuseppe Marone, who carried our slight luggage through the airport.

I gripped Gilly’s hand and followed our assigned guards out under the swooping marquis, toward the street, when we were blocked by protesters who were shouting my name, calling me a heretic and the devil. One of them, a woman my age, was brandishing a cross. She said pleasantly, “I wish you to die.”

Giuseppe strong-armed the woman out of the way. Alberto shielded us from behind, and we pushed forward through the loud and ugly crowd.

I was utterly shaken by the hatred.

I could stand up for myself, but this attack also affected Gilly. I kept my cool for my daughter’s sake and held her close to my side until we were safely inside a black Mercedes with Vatican City plates.

Still, angry people, their faces bloated with hate, hammered on the car windows and roof with their fists.

“You are okay now,” said Giuseppe. “No worries.”

Two more black sedans joined us, one taking the lead, the other bringing up the rear, and we headed at top speed away from the airport and into the city. During the drive to the hotel, I tried to prepare myself for my upcoming meeting with the pope.

I liked what I’d seen and read about Pope Gregory. He seemed kind, a moderate with modern leanings, but he disapproved of everything JMJ stood for. And he had to be disturbed by the widespread growth of our breakaway churches.

I had a hard time imagining anything but a short, awkward meeting with Pope Gregory. I didn’t see it ending well. At all.

Gilly was having a different experience entirely. She was absorbing everything: the wide avenues and historic landmarks, the police escort, the crazy Roman traffic. She had her hands pressed against the windows and said, “Mom, are we staying here?”

Our car pulled up to the Hotel Hassler, a five-star hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps, overlooking the ancient city. Our bodyguards escorted us through the teeming and gilded hotel lobby to the front desk. All the while, her head turning from side to side, Gilly stared around in a state of subdued wonder.

“Mommy, look. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, look.”

I looked at the beautiful people, at the grand scale of the famous hotel lobby, at the rich appointments, and I laughed, delighting in my seven-year-old little girl’s innocence and astonishment.

Gilly wasn’t in Massachusetts anymore.

Our suite, like the lobby, was appointed in ruby red and gold, hung with Venetian mirrors and crystal chandeliers. There was a terrace the length of the suite with a fireplace and endless city views. On the table in the sitting room was an extravagant floral arrangement and a note from Father Raphael.

It read: Welcome, Brigid and Gillian. I will come for you tomorrow morning at nine and bring you to the Apostolic Palace. Pope Gregory is very eager to meet you.

We kicked off our shoes, and I was looking at the room-service menu on the video monitor when the room phone rang.

Gilly answered, “Heyyyy.”

Then, “Mom. Guess who?”

Chapter 110

I PEERED through the peephole and saw his face.

“Open up, Red. It is I, your humble scribe.”

I opened the door and told our bodyguards that Zach was a friend. I was so excited to see him-and yet puzzled. Zach insisted on making surprise drop-in visits. Why? He had a phone. I hugged my tall, journalist, book-writing friend, and Gilly flew across the room and jumped up into his arms.

“I’m a royal princess,” she said. “Would you like to see my domain?”

“I absolutely would,” said Zach.

As Gilly took Zach away, I shouted after him, “Why are you here?”

“Easter week at Vatican City. I was available to cover it.”

“Are you having dinner with us?”

“Uh. Sure. Thanks.”

I’d seen Zach every few months since he signed his book contract, and I knew him well enough by now that I could read between the lines on his face. Something was bothering him.

But Gilly had Zach under her spell. She gave him the grandest of tours. He taught her the waltz while I signed for room service that was delivered after scrutiny by our guards outside the door.

We tucked into a six-course gourmet dinner on our terrace overlooking the Spanish Steps, and after Zach pointed out the visible ancient landmarks, Gilly provided the entertainment.

“I wanted kittens for my birthday,” Gilly was telling Zach.

“Kittens and rodents are off the table,” I said.

Ignoring me, Gilly went on. “After I got turned down for hamsters and kittens, I asked for Jesus to come to my birthday party.”

I rolled my eyes. “She did not.”

“Oh. How did that turn out?” Zach asked her.

Gilly reached down into the front of her dress and pulled up a gold chain. “Look,” she said, showing off her new crucifix.

“Beautiful,” said Zach, looking over Gilly’s head at me.

I said, “Gilly, do me a favor? Get me my sweater? The pink cardigan.”

While Gilly was gone, I said, “Zach, something is bothering you. What is it?”

“Why don’t I just get right to it,” he said, looking miserable. “Maybe you caught it on CNN.”

“What? No.”

“There’s been a credible threat of violence against a JMJ church here in Rome.”

“Oh, no. I hadn’t heard. When did this happen?”

“Early this morning.”

“That’s horrible. Was this because of my visit?”

Zach forced a smile.

“Don’t know.”

“Why does the pope want to see me?”

“Don’t know that, either. But, whether he wants to or not, he’ll like you. Even if he’s made of marble, he’ll like you.”

Zach looked at me for a moment too long.

I cleared my throat, refilled his wineglass.

“I want you to take this seriously. Look at me, Brigid. It’s not safe for you here. This is Rome. It’s Easter week. You’re a woman priest going against the Catholic Church. These are unsettling times. You know what I mean?”

Of course I knew. The deepening planetary crisis-rampant terrorism, mutating disease, dramatic weather patterns every year…none of these patterns were good. Science-fiction fantasies of a self-driving car in every garage and a top doctor on the other end of every phone had not come true on this ravaged planet, which was one downed airplane away from an apocalyptic war.

Even clean air and water and food, basics that people had once taken for granted, were in short supply. People asked why. Some answered that this was because of lack of faith in God.

Lifelong believers and the newly faithful were coming back to religion, and some saw JMJ as an attempt to overthrow the two-thousand-year reign of the Roman Catholic Church.

That had never been our goal. Never. We only offered an alternative to those who felt excluded by canon law.

