by Gale Sears
“Do not read that!” Andrew croaked, his throat raw from his pleadings in the Beggar’s Chapel.
“No. I will just move it to the table.” When the items were deposited, Father Nathanael brought the chair closer to Andrew’s bed and sat down. “This writing has brought you great sadness.”
Andrew hesitated. “It was written by a Waldensian preacher—a Barba. It is a page of the Grand Inquisitor’s inhumanity against the Waldensian people.”
“Ah.” Father Nathanael sat in silence, tapping his fingertips together. Andrew figured he was formulating his thoughts, reasoning out an excuse for the atrocities. Finally, the words came. “At one time, you were a worldly man, correct?”
Andrew was surprised by this candid question. “I . . . I was. Yes.”
“You traveled to many places, met men of power and influence, studied philosophies, and analyzed systems of kingdoms and governments.”
“I did.”
“And were there flaws?”
Andrew thought of kings and princes who reveled in their tyranny; of men in government who, because of arrogance and avarice, twisted the law to their own benefit. Were there flaws? He looked at Father Nathanael straight on. “Yes, of course there were flaws.”
“But were the flaws in the system, or because of the imperfection of the men that created them?”
Andrew took a breath. “In imperfect man.”
Father Nathanael pressed his palms together and nodded. “Fallen man. It is my thinking that ever since we were sent out of the garden, we became men and women of the world. I like to say men and women of dirt.”
“It is a good image,” Andrew agreed.
“Subject to the devil. Subject to the flesh. And the devil makes us believe that the only way to get out of the mud is through power and money. And so, he beguiles the merchant, the soldier, the king, and even the priest.”
Father Andrew stared at the young priest as if seeing him for the first time. He was taken aback by the argument and saw clarity in the thinking. “So, while the tenets of Christ’s church were at first simple and sure, over time fallen man has changed them.”
“Not only changed them,” Father Nathanael attested, “but used the system to elevate his position and feed his avarice. That is the reason the princely priests could brook no dissension—because it threatened their power.”
“All the way back to Arius at the Council of Nicaea,” Andrew said.
“Yes, a good example. Arius was seen as a heretic for seeing Christ’s relationship with his Father differently than the council. A heretic for questioning the fallen religious philosophies.”
Father Andrew tapped his finger to his lips. “We sound like two heretics ourselves,” he said wryly. “We’d better hope that Father Pious is not listening at the door.”
Father Nathanael grinned. “We are never heretic against God. We are only heretic against falsehood and villainy.”
Father Andrew sat higher against his pillow. “Well, that is one way to get around it.”
Father Nathanael put his hand on Andrew’s arm. “I think you and I long for the simple faith.” Andrew nodded in agreement as Father Nathanael stood. “Perhaps it is why we both like the friar from Assisi.”
“Yes, the simple faith.”
“And now for soup and bread,” Father Nathanael said, moving to the door.
“Thank you,” Andrew said, his voice almost a whisper.
Father Nathanael turned back. “You asked me what I thought was the purpose of our calling. I will answer you in the words of Saint Francis. ‘We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.’” He glanced at the parchment. “Perhaps if we put our feet on that path, we will undo some of the injustice.”
“One would hope,” Andrew answered.
Father Nathanael left, closing the door behind him. Father Andrew stared at the rough-hewn door for several minutes, chiding himself for his own arrogance. It was his arrogance that had kept him from knowing this companion who had served him for two years, arrogance that had kept him from knowing of the young priest’s brilliant thoughts and tender heart. For all their time together, Andrew knew only bits and pieces of the man’s life and educated musings. Andrew had walked the halls of the monastery receiving honor and accolades from his peers while the humble man next to him was laying up treasures in heaven.
More words from Saint Francis came into his mind. Above all the grace and gifts that Christ gives to his loved ones is that of overcoming self. He thought of his friends Jean Cardon and John Malan, of their bitter heritage. He had helped them with their history, and afterwards the three had fallen into an easy friendship. But why? After decades of sharing life’s joys and vagaries, he still wondered why they had accepted him as a friend.
Father Andrew closed his eyes and saw the angel face of Madeleine Cardon in the glow of candlelight. He opened his eyes and leaned across to his side table, reaching, not for the parchment, but for his glasses and his Bible. He needed to find peace and a better path.
He had to laugh at himself. Eighty-one years old and still learning.
Notes
The record of torture of the Waldenese comes from an actual ancient document written in the mid–fifteen-hundreds. It documents the torture and murder inflicted on the Waldensian faithful who refused to recant their faith in front of the Grand Inquisitor Michele Ghislier (later Pope Pius V).
In June 2015, Pope Francis traveled to a Waldensian temple in Turino to ask Waldensian Christians to forgive the Catholic Church for “the non-Christian and even inhuman attitudes and behavior that we showed you.”
