Father Briar and The Angel

by Rita Saladano

  There was real comfort in the ancient words, the endings were rhythmic and lilting, their cadences repetitive and trance-like. There was a little hidden menace in them, too. Anything you don’t understand can mean whatever you want it to, manifesting your desires and your fears equally. She often wondered if the priests were cussing at her, secretly, or gossiping amongst themselves about which of the parishioners was most sinful and which ones the most reverent and godly.

  Julianna inherited so much of her mother’s attractiveness. They had the same wide, round eyes that gave them a perpetual look of joyful surprise. Their hair curled in the same coy way, in soft rivulets and graceful curves, down around their swan-like necks and onto their shoulders. When they wore it up it was equally elegant, showcasing their high and intelligent foreheads and dimpled temples.

  While the family rarely had money to spare, Angeline was crafty with a needle and thread and was able to stitch and stretch them into fashionable, if conservative, clothes. Busty and tall, Julianna wore them well and was popular with the boys. Popular but untouchable, their old-school Catholicism saw to that.

  “I’m proud, too; I am just worried something bad is going to happen to you,” she’d fussed over her daughter the evening before she left for training school.

  That was understandable. It was wartime, and there were constant rumors about Japanese submarines being sighted off shore, of scout planes and long-range bombers bearing the rising sun of the Imperial Flag on their wings, of foreign spies posing as fishermen with plans to bomb the port.

  “Oh, mom,” she’d shushed, “I’m not going overseas! I’ll be just down the road, really.”

  And so in March of 1944, she packed up and went to the Women’s Auxiliary Corps training center in Spokane, Washington, farther away from home than she’d ever been, but closer to her destiny.

  The WAC girls were first trained in three major specialties.

  Young women who’d tested in as the brightest and nimblest were trained as switchboard operators. Switchboards and the telephones they controlled were becoming indispensible to modern life in general and the war effort specifically.

  Next came the mechanics, who had to have a high degree of mechanical aptitude and problem solving ability. Julianna had been classified as a mechanic and she threw herself into her job with typical enthusiasm.

  Last were the bakers, poor girls who had difficulty with reading and numbers. This was later, as America’s appetite for war remained un-satiated and its endless list of enemies unconquered, expanded to dozens of specialties like Postal Clerk, Driver, Stenographer, and Clerk-Typist. These workers were sometimes stereotyped as dumb or lazy by their fellow WACs, but Julianna Warwidge, good girl, was careful never to indulge in such nasty gossip.

  She’d gossip about other things, sure! She loved the movies and the magazines that covered them. Her father had been a voracious reader of pulp magazines and she picked those up whenever she saw them, too, although due to rationing, paper was sometimes scarce or expensive. But she’d keep up with the screen idols and chat about their romantic (mis)adventures with the machinists and her fellow WAC mechanics.

  Although it sometimes sounds, if not idyllic, at least egalitarian, that is true, to a degree. But these were remarkably different times; different even from 1954. The war had ushered in so many changes and the role of women in the workplace was just one of them. About 150,000 American women eventually served in the WAC during World War II. They were the first women other than nurses to serve with the Army. Julianna was always proud of that fact.

  While most women, like Julianna, served stateside, some went to various places around the world. She was sometimes jealous of these girls, but not often. They got to go to interesting and exciting places, including Europe and North Africa, and some girls even landed on Normandy Beach just a few weeks after the initial invasion!

  But Julianna was content there in Seattle, and like all Americans, happy when the war ended. And like a lot of female Americans, she was ready to find a man!

  So many of the boys had been away, been overseas, and been gone so long, so many of them were ready, randy, and pent-up, and so many of them were single and unattached to anything for the first time in years.

  Cedric Briar wasn’t one of those men.

  He was committed to his Order.

  Chapter Two: On the Origins of Small Things Like Great Men.

  Ignore the white clerical collar; it didn’t stop him from being a man.