“I hear you, Zach. I understand. But I couldn’t refuse an audience with the pope, could I? He’s assigned bodyguards to us. I’ll be back in Cambridge before you know it.”

Gilly brought me my sweater, and after a barely tasted chocolate-and-peanut “exotic passion” dessert, Zach said he had to go. Cheek kisses were exchanged all around, and then, with a tight smile, he left our room.

Gilly asked, “Is Zach okay?”

“Yes, of course. You don’t think so?”

“I think he loves you, Mommy.”

“He loves you, too, Gilly. Hey. Let’s unpack. Hang up our clothes and go to bed. Tomorrow we have an audience with the pope.”

For once, she didn’t argue with me.

Chapter 111

I WOKE up four or five times that night.

Each time I looked at the bedside clock, it was an hour closer to my private audience with His Holiness Pope Gregory XVII.

I tried on worst-case scenarios: he would say that I wasn’t a priest. He would tell me that none of the sacraments I had performed were valid: not marriages, Communion, last rites. He would tell me I was endangering mortal souls.

Was I doing that?

I groaned and shifted in the bed that I shared with Gilly. Along with having concerns about meeting with the pope, I was shocked at the anger we’d touched off with our breakaway church.

Zach was right. It was dangerous here. I should never have taken Gilly with me to Rome.

Gilly poked me with her elbow and told me to stop flopping around on the bed, to stop sighing. “Just think of fluffy clouds or something and calm down.”

“Thanks, peanut.”

“If Daddy were here, he would say exactly the same.”

We slept, and in the morning, we dressed in black, which was definitely a new look for my little girl and me. Thanks to my father, from whom I’d heard it, I remembered what Henry David Thoreau had written: Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

Still, black dresses and headscarves were proper protocol for women meeting with the pope.

Giuseppe and Alberto, our dedicated gendarmes, picked us up outside the hotel without incident, and soon our sleek car, flying triangular, yellow-and-white Vatican flags from a pole on the hood, was speeding toward Vatican City.

During the time I’d lived in Rome, I’d learned the city, but to Gilly, this was all new, and it was grand.

Our car took us on Viale della Trinità dei Monti, passing the Villa Borghese gardens on the right. From there, we crossed the Tiber on the Ponte Regina Margherita, and not long after that, we turned onto Via della Conciliazione toward St. Peter’s Square, where preparations were being made for the expected millions on Easter Sunday.

And that was when my apprehension vanished, leaving behind something like sunny optimism.

I realized that I had been imagining the pope as another version of my supercritical father. But the pope had invited me to the Vatican. He had made me very comfortable and welcome and safe. Meeting with him was an honor, a privilege, and an extraordinary opportunity to tell him about my experience as a priest. I would tell him about my overwhelming acceptance and could cite examples of other woman priests in the many breakaway churches who were having a positive effect on their congregations.

The air was crisp and the temperature fair when we arrived at the Apostolic Palace, where Pope Gregory spent his days.

This was it.

Gilly and I were going to meet the head of the Catholic Church, the man who represented Christ on earth to more than a billion Catholics.

I was ready.

Chapter 112

FATHER RAPHAEL met us at the car and took us into the Apostolic Palace through the Portone di Bronzo. It was a true palace of enormous scale and breathtaking grandeur. I knew that it had a thousand rooms-fish ponds, conservatories, museums and chapels, including the glorious Sistine Chapel, and other rooms that were not open to the public.

But the priest didn’t give us a guided tour. Rather, he led us without comment through frescoed rooms and long, gilded corridors hung with ancient religious paintings and, from there, up three tall stories of marble staircase, the most direct route to the pope’s office.

As we climbed, I became aware of a tingling sensation across my cheeks, as if water were drying on my skin. A slight breeze ruffled my hair.

I held tight to Gilly’s hand as Father Raphael showed us into the office where Pope Gregory worked. The walls were ecru patterned with gold. Gold damask hung at the windows, and the pope, wearing white vestments, sat at his desk facing the door.

Pope Gregory looked in real life as he did on screen. He was white haired and a bit stooped, with genial features and an exceptionally warm smile.

When we entered the room, he rose to his feet, stepped out from behind his desk, and came toward us, extending his hand. I dropped a practiced curtsy and kissed his ring. Gilly stared up at Pope Gregory and said, “You’re so-radiant.”

He smiled widely and said, “Thank you, Gillian. You’re also very radiant, and so pretty.”

Father Raphael stepped forward and asked Gilly if she would help him feed the fish.

“We have big fish that you can feed by hand, signorina, and conservatories where very tall trees grow under glass.”

“May I go, Mom? Please?”

When Gilly had skipped off with Father Raphael, the pontiff directed me to a seating area across the room from his desk. After he took a seat in an ornate white upholstered armchair, I dropped into a similar but simpler chair across from him, with a low, wooden table between us.

He said, “I’ve been told that you speak Italian.”

“Yes.”

That sparkling sensation on my cheeks and forehead seemed to intensify. It reminded me of the dusting of snow on my face when James and I sat with Bishop Reedy in his horse-drawn carriage on our way to our wedding reception.

God. Are You here?

I accepted coffee and tried to be just normal Brigid while sitting opposite the Supreme Pontiff. He made small talk, and as he asked about the flight and accommodations, the tingling on my face extended to my folded hands and my crossed ankles, and I felt that special warmth inside my chest. The breeze circled the white furnishings, riffling the skirts on the pontiff’s chair.

Could the pope feel the breeze? I couldn’t tell.

He was saying in Italian, “I wanted to meet you, Brigid, because so many people are drawn to your church. Tell me, please, about what I think you call your ‘communications’ with our heavenly Father.”

When he said “il nostro Padre celeste,” present reality cleaved in the same way it had for me before, during enormous stress and in the presence of God.