Saint Francis was born in either late 1181 or early 1182 in Assisi, Duchy of Spoleto, Holy Roman Empire, and died October 3, 1226, at the age of forty-four. He was the son of a wealthy silk merchant, and gave up the wealth and station of his youth after returning from a pilgrimage to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. He lived a life of poverty and service, gathering followers, and eventually establishing the Franciscan order of monks. Francis was a Catholic friar and preacher, but was never ordained to the Catholic priesthood. It is said that Saint Francis of Assisi was influenced by the teachings of Peter Waldo.
Chapter Three
The Cardon Borgata, Angrogna Valley
September 1848
Dreams—Madeleine Cardon was used to dreams. They slid through her sleep like the rivers from the mountainsides, at times tumbled and hard to decipher, at other times quiet pools where Madeleine saw the reflections of the everyday: her father fixing the slate of the roof, her mother carding wool, her studies at the Waldensian school. Infrequently the nighttime images would bend into frightful pictures and her stomach would twist and her heart would beat against her ribs.
In this present terror she was struggling up a steep, narrow trail on the rugged mountainside, men’s angry shouts echoing through the pine forest. Near. Very near. Her bare feet battered by the stones of the path. A flash of faces—women and children hiding in a cave, a fire lit at the entrance—smoke driving them into the swords and pikes of the soldiers. Snow. A winter path bloodied with small footprints. A shallow grave scraped into the hard dirt. A woman’s scream. Her scream.
“Madeleine!”
Her sister Louise’s voice. The grey blur of waking. Pressure on her shoulder. She opened her eyes onto darkness.
“Madeleine?”
A gulp of air. “Yes? Yes. I’m here. I’m fine.”
“Well, you weren’t fine. You were moaning and crying out in your sleep.”
Madeleine sat up in the bed she shared with her sibling. “I’m sorry. Bad dream.” She rubbed her face. “A bad dream about the torture of the Waldenese.”
Louise grunted, lying down, and turning her back on her sister. “You and your dreams. Your apology will not put me back to sleep.”
“Just because you never have bad dreams,” Madeleine mumbled.
“I hardly ever dream at all,” Louise answered, as though hers was the superior position.
“Would you like to hear what I—”
“No.”
Madeleine looked to the window, but saw no sign of a lightening sky. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Early. Papa isn’t even up yet. Go back to sleep.”
Madeleine lay down, afraid to close her eyes. She did not want to see the white snow and the small bloody footprints. She pondered the image. She did not remember being told a story of Waldensian children walking barefoot in the snow, though she was sure that within six hundred years of persecution, such an atrocity had played out many times.
Madeleine sighed and lay back against her pillow. Why had her people suffered hundreds of years of persecution for seeking the word of the Lord, for seeking the truth of Christ and His apostles? Why could a man or a woman not read the holy scriptures? Madeleine thought of the three-hundred-year-old family Bible hidden under her parents’ bed, and the story of the Waldensian Barba who crossed the high mountains from France to bring her people the books of scripture. The great-hearted evangelist had been imprisoned for selling the Bibles to the Waldensian people, and later, when he would not recant his heretical preaching, burned at the stake. Whenever Madeleine read the flowing French words of the holy book, she said a prayer for the valiant Barba. Normally these preachers traveled in pairs, but this one had come alone; just himself, his horse, and the word of God.
I would do that, Madeleine thought. I would cross mountains for the truth.
Drowsiness began to tug at her reluctance and she snuggled under the covers and closed her eyes. She steeled herself against images of faces in a cave, of women and children being massacred, but those pictures did not come; instead she saw herself sitting in a beautiful meadow reading a small book of scriptures. Madeleine smiled. It was the vision from her youth, and her vision always brought a calm assurance of God’s love. Surrounded by warmth, she drifted back to sleep.
“A little less flour,” her mother instructed, and Madeleine immediately tempered the amount. Marthe Marie Tourn Cardon was known in the village for her cooking skill, and her barley bread was especially admired. They would do twelve rounds of bread today. As Madeleine kneaded the dough, she looked over to the corner of the kitchen at the hanging wooden rack. She was glad for the six loaves cooling there; only a few more hours and they’d be done with this task. A breeze blew the lace curtains in, and Madeleine caught a glimpse of the forested mountainside. How she would love to secure her knapsack and sneak off for a day of exploring.
“You are quiet today,” her mother said, bringing a hot round to the cooling rack. She set the wooden paddle beside the table and came to her daughter’s side. “Are you tired?”
“A little.”
“Did you wake early?”
“No. I slept until I heard you putting wood in the bread oven.”
“Well, then?” her mother pressed, scooping barley flour into the large bowl.
“I had a bad dream last night. A dream of the women and children in the cave.” Marthe Cardon stared absently at the flour in the bowl as Madeleine continued. “And men were chasing me through the forest, and there was snow and blood.” She stopped abruptly. “Because of the dream, I am doing a lot of thinking this morning.”
Her mother put salt in the palm of her hand and tipped it into the flour. “I am sorry for such a bad dream. It seems the memory of persecution lives in our blood.”
Madeleine nodded. “But then my vision came to me, and I felt calm and happy.”
Her mother looked at her in surprise. “I haven’t heard you speak of your vision for several years.”
