Quest of Hope(170)

Vincenzo, of course, was surely a poor model. Content to mutter his liturgy and slump about his chambers, the man had little business crushing reeds already bruised. No longer a zealot who simply misused the faith, he had become indifferent to the pursuit of truth altogether.

“Give no more heed to Don Vincenzo … or Father Arturo for that matter,” pleaded Anoush. She now admitted a deep and secret heartache long denied. “They suffer a worse terror than you. They are miserable, cruel men who serve a meaningless god. They are men of religion and not of faith.”

Poor Anoush was exasperated with Heinrich. She pleaded and consoled, admonished and instructed. She urged the man to abandon his penance and save his life. She urged him to listen to the counsel of songbirds instead of priests, and to hear the wind whispering for change. But, alas, January had passed and February was upon them. The songbirds were silent and the winds blew damp and cold. She could do no more than help the stubborn sufferer to his bed and weep for him in the dark of night.





Chapter 24



ANFECHTUNG AND PURPOSE





He is being called the ‘Worm of Santa Maria’s! ‘” Father Vincenzo laughed. “I think the name is good. Look at the fool.”

Sister Anoush laid a hard eye on her superior. “This ‘worm’ is an uncommon man, Pater. He has taken your ways deep within himself… far to excess, perhaps to their natural end.” She doubted that Vincenzo had the courage to do the same.

“Ah, the ways,” scoffed Vincenzo. “The blessed ways.”

Anoush helped Heinrich to his feet after he crawled the final few rods to the church door. It was a cold night, the sixth of February in 1212. Though it was three hours past midnight, the priests and nuns were gathering for prayer to begin the Great Lent. “Dear boy, dear boy,” groaned Anoush. “You must end this penance before you die. I hear you in the night, wheezing and coughing.” She held a smoky torch over her head. “And I see you’ve lost more teeth.”

Heinrich could say little. He was weak and desperate, obsessed with purging every vestige of comfort or island of strength that might yet be found within. Even glimmers of hope needed to be extinguished, for he imagined the very sense of any good thing was undeserved. Each night’s painful crawl to the Holy Stairs was a tortuous punishment, yet with every sharp edge that cut into his belly the man felt relief. Even his relief, however, caused him shame, for he was certain that such odd pleasure was, itself, a joy that voided the very purpose of his penance.

Anoush led the trembling wretch toward his cot. “Tantatio tristitae!” she whispered. “Beware the temptation to despair. You are not without hope, my son.” Heinrich groaned and stared up at the sad brown eyes of the bent-backed saint. “You don’t understand, sister. I must lose all hope. Hope brings joy.”

On the morning that followed, Heinrich stood on trembling legs at first-meal and tore his rye in two. “Through this Lent I, too, shall deny m’self. Until Holy Saturday I eat half and share the rest with these poor.” Those gathered simply stared.

The man’s decision was another one rooted in deception. He believed his beaten, ravaged body was little more than the prison of his spirit; as if his outward shell was an unjoined appendage, a lesser thing, an unworthy annoyance to be abused and neglected… like the reeve’s dog. But the man, like all men, was a whole. His body, though long-suffering, would not allow such inane abuse—and it finally rebelled. On the night of Holy Thursday, in the third week of March, the “Worm of Santa Maria’s” lay unconscious on the seventh step of the Scala Santa.

The night guards of the pope’s palace knew the man well and sent a messenger to the church. Sister Anoush, of course, was the first to react. She yanked a big novice from his bed, harnessed the horse to its cart, and prodded the beast to hurry. She then marched up the Holy Stairs with her novice in tow, sharply dismissing all demands they climb on their knees. She laid a kind hand on Heinrich’s sweated brow as the novice lifted him.

Heinrich was delivered to his bed midst the loud complaints of Fathers Vincenzo, Arturo, and Florian. They were in no mood for this. Their own Lenten fasts made them irritable under the best of conditions, and now they were rousted from a good night’s sleep to carry this foul-smelling Teuton to his stale cot. “No more!” growled Vincenzo. “I wash my hands of him!”

Heinrich awakened somewhere in the afternoon hours of Holy Saturday. He had been bathed and dressed in clean linens by Anoush, who had also trimmed his hair and beard. He was sallow and sweated, too weak to even mutter a word, but when he heard another ringing the bells of nones he knew his mighty penance had failed.