I was looking directly at Pope Gregory and also looking down on the two of us from overhead. I saw the particles that I had only felt before. They were like flecks of gold floating away from me, swirling within a vortex around the pope and me like the fallen autumn leaves eddying around the feet of Bishop Reedy’s dappled horses.

God, are You here?

The resonance, almost like a voice, came to me.

Be with Gregory.

I was with the pope, seeing myself through his eyes. I saw my long, curling hair, my hazel eyes, and my mother’s heart-shaped face. I saw the details of my dress: the darts, the tucks, the stitches in the hem, the cutouts in the lace of my scarf.

My view swiped to the left and flowed past the centuries-old gold-framed painting of Jesus’s resurrection on the wall behind the pontiff. And then my view locked in.

I was back in my own body, looking at the pope in minute detail. But the most striking thing was, I saw that Pope Gregory was seeing me. He saw what I looked like, but also, I felt that he was reading my heart.

He asked, “Sei in presenza di Dio in questo momento?” Are you in God’s presence now?

I said, “Yes. I feel Him here.”

“Please describe this feeling.”

I had to tell him. At least, I had to try. I started out haltingly, but as I spoke, the words came out simply and truthfully.

“It is a feeling that I must call exalted, Your Holiness. I feel that God is with me and I am being directed by Him. I remain in place, and, simultaneously, I leave my body and can see things that don’t exist in stationary reality. I have an expanded awareness of myself, and of the moment, and of other people who are with me. Sometimes I am powerfully aware of people who have died, and I feel that they are aware of me-as if they were living.

“Right now, Your Holiness, I have an expanded awareness of you.”

“Do you feel a slight breeze?”

He waggled the fingers of his ring hand beside his face.

I swallowed hard and said, “Yes.”

He placed his hand over his heart. “Do you feel warm inside?”

“Yes, I do.”

The pope nodded and said, “I too. I see a very soft light around you. And I hear an intonation in here.” He touched his temple. “Be with Brigid.”

I gasped. I had never told anyone about the directives: Be with Colin. Be with James. Be with Gilly. I had told no one at all. And now Pope Gregory had said, “Be with Brigid.”

He was also with God, both of us were, together. I felt almost consumed with love for him.

I said, “Be with Gregory.”

His face crumpled with emotion. He crossed himself and kissed the plain cross he wore on a heavy chain around his neck. As I struggled to stay with Gregory, His Holiness said, “Will you pray with me?”

We prayed, the pope in his ornate armchair and flowing vestments, I in the more austere seat and black clothing, across from him. I folded my hands and kept my feet flat on the ground as the pope asked God for peace and unity in the world. A breath of air whispered through my clothes and hair and whirled around my ankles.

We said “amen” in unison, and just then, Gilly ran into the room, her shoes clattering on the polished floor, her face flushed with excitement.

The pope stood and reached out to her, and Gilly went directly to him and threw her arms around his waist. He gave her a hug she would never forget for the rest of her life.

She said, “Thank you for letting me see your wonderful home.”

The pope looked down at her fondly and said, “I love having you and your mother as my guests. God’s blessings on you both.”

Father Raphael took photos, and then the pope kissed the top of Gilly’s head and put his hand on my arm.

“Please keep me in your prayers,” he said. “Go safely with God.”

Chapter 113

THE CHURCH of the Sacred Heart was at the juncture of two narrow, winding cobblestoned streets. The street was choked by protesters and some who supported JMJ.

I was torn. I didn’t want to bring Gilly into this chaos, but, at the same time, it was Maundy Thursday. I felt compelled to go to this church that had received an unspecified but still credible threat.

“Gilly, stay in the car with Alberto, okay?”

“Not okay,” she said. “Mom. I’m coming, too. No one is going to hurt us. I’m sure of it. Besides, the pope has given us his protection.”

“Gilly, stay.”

“No.”

Giuseppe and Alberto, big men with guns, were still with us. They cleared the way as we waded into the constricted, crowd-filled Via di Santa Maria Maggiore. I was recognized immediately. There was just nothing subtle about my tall frame, my flame-red hair, and my mini-me, tripping along beside me. People gathered around us.

I squeezed outstretched hands and said “Buongiorno” and “God bless you” as our bodyguards urged us forward.

We entered the church, an architecturally perfect ninth-century basilica with Byzantine mosaics in the apse and granite columns forming the side aisles. Behind the high altar was a magnificent oil painting of the Crucifixion.

Gilly and I genuflected before the altar, and then Sacred Heart’s priest, Father Vincenzo Mastronicola, introduced himself.

I said, “Father, I only heard about the threat last night. I am so sorry.”

“Thank you for coming here to say Mass. So many people have come to receive Communion from you.”

Within a few minutes, the crowd on the street filled the church out to the walls. After I was introduced, I spoke to the congregation about how much it meant to me to be with them during Easter week.

I had just begun Mass when a cracking boom reverberated throughout the church. People screamed and hit the floor. I ran down to where Gilly sat in a front pew and covered her body as I had done at JMJ Millbrook when Lawrence House had pulled his gun.

As I crouched on the floor, waiting for bullets to puncture flesh and ricochet off stone, I feared for Gilly and for myself. Had we lived the full extent of our lives? Was this the meaning of the visions I had experienced in the presence of the pope and of God? Was I ready to die?

I felt no breeze, no vortex, no shifting of place or time. The creaking of rusted door hinges cut through the moans and frightened sobs. Giuseppe had come through the sacristy doorway into the transept.

He shouted, “Everyone! A bomb exploded on Via San Giovanni Gualberto. This exit is the safest way to leave the church.”

Giuseppe helped Gilly and me up from the floor and out the side door, saying, “A car will pick us up on the next street. We have to get you out of here before all traffic is detained.”

As the big man led us out, people touched me, kissed my scarf. Tears wet their cheeks.

I said, “God protect you,” but I thought, I’m Brigid. Just Brigid.