  Cedric Briar was a handsome man in the Great American sort of way, conventional, dignified, and enduring. His hair was brown and wavy, the kind that would’ve been called “unruly” had he let it grow even a fraction of an inch too long, which, being both a Jesuit and a Navy man, he never, ever, ever did.

  Father Briar filled out both uniforms like the tailor intended, like a man ought to, like the ladies liked. His chest was broad and although it lost definition over the years, he was never out of shape; instead of fat, he tended towards thickness, even in his happy and well-fed later years.

  He was gentle with babies and old women. He was quick with a sports analogy with the men, a commiseration about “this miserable weather,” with the farmers, and somehow even the teenagers found him funny.

  Cedric Briar had been born the fourth of six children in a family as duty bound to God and Country as any America family has ever been.

  The brood of kids consisted of Catherine, whom everybody called Kay as a child, later she became Sister Catherine. Next came Margaret (Maggie) who was slow to develop, both mentally and physically, and lived at home for the bulk of her life. She was followed by the family’s first son, John, who became Captain Jake and was killed in action in Guadalcanal. Then came Joan, who was Sister Joan from the time she was eighteen years old, and Cedric, who became Father Briar.

  Cedric Briar’s heritage was a reflection of the American Immigrant’s Experience. His maternal grandparents had come as children from Cork Co. Ireland, and their daughter and Cedric’s mother Mary, still spoke with an Irish brogue so thick her children often struggled to understand her.

  Mary was the defining force in Cedric’s life. A large, redheaded woman of indomitable will and a devotion to community almost as strong, she shepherded her brood through childhood and into lives of obligation and duty and still managed to have a few laughs along the way.

  Cedric was a typical lad in a typical, big Catholic family in pre-Depression and Depression era America. He loved playing with his siblings, especially the doomed and rowdy John. They invented all manner of games to keep themselves occupied, one or two of which didn’t even involve punching. Apples were his favorite food and he’d sneak them from the neighbor’s trees whenever they were ripe in the autumn. He also loved popcorn and corn on the cob, which he considered to be as close as he and his brother John.

  The family was poor, even before the Depression, but somehow never went hungry. Later in life, Father Briar would attribute this to their deep ties with the Church. Educated by Jesuits from the time he could walk, Cedric and the rest of the Briar lot spent a great deal of time at school and there was always food around, scavenged and cooked by charitable and caring nuns.

  “There were potatoes. Sliced so thin as to be almost translucent,” he’d later tell Julianna, “but still, potatoes. For us Irish, that was necessary. For some reason, I remember there being an abundance of carrots and that Maggie’s pee turned orange one winter month from eating so many of them. Could that be real, could that be true? Or is my memory playing fun little games with my childhood?”

  Although his upbringing was scholastic, his rough and tumble siblings ensured that he had physical intelligence and toughness as well. He grew up tall and hit puberty early; his chest broadened and his voice deepened. He started beating John, three years his senior, at their constant punch-ups. By the time he was twelve, it was clear he’d be an athletic star at Central Catholic High.

  And that he was, playing quarterback and middle linebacke
r. Already hugely attractive to girls because of his light Irish brogue, excellent morals, and early manliness, his athletic accomplishments made him irresistible. But Cedric was a good boy, and even after he’d quarterbacked his team to a 9-1 record as a senior, he never did much more than kissing.

  There was never any question of a steady girlfriend or college athletic scholarships, he was going to concentrate on his studies at Creighton University and enter the seminary after that.

  The Catholic Church that Cedric had been baptized into shortly after his birth and the one that he found upon her ordination into the priesthood were fundamentally different institutions.

  The growth of the American Catholic Church in terms of membership, as well as its slow but genuine acceptance and assimilation into the culture had given it much more influence.

  Cedric’s time at Creighton was focused on classics; Latin, both ancient and medieval, Greek both classical and modern, Hebrew, with a smattering of Coptic and Aramaic thrown in.