“That’s because it usually comes to me in bits and pieces. But last night I saw the whole thing again.”
“And it was the same as the first time?”
“Yes. I always remember every detail, even though I was only six the first time the images came to me.”
“Only six,” her mother said wistfully. She looked at Madeleine and smiled. “I would like to hear it again. Tell me.”
“The vision?”
“Yes. Tell me.”
Madeleine finished forming her bread round and set it aside to rise. She wiped her hands and sat down at the table. “I was upstairs in bed when this strange feeling came over me. I was only six, but it appeared that I was a young woman instead of a mere child. I thought I was in the meadow close to the vineyard, keeping father’s milk cows away from the grapes. I was sitting on a small strip of grass reading a Sunday school book. I looked up and saw three strangers in front of me. As I looked into their faces, I dropped my eyes instantly, being very frightened. Suddenly the thought came to me that I must look at them—that I might remember them in the future. I raised my eyes and looked them straight in the face. One of them saw that I was afraid and said, ‘Fear not, for we are servants of God and have come from afar to preach unto the world the everlasting gospel.’”
Marthe Cardon reached over and laid a floury hand on her daughter’s. “It is the same story you told when you were little, only now you tell it in the words of a young woman.”
“The images have not faded over the years.”
“Remarkable,” her mother said in a whisper. “So, go on.”
“The man told me that the gospel had been restored to the earth in these last days, for the redemption of mankind—that God had spoken from the heavens and had revealed His everlasting gospel to a young boy.”
“A young boy,” her mother interrupted. “We still have no idea what that means.”
Madeleine shook her head. “No idea. But I do remember the evangelist saying that the Lord’s kingdom would be set up and that all the honest in heart would be gathered together.”
Her mother nodded. “And that you would be the means of bringing your family into this great gathering.”
“Yes. If those words seem strange to me now, just think of what I felt when I was six.”
Her mother shook her head. “I cannot imagine.” She poured warm milk into the flour and began mixing it with her hands. “There was more about our family.”
“Yes. He said the day was not far off when we would leave our homes and cross the great ocean. We would travel across the wilderness and go to a place where we could serve God according to the dictates of our conscience.” She took a deep breath. “When they had finished their message to me they said they would return soon and visit us. They took some small books from their pockets and gave them to me, saying, ‘Read these and learn.’ They disappeared instantly.”
“Eight years ago,” her mother said slowly. “Yes. I also remember the morning of the dream. I was cooking breakfast when you came stumbling down the stairs, clutching your clothes in your arms. You looked pale and sick.”
“The dream frightened me so much that I could not speak.”
“Of course. You were a little child. You didn’t know what to make of such a thing.”
Madeleine stood and dusted her hands with flour. She scooped up the sticky dough her mother had just dumped from the bowl and began kneading the mass. There was an ease to her voice when she spoke. “It frightened me then, but now when the pictures come to me, there is peace.”
Her father came into the house at that moment carrying wood for the stove. “Not finished with the bread yet? I could have built a house in the same time.”
Madeleine’s mother grunted. “Huh! Empty boast.”
Philippe Cardon stacked the wood. “Women. I suppose it has been all talk, talk, talk.”
Madeleine threw flour onto the mound and continued working the dough. “Well, here is the thing; women can talk and work at the same time.”
Her father turned slowly and gave his daughter an even look. “Well, I suppose since you are only spea
king nonsense, it doesn’t interfere.”
Madeleine snorted with laughter and her mother scolded. “Shame on the two of you. Do not bring a foolish spirit into the house.” She wagged her finger at both of them. “Besides, we were talking about important matters.”
Philippe Cardon went to the bread rack and inhaled deeply. “Ah, yes?” He tore off a piece of a warm, crusty round and snuck it into his mouth.
Madeleine saw her mother press her lips together to hide a grin. “Yes, important matters.”
He turned to them. “What then?”
“Madeleine’s vision of the three evangelists.”
Philippe looked over at his daughter. “You haven’t spoken of that for many years.”
“Last night the whole thing returned clearly to my mind.” She set the formed dough on the sideboard to rise near the warm oven. “I wish I knew what the dream meant. Perhaps now that the king has given us some freedom, the Barbas will return to their traveling and preaching. Perhaps that is what it means.”
“Perhaps,” her father said, “but wasn’t there something about our family gathering with these preachers and crossing an ocean?”
“Yes. I don’t know what that means, or the part about the young boy.”
Her mother measured out flour. “Yes. I don’t know what that means either.”
Philippe tore a larger chunk of bread. “Well, we could spend the day trying to figure this out, or we could get on with the work we need to do before the sun ages.”
“Taskmaster,” Madeleine said with a half grin. She moved to the bread rack and took off the top round.
Her father brightened. “Are you making me bread and cheese to take to the field?”
“No, I’m taking this to my friend Albertina. The guests at their inn will have a treat for dinner.”
“The guests will have a treat, but what about your father?”
Madeleine took down the mangled round. “Oh, don’t look so sad. I will cut you some slices.”
“There’s a good daughter,” he said, continuing to stack wood.