“Vai con Dio, Brigid,” Father Mastronicola called out to me. “Go with God.”

Chapter 114

ZACH WAS pacing near the curbside check-in at Alitalia. Once I was out of the car, he hugged me, hard, and he picked Gilly up into his arms. Zach and Giuseppe accompanied the two of us to the flight lounge, where we sat with our backs to the wall until our flight was called.

Both men walked us to the check-in desk, Zach saying, “I’m glad to say good-bye to you, Red. Do you hear me? I’m happy. Keep your head down, will you, please? Call me when you get home.”

The flight to Boston was scheduled to leave on time.

We stowed our luggage overhead and buckled in, and I noticed that my normally energetic Gilly was quiet and thoughtful.

“What are you thinking, peanut?”

“About the pope, Mommy. See if Father Raphael sent the pictures.”

I turned on my phone and saw that, yes, he had.

Actually, it was a little video of the pope hugging Gilly and putting his hand on my arm, asking me to pray for him.

“We should do that now,” Gilly said.

We prayed for Pope Gregory, and moments later, the plane sailed down the runway and lifted smoothly into the air. Once we’d reached cruising altitude, Gilly fell asleep. I pulled down the window shade and tipped my seat back. There was some chance I could sleep. If only.

But I couldn’t stop examining and replaying the remarkable events of the past thirty-six hours. We had slept in a hotel suite fit for royalty. We had survived an attack that may have been directed at the JMJ church.

Between those events, I had spent the most precious time with Pope Gregory XVII, who had astounded me with his-how else can I say it?-his holiness.

Be with Brigid.

I dropped off to sleep with the hum of engines in my ears, thoughts of Pope Gregory in my mind, and my beloved child sleeping peacefully beside me.

When I awoke, we had landed. Dawn was backlighting the wing tips, and my cell phone was buzzing in my pocket.

I had a text from Zach.

Brigid, he wrote. I’m sorry to tell you. Pope Gregory died in his sleep.

Chapter 115

THE PRESS was waiting for us when Gilly and I went through customs at Boston’s Logan Airport. Even from fifty yards away, I could see that the reporters were charged up, bordering on frenzied, and there were a lot of them.

I had a hope that they were on our side. I knew so many of these people from the morning press meetings I’d held on the front steps of the rectory at JMJ Millbrook.

But, still, the sight of the mass-media scrum was daunting.

I needed time to absorb that Pope Gregory had died in his sleep as memories of being with him just two days ago flashed through my mind. I had even more questions than before.

Why had the pope summoned me to the Vatican? To learn if I had a genuine connection to God? Did he know that he was going to die? Was he giving me a message when he asked me to pray with him and for him?

As the gang of reporters thundered toward us, I said to Gilly, “Stay close.” We had no bodyguards, and I didn’t see a hired driver with a sign bearing our name. Gilly and I were about to be mobbed.

I pushed Gilly awkwardly through the revolving doors and got into the next compartment as the reporters powered through the swinging doors beside us. When we were all on the sidewalk fronting the departure lane, Tonia Shoumatoff, a firebrand reporter and writer from the Millbrook Independent, came in close.

“Brigid. See this?”

She held up the front page of her paper. A quick glance showed a still shot from the video of Pope Gregory enclosing Gilly and me in his farewell embrace. The photo had to have been released by the Vatican. The headline read, POPE GREGORY MEETS WITH LOCAL WOMAN PRIEST.

Tonia made eye contact and spoke urgently. “Brigid, please say a few words about your meeting with the pope. What did you talk about? How did he seem to you?”

I said, “Tonia, and everyone, I just learned the news about fifteen minutes ago. I still can’t believe it. Pope Gregory looked fine when I saw him two days ago, just fine.”

My voice caught in my throat, and as the reporters, mics and cameras in hand, waited, I saw satellite trucks parked in the bus lane. This curbside interview was going live.

Randy Norman from the Times asked what we had spoken about, and I answered, “We talked about the meaning of God in our lives.”

More shouts: “Did he criticize JMJ?” “Where is he on woman priests?” “Did the pope give you any indication that there would be any progress in the Church’s positions on divorce and remarriage?”

I reached for Gilly, but she was no longer at my side. Where had she gone? Where was she?

“Gilly? Has anyone seen Gilly?”

I frantically searched the crowd-and then she poked through the ring of reporters, saying, “Our ride, Mommy. He’s right there.”

A man in livery was holding a card with my name on it over his head. I grabbed Gilly into a hug and kept her beside me as I apologized and worked my way through the thicket of reporters, out to the curb.

Our driver opened the door, and still the press mobbed us. Their faces were shining with emotion and passion and ambition. They shot endless photos and lobbed more questions.

I boosted Gilly into the backseat and followed her in, saying, “That’s all, everyone. We need to get home.”

We buckled up, and I locked the door.

“Ready,” I said to the driver. And he stepped on the gas.

After a long and jerky ride through morning rush-hour traffic, at last we were climbing the stoop to our home.

After James died, I handed the JMJ Millbrook keys to Bishop Reedy. A week later, Gilly, Birdie, and I moved back to my small brick house in Cambridge. By the congregation’s unanimous vote, I became pastor of St. Paul’s, the very church I’d attended with my mother as a child and where I had met James. St. Paul’s was now JMJ St. Paul’s, and to serve God in this, my lifelong church, was a many-layered happiness.

Now, I jiggled a key in the stubborn lock and opened the door fast, before we were spotted.

Birdie was at the church being minded by the deacon, and Gilly begged to go get her.

“She can wait, Gilly. Please.”

The milk in the fridge was still good after our three-day absence. I made cocoa for Gilly and myself, and we got into my bed, covering ourselves with a handmade quilt. I palmed the remote and turned on the TV news. It was all about the death of Pope Gregory. Millions were grieving around the world.