  His time in the seminary was interrupted. He was about halfway through the long process of ordination in 1941 and was happily contemplating his future. A small parish church in a small Midwestern town, maybe a dog.

  But, of course, Hitler and Tojo had other plans.

  Like his brother John, who by now everybody was calling “Captain Jake,” although he’d not officially earned that rank yet, Cedric enlisted. Jake went into the Army, Cedric the Navy.

  He had what soldiers and sailors call “a good war,” if a little dull. The best war is the war in which you don’t get killed. Jake wasn’t so lucky. He’d been a fighting soldier.

  “Heck,” Cedric had to admit to Julianna later, when they’d reminisce about their families, “he’d been a fighter since we were kids.” He died a hero’s death (aren’t they all?) on Guadalcanal.

  Due to his intense Catholicism, future priestly calling, and Jesuit education, Cedric had assumed many of the duties of the destroyer’s chaplain. The man had been a drunk and a terrible minister, whereas Cedric had already acquired a priest’s humble touch, inspiring courage, and quiet, resolute faith. So while he’d officially been trained as a JOB, he’d taken over the role of counselor, confidante, and Christian companion to the sailors on board.

  After the war, he returned to Nebraska, to Creighton, to complete his training as a Jesuit. Before the war, he’d finished his time as a novitiate, which had taken two years of study.

  A novice learns to create a community of brothers who grow in prayer, knowledge of the Society, apostolic work, and personal enrichment. He meets the Lord through the 30-day Spiritual Exercises retreat. At the end of these two years, he pronounces vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

  Throughout the war, he’d upheld his vow of chastity. This made him nearly unique among sailors. So he had a clean and clear conscience as he resumed what were called his “First Studies.” This had taken three years.

  During this time, the newly-vowed Jesuit moved into his academic work as a brother or a scholastic. Cedric had stayed close to home, teaching at Creighton first, then at a Catholic high school in Minneapolis, his first exposure to Minnesota. He studied philosophy and theology, and he deepens his Jesuit identity through other ministerial work which strengthens or challenges his gifts.

  From there, he moved into his period of “Regency” and continued teaching around the Midwest, and at the very end of those years he moved to Spokane.

  He then did the deep and profound study required for the ministry in his period of “Theology.” During this time, he moved to Spokane to work at a parish church there as a way to enhance his effectiveness for ministry.

  There he was ordained in June of 1952. His mother wept with pride and joy.

  Then came the most difficult challenge of his young life; the war notwithstanding. He fell in love with, and was separated from, Julianna.

  Julianna was magic.

  The first time he saw her, she was standing in a field, far away from any houses or buildings, open, alone, alluring.

  She was a portal to the future. She was ageless and timeless and now. He didn’t know it, but his vows crumbled right then and there. Not all of them, but the ones involving celibacy and putting God above all other worldly and physical desires.

  Father Cedric Briar, Jesuit, never wavered from his duty to his God and his congregation. Not for the forty years he served, humbly and happily. But she became his heart.

  What a name. Julianna Warwidge. “Have you ever heard anything so alluring?” he marveled to himself. “So utilitarian, so unassuming, so straightforward.

  Even her nomenclature attracted him!

  How silly he felt, staring at her there, standing in the pasture. Some fool had though it a great idea to try to import buffalo to the great Northwest.

  “A magnificent substitute for boring old cows!” he’d declared. “Their meat is mighty tasty and cheaper by the pound, too. I’m going to make a killing!” the rancher had thought. But it was the buffalo who’d done the killing, rampaging through the flimsy fence the wannabe cowboy had made for them and trampled Mrs. McGuillicuty’s chickens as they slept in their coop.

  That isn’t quite the tragedy it first appears, their deaths were instantaneous and utterly painless. A half dozen chickens vs. three hundred thousand pounds of rampaging buffalo isn’t much of a matchup. Plus, McGuillicuty was known for breeding particularly ill-tempered roosters and their hens were doubly vicious just to keep them in line.