I was overcome with sadness and couldn’t help sobbing into my hands.

Gilly tried to comfort me, but she was crying, too.

We had only just met him, but we had loved him. And I was missing him as if I had known him my whole life.

I kept seeing myself through the pope’s eyes, seeing him in a many-dimensional view through mine, feeling God’s presence surrounding us. And then, he died.

What would happen now?

Chapter 116

I SLEPT in ragged snatches and woke up for real before sunrise on Easter Sunday.

Everything that had been in my mind overnight rushed back to me. I thought about the way Pope Gregory touched my arm and asked that I pray for him. My train of thought was derailed by the buzz of my phone. It was on my dresser, across the room.

It had to be a reporter, and that was an outrage. I kicked off the bedding, crossed the floor, and grabbed the phone.

It was Zach.

He had actually used the phone.

I croaked, “Zach. Where are you?”

“I’m in St. Peter’s with a couple million other people. Can you hear me okay?”

“Loud and clear.”

“There are always educated guesses and wild rumors, but never have there been rumors like this, Brigid. The cardinals are locked up until the vote is in, but there’s been a leak. Your name is being circulated in the College of Cardinals.”

“My name? What are you talking about?”

“Brigid, your name has come up as a candidate for pope.”

My legs went out from under me as if I’d been slammed behind the knees by a two-by-four, and I dropped to the floor in a state of stunned shock and denial. There was no way the church would want a woman pope. And I entirely lacked the background to qualify. This story was crazy, frightening, and I didn’t get it. I sat down hard at the foot of the bed, pressed Redial, and heard the ring tone.

Zach answered.

“Brigid,” he said.

“Wait. What you just said? It’s absurd. It’s some kind of bad joke.”

“You don’t understand, Brigid. Something is happening here in Rome. My sources are reliable.”

A tremendous roar came over the phone. The only thing that sounded even close was a game-winning homer at Fenway. This sounded ten times louder.

Zach shouted, “Brigid! I think news is breaking. Keep your phone with you and charged. I’ll call you.”

And the line went dead again.

I tried to blank out what Zach had said. I had to say Easter sunrise Mass in an hour. I had to get ready.

I went to wake Gilly, but she was already sitting up in bed with her iPad. She flashed the screen toward me. “Zach sent this clip.”

“Let me see.”

I sat next to Gilly and watched the images of a roiling mass of people within the confines of St. Peter’s Square.

“What’s happening?” Gilly asked. “It looks crazy.”

“St. Peter’s is always filled like that on Easter Sunday because the pope goes onto his balcony-somewhere in here-and gives a blessing.”

“But the Pope died.”

“That’s right. And now, there’s a vote going on in the Vatican to elect a new pope.”

“A new pope? Today?”

“Could happen. But sometimes it takes a few days for the cardinals to reach an agreement. Hey. Are you as hungry as I am? Five minutes until breakfast. And then we’ve got to hustle.

“Let’s go, Gilly. We have to beat the sun.”

Chapter 117

THE STREET outside our front steps had been closed to traffic and was jammed with people out to the very walls of the houses. The crowd was chanting my name, holding up babies to be kissed; their expressions were ecstatic, pleading, expectant.

“Brigid, is it true? Don’t forget us when you go to Rome.”

This was how I learned that the rumor in Rome had flashed across the “pond” and that I had become the flesh-and-blood manifestation of hope.

But I had no answers. I opened my mind to God, and I felt a slight breeze that moved around me so faintly, I couldn’t be sure that it was anything but the natural movement of air.

I looked out from my short stoop at the field of people who’d gathered to see me. For a moment, I was paralyzed, but Gilly loved this. Dressed in her second-best dress, blue and embroidered with daisies, and with a bandage over the cut on her hand, she thrilled to the attention. She waved from the top step and was rewarded by people calling out to her.

“Yo, Gilly, did you meet the pope?”

Gilly was still small enough to get trampled. I picked up my little girl, and she gripped her legs around my hips, tightened her arms around my neck. She was getting heavy, but once I had a good hold on her, I stepped down into the street.

Reporters assailed me with questions from all sides. One of them, Jason “Papa” Beans of the Boston Globe, was wearing a button on his jacket, the universal question Y in bold red on a yellow ground.

“Have you gotten the call from the Vatican?” Beans asked.

“Aww, Papa. It’s a rumor, nothing more. And that’s the really big scoop. Now, pleeease pardon me. I have to go to church. I have a Mass to say.”

“Bri-gid! Bri-gid!”

Beans did the gallant thing. He walked ahead of me, parting the crowd so that I could go through. Still, people threw flowers and grabbed at my sleeves and even my hem, and they blew kisses as we moved slowly up the block.

By the time we reached the entrance to St. Paul’s, thousands were funneling from the broader avenues down the narrow streets, toward the entrance to the church.

Only a small number of these people would fit inside, and as this became apparent, panic began. They all wanted to see me.

My vision started to blur. I was walking behind Beans through the crowd, and I could also see myself with Gilly and the restive mob from a great height. It reminded me of the view of St. Peter’s that Zach had sent Gilly this morning.

It was Jason Beans who brought me back to earth. Having cleared a path for me and Gilly right to the sacristy door, he shot his last, desperate questions at me.

“Brigid, has the Vatican contacted you? Have you been told that you’re in contention for pope?”

“No and no. Thanks for the escort. I’ll see you after Mass, Papa, I promise.”

I closed the sacristy’s street door behind me. As I caught my breath, Gilly embraced Birdie and fed her, and when I told her to go into the church, she said okay.

I opened the door to the nave, and Gilly scooted through. I watched her squeeze into the aisle seat in the front right pew, my seat for thirty years. I had been sitting exactly there when I met her father. It was Gilly’s seat now.

I looped my stole around my neck and looked out over the congregation. The air was supercharged with expectation, and I was pretty sure that the congregants were more interested in what had transpired in Rome than they were in St. Paul’s thoughts about the resurrection of Christ.

I would read the First Epistle to the Corinthians anyway.

I felt a draft at my feet and at my cheeks.

God, are You here?

I smiled at the congregation, and I began to speak.

Chapter 118

THAT WAS a pretty rough scene out on DeWolfe Street,” I said to the congregants. “But I’m glad we’re all together now on this momentous Easter Sunday. We have a lot to reflect upon and much to pray for.”

As I spoke, I felt that strange sensation of water drying on my skin, the same one I had first felt when climbing the imposing marble staircase in the Apostolic Palace.

Now, as then, I felt a soft breeze in my hair.

Could anyone see it?

I reined in these thoughts and focused on the faces before me. I knew, Be with them.

But something was going on inside me. I felt woozy and warm, maybe feverish. I rationalized that it was jet lag and stress, lack of food and sleep. Or maybe the channel between me and God was so flexible now from use, it had become like a window that could open at any time.

I anchored myself to the altar with both hands. I very much wanted to celebrate this sunrise Mass, and I didn’t think I could do that if I was both with the congregation and watching them from under St. Paul’s barrel-vaulted ceiling.

I was reaching for my next words when a commotion broke out, back in the shadows at the rear of the church. A bearded man jumped to his feet and called my name, demanding my attention.

“Look here, Brigid. Look at me.”

I looked, but I couldn’t make out his face. Did I know him? He walked up the aisle toward me, and when he reached the rail, he dropped to one knee and made the sign of the cross, smoothly slipping his hand inside his jacket. I was focused on his square, bearded face-it was the beard that threw me off. And then I got it: he was Lawrence House, the man who had threatened our family and who had likely burned down our church.

Gilly shouted “Mom!” from her seat in the front pew.

Her face was contorted with fear, but before I could react to her, I felt a punch to my shoulder. I dropped, reached out toward Gilly, and heard, as if from a distance, the second of two sharp cracking sounds.

I toppled backward, grabbing at the altar cloth, pulling it and everything on the altar down around me.

I fought hard to stay in the present. I tried to get to my feet, but I was powerless. The light dimmed around me. The screams faded. I was dropping down into a bottomless blackness, and I couldn’t break my fall.

Chapter 119

ZACHARY GRAHAM signed off from his call to the international desk at the Times and exited the media van. His cameraman, Bart Buell, was leaning against the hood.

“You ready?” Bart asked. “It’s starting to break.”

“Follow me,” Zach said.

They went back the way Zach had come, up Via della Conciliazione, cutting around St. Peter’s Square, waiting in line for the small elevator to discharge its half dozen passengers and for the next group in line to get in.

After five or six minutes, Zach and his cameraman were riding the creaking lift up fifty feet to the top of Bernini’s colonnade, with its full view of St. Peter’s Square and the backdrop of Vatican City.

The two men blocked out their shot, and while Buell erected the setup and tested the equipment, Zach went over his notes. When he felt good to go, he put on his shades and peered out into the blazing sunshine bouncing off the ancient cut stones of the venerable buildings and the extraordinarily beautiful dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The people in the square were in a spiritual frenzy. The millions moved as one, looking almost like a single-celled organism under a microscope. The sounds coming from the crowd, the shouting, praying, and keening, were like nothing Zach had ever heard before.

These people had wanted to see and be blessed by the beloved Pope Gregory. Now they were waiting to be blessed by his replacement.

Who would it be?

Would Brigid be elected the head of the Roman Catholic Church? If so, she would have powerful enemies inside the Vatican and without. Would she ever be safe?

Zach tried to make out the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel, at the far end of the square. When a conclusive vote was confirmed, the ballots would be burned, and the rising white smoke would signify that the Church had elected a new pope.

Zach asked his cameraman, “Do you see that?”

The cameraman was zooming in with his long telephoto lens when Zach’s phone buzzed. He slapped his shirt pocket and retrieved it. The caller ID read Brigid.

He pressed Receive.

“Brigid, I think I see smoke. I have to go on air right now. We may have a new pope. I’ll call you back…Who is this? Gilly? You’re breaking up, Gilly. Take a breath. Say it again. What’s wrong?”

The undulating rumble coming from St. Peter’s Square took on volume and pitch as the wisp of smoke thickened and rose in an unmistakable column. Cheers and weeping became a thundering roar.

Zach crouched down and pressed his phone hard against his ear.

“Gilly?”

“Zach!” the little girl cried. “It’s Mommy! My mommy was shot!”

Chapter 120

THE JUBA Line bus from Juba Airport to Magwi was the same bus I’d taken so many years ago. The chassis had been repatched and painted over, and the sign in the front window reading God Is Good had been replaced with a new sign, same message.

The people of South Sudan had little except their faith in God, but they still had that.

In contrast to the torrential rains that had been drowning Magwi when I’d last been here, this was drought season, and so the air was dry and the heat oppressive. Brown dust blew away from the wheels of the bus and swirled in golden vortices around the trunks of parched trees.

Gilly pulled at my arm as the bus slowed.

“Is that him? Is it, Mommy?”

Kwame’s old, brown junker was parked by the bus shelter. My grin was so wide, my cheeks hurt. I couldn’t wait to see him.

The hydraulic brakes squealed. I held Gilly back so that the men and women and children and chickens and the one goat could leave the bus. We stepped down to the ground, and finally I had to let my daughter go. She ran toward the old Dodge, and the driver’s door opened.

I couldn’t make sense of what I saw. The driver wasn’t Kwame. I gasped as I realized that the man wearing the panama hat, black pants, and black shirt with white collar was Father Delahanty, the priest I had met at Kind Hands. I had given him his last rites and heard his confession, even though I was a doctor at the time. I had been with him when he died.

I knew then that I was dead.

And Gilly?

Please, God, no.