  No, the broken fence and smashed coop and the empty pasture were no tragedy at all, because Julianna Warwidge was slowly making her way across them to the little church he was sitting in, sipping a glass of wine and enjoying both the golden rays of sunset and the Songs of Solomon.

  Like him, she was new to Spokane, the town in which they’d first met. Like him, she’d done her service and was now taking advantage of the new stability and new wealth peacetime had brought. Like him, she was full of desire for something new and exciting after the years of depravation during the war.

  She looked there, amongst the stubbly grass, like she was born to it.

  Like she ruled it.

  He’d seen wild animals with that same sort of poise and composure. Although her dress and hair were prim and conservative, there was certainly something wild about her.

  Later, in letters lovingly preserved by the family, he’d struggle to describe her beauty and the feelings she inspired within him. Variously, he would describe her as a lynx, a fox, a queen elk, a gazelle, a chipmunk (which wounded her a little bit but he found both adorable and highly flattering) and a doe.

  That morning, though, he didn’t know how to describe her, other than simply beautiful. She was doing nothing but enjoying the view but she may as well have been dancing nude around a brass pole, so aroused was he. When she started making her way towards the church, he had to still and steady himself.

  “Are you Father Briar?” she’d asked, after finally making her way over. “I’ve heard there is a new pastor here in this parish and I’m new, too. So I wanted to come over and introduce myself. I’m Julianna.”

  “Yes, ma’am, the outgoing father told me. I’ve seen you in the registry.”

  Beauty like hers stood out.

  She wasn’t entirely new to the congregation, like he was. Julianna had been away for a month, the month while he was transitioning into his role at this church, St. Matthew’s. She still did work two months a year with the WAC and had been away in Seattle during his first masses.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, and it’s so nice you are active in the church. Without the strength of the parishioners, a church cannot function.”

  They drifted into small talk and coffee. He’d put the wine and the writings of King Solomon away, they were notoriously lusty songs and poems and he didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about him.

  They sipped weak church coffee and talked about their recent past. They caught up on each other’s service during the war years which was only
natural, this was 1951 and it still dominated people’s living memory. He liked that she’d done her time as a nurse’s aide, like many women; she loved a man in a uniform.

  Did clerical robes count as a uniform? They certainly must’ve, because her attraction to him was instant, and so forbidden. How silly she felt, developing a crush in less than an hour. On a priest, of all people; her priest!

  He told stories of his time at sea, told them modestly and without mention of his own valor. “A humble priest on a humble boat,” was how he described his time. She talked about helping wounded soldiers return to health, crying over the ones they lost and smiling with pride at the ones they saved.

  Soon the hour was late; well, not late, but improper for a priest and a single woman. Were somebody to see them there together, both attractive, both fit, both young and ready to inherit the good fortune of post-war America, well, that would give the wrong impression.

  Even upon their first meeting, they had to be cautious.

  From word one, she’d transfixed him. And, as he well knew, in the beginning, there was nothing but the word, and the word was, as he’d heard the teenagers say, cool.

  From the beginning, she was cool.

  Even before he knew what the word meant (he was still pretty unsure about it, honestly, and had misused it a half-dozen times during his youth group meetings over the last month), he knew she was cool.

  Their attraction was immediate and otherworldly.

  This was the word he kept coming back to, over and over again, “supernatural.” He couldn’t think of another word; he had been trained to deal with Earthly matters, and moreover, he’d had a rigorous education in all things Heavenly.

  But this love for this woman? This was so far out of his realms of experience he felt as though it had to come from somewhere else.

  They’d yet to make love when he was assigned to the church in Brannaska, halfway across the continent from her in Spokane. Their celibacy was not because they hadn’t wanted to make love. No, they’d both wanted to desperately, but they’d not yet mustered the courage to match their desire.