I thought hard, desperately trying to remember the moment of my death. I kept walking, gripping my old leather bag, feeling the weight of Gilly’s backpack, strapped across my shoulders. When I got near the car, Father Delahanty reached out his arms to me.

“Ah, Brigid. I’ve been waiting to see you.”

I couldn’t say the same, but I hugged him. He was as substantial as ever. He smelled good. His eyes sparkled. He was so-alive.

I asked him, “Is this God’s plan for me, Father? The plan you were always rattling on about?”

“What do you think?” he asked me. He was grinning like a fool. “Brigid, get into the car. Do you know where we’re going?”

“I guess you’ll tell me.”

“You have a very dry sense of humor,” he said.

“And an enormous confusion about what the heck has happened.”

I got into the backseat with Gilly, and she turned her bright, always curious gaze to the countryside, the goats tied to trees, the meager shops lining the streets of the town. Beyond the town, the long dirt road cut through the open plains and over the dusty hills. It all looked solid and real.

I was hardly surprised when we pulled up to Magwi Clinic at sunset. The clinic was lit up from within, and I heard the loud hum of the generator. This had been a very good place for me. Perhaps Gilly could be happy here, too.

As I got out of the car and looked around, I took in the tent village under the red acacia trees outside the clinic, much bigger than it had been before. I heard babies crying and the braying of donkeys and saw a new structure beyond the tent city and opposite the clinic.

It was a church with the name Jesus Mary Joseph, Magwi, on a hand-painted board affixed to the siding. The doors were painted red, symbolizing the phrase To God through the blood of Christ.

My eyes welled up. Tears spilled over. And when I heard my name, I turned. I recognized her voice before I saw her, and there she was.

Sabeena, her hair wrapped in colorful fabric, was running down the steps from the clinic, and two tall girls were running right behind her. Sabeena, Jemilla, and Aziza all reached Gilly before they reached me, and they hugged her and danced her around as if she was a long-lost sister as well as my baby girl.

Sabeena screamed my name again, and when she got to me, she almost knocked me off my feet with her full-body hug.

“Oh, Brigid, I’ve missed you so much. Come inside. Albert has been cooking all day. Father Delahanty,” she called over my shoulder, “you come, too. Dinner is served.”

Were we all dead, living on a parallel plane alongside the living? I said, “Sabeena, I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry. You are off duty, doctor.”

I began the climb up the steps to the long porch, my mind racing in circles inside my skull, my arm around Sabeena’s waist. We had just reached the old screen door when a horrible racket cut through the night sounds of babies wailing, young girls laughing, insects chirping.

“Dr. Douglass. You are needed in room four forty-one. Dr. Douglass. You’re needed-”

And that was when my reality split.

God. Are You here?

I was standing on the the long porch of Magwi Clinic, Sabeena’s arm around my waist and mine around hers.

And at the same time, I watched myself lying in a hospital bed. My eyes were closed. There were tubes in my arms, and a doctor was sitting on the edge of my bed, saying and repeating my name.

Sabeena was saying, “We’ll take the night shift, Brigid. Just like old times.”

I stopped on the stairs and looked out past the JMJ church, the cross at the top of the steeple silhouetted against the cobalt-blue sky. I saw long lines of people streaming toward Magwi Clinic with baskets on their heads, babies in their arms, their bare feet stirring up the golden dust as they made their way down the road. I couldn’t see the end of the line. There were so many people, and there was so much to do.

The doctor sitting near my feet adjusted the valve on the IV line.

“Brigid. Dr. Fitzgerald. This is Dr. Douglass. Can you hear me?”

God. What should I do?

There was a vibration inside my mind, the hum that was almost a voice. You know.

I was so warm, I thought I had a fever. A hot wind came up and blew at my clothes.

I opened my eyes and gasped.

I hurt all over.

Chapter 121

I WAS in a hospital bed with needles in my arms and a cannula in my nose. I ripped that out and blinked.

“Okay. Good,” said the doctor. He looked to be in his sixties. The name tag on his white jacket read J. Douglass.

He asked, “How do you feel?”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

“That’s right,” said the doctor.

“Five. It hurts to breathe. What happened to me?”

“You took a couple of bullets, doctor. One passed through your left shoulder and your back and exited under your shoulder blade. The second bullet was a doozy.”

“New medical term?”

“Just coined.”

“You’re my surgeon?”

He nodded, told me to call him “Josh.”

“After you were shot in the arm, you dropped to your knees and put out your hand to stop the bullet. It didn’t stop. It went through your palm, traveled along your humerus, broke rib number three, missed your heart by a millimeter. After that, this misshapen lump of lead zigzagged as it hit several ribs and came to a stop at your right hip bone. Your major organs were spared. I call this both a doozy and a kind of miracle. I take it you pray.”

“I do.”

“Don’t stop. You came through the surgery beautifully. I’ve kept you moderately sedated in the ICU, and, although you’ve opened your eyes a few times, you didn’t want to wake up.

“I had you moved to this private room a couple of hours ago and turned down your Versed. I’m going to take a look at you, okay?”

Dr. Douglass examined me, and when he was finished looking at my wounds, listening to my heart and my lungs, flashing a light into my eyes, he said he’d be back in a few hours to check on me again.

Then he opened the curtain with a flourish.

He said, “Your friend has been waiting for you to come out of it.”

I stared around at the flowers around the room, enough of them to fill a flower shop. My quilt from home covered my bed, and there were balloons tied to the foot rail with a sparkly ribbon and a note reading Get Well, Mommy. The TV was on. I looked up. Baseball. Sox versus the Yankees. Fourth inning. Sox were up by two.

The TV went black.

That was when I saw Zach sitting in a chair against the window, backlit by sunshine coming through the glass. He had the remote control in hand and tears in his eyes.

“Welcome back, Brigid. You made it,” he said. “I knew you would.”

Chapter 122

IT WAS coming back to me. Easter Sunday. The bearded man in the back of the church shouting, Look here, Brigid. Look at me, followed by Gilly’s scream. Lawrence House had shot me.

“Zach, where’s Gilly? Is she all right?”

“She’s perfect. Congregants are fighting to take care of her, and she’s been here to see you every day and twice on Sunday.”

I let out a huge sigh. Then, “What happened to House?”

“Three guys slammed him to the ground before he could empty his gun. He’s in jail. No bond. He’s not going anywhere.”

“Thanks for being here, Zachary.”

“Of course.”

He reached over and squeezed my hand.

“How long have I been out?”

“A week. You breezed through the surgery. Well, this wasn’t your first rodeo, was it?”

I laughed. It hurt. “No jokes, please.”

Zach said, “Okay, no joke: I’m sorry to inform you, you’re not Pope Brigid the First.”

I couldn’t help laughing again. Pain racked my chest and shot through my right arm. Even my head hurt. When I finally got my breath, I told Zach that I could not adequately express my relief that his reliable sources were wrong.

“They were wrong. But you were right. The new pontiff is a Frenchman. A progressive. Bishop Jean-Claude Renault is now Pope John XXIV.

“And you’re going to love this,” Zach went on. “In Pope John’s first public speech to the world, he made a big announcement. He said, ‘I’ve long been aware of certain inequities.’ He was quite sincere.”

“Zach! What inequities?”

“He said he was inspired by Pope Gregory-and by a woman priest from America. You, Brigid. He said your name.”

Zach looked proud and a little choked up.

He pushed on, saying, “The pope believes that the Catholic Church should allow-no, he said ‘welcome.’…He said the Roman Catholic Church should welcome woman priests.”

“Nooo.”

“Yes. And Pope John believes that priests should be allowed to marry. That God would be glad for this. It would be très bon.”

“You’re not making this up?”

“I’ll send you the link to his speech. Okay, Brigid? Happy?”

“Very happy. It is sooo très bon.”

I must have fallen asleep.

When I opened my eyes, Gilly was sleeping under my good arm. I said, “Gillian. Gilly, are you awake?”

She cuddled in closer and made little kissing sounds. When I opened my eyes again, Gilly was gone. Dr. Douglass looked into my eyes, wrote on my chart. “How do you feel, Doctor?”

“Chest pain.”

“Your ribs?”

“Yesss. Will I be able to use my arm?”

I thought I heard him say, “Yes. You’re doing fine.”

Chapter 123

IT WAS morning when I came out of a drugged sleep again.

There were more cards and flowers in the room. The balloons were touching the ceiling, and the nurse who had changed my dressings said, “You’re healing well, Doctor. Your little girl said to say that she loves you to pieces.”

“Oh, thank you.”

She said, “I’ll be back to read you your cards in a little while,” and she drew back the curtain.

Zach was wearing different clothes, and he was back in the chair in front of the window. He had a box in his hands.

“I brought you a little something,” he said.

“Aw, you shouldn’t have.”

“Actually, yes, I should have. I’ll open it, okay? Stay right where you are.”

“Hah. Okay.”

Zach ripped through paper and cardboard and pulled out a thick sheaf of paper. He said, “This is the manuscript. You can go over this and mark it up to your heart’s content.”

He held it at an angle so that I could read the title page: Woman of God.

The words under the title were By Brigid Fitzgerald Aubrey, as told to Zachary Graham.

There was a slight shimmer in the air. I was no longer in pain, but I was surely in a hospital bed, looking at a manuscript for a book about my life. It had started with a boy telling me about his beloved grandmother, Joya, who had been murdered in South Sudan.

I thanked Zach. I lifted my hands and wiggled my fingers toward him. I said, “Hug, please, Zach. Gentle one.”

He leaned over me, bracing his arms on the side rails. I hugged him. I remembered sitting behind him on a red scooter in Rome, my arms around his waist, and our talks about this book while sitting on the rectory doorstep. Now, he was here, bringing this tremendous gift, hugging me gently with tears in his eyes.

I said, “Zach, Thank you so much.”

“No,” he said, releasing me from the hug, grinning like crazy. “Thank you. You really know how to give a book a good ending,” he said, waving his hand to take in the bed, the flowers, the vital-signs monitors, the photo on the side table of Pope Gregory embracing Gilly and me.

He sat back down and asked, “So, what’s next for you, Brigid? When you get out of here?”

I twiddled the edge of my quilt, drawing out the silence as flecks of gold wafted upward in the sunlight behind my dearest friend.

I thought about my first tour in South Sudan, twenty years ago. Those of us who had fought to be assigned to the hard duty at Kind Hands admitted to ourselves and each other that we were all running away from something. We just hadn’t known what it was.

Well, I had known. I had been running from my father and the void left by my mother’s death, and I wanted to practice good medicine for people who had nothing. Kind Hands had been more than a job. The work had called upon the best in me. It had been so fulfilling that even after nearly dying, I had gone back.

Since my first days in South Sudan, my life had taken so many unexpected, unpredictable turns. I thought of those beautiful and wrenching years in Berlin with Karl and the too-short time we’d had with Tre. I had looked for meaning in the Holy Land and, afterward, met my extraordinary James, who had brought love into my life again and Gilly into the world.

I had become a woman of the cloth and opened myself to the Lord. I was washed over with gratitude for that and was in awe at the sheer magnificence of God.

When I had asked God what to do, I had heard, You know.

And, at last, I did know.

I wanted to heal people as a doctor and serve God in His house. Both-body and soul.

I turned my head so that I could look at Zach and said, “I’m going back to Africa.”

“Wow, really?”

A soft breeze blew tears from the corners of my eyes. Red Sox fans cheered over a radio in the O.R., and a generator kept the lights on. Patients waited, and I knew what I was meant to do.

I was already halfway there.