by Mary Pearson
misbehaving?”
“Oh, not at all,” she said quickly. “Actually they’re with their father… on the altar… kind of stuck.”
Father Andrew walked from the front to the back of the pulpit with absolutely no reaction from the three Gonkers. He waved his hands in front of their faces, to no avail. Then he peered over their father’s shoulder to see where they were.” He drew in his breath and pursed his lips. “This could take awhile,” he said.
Richard Gonker was sitting on the ground, one arm around each of his older children. All three were dozing. They were in the home of the young apostle to whom Jesus had entrusted His mother. Mary was there, too, and two of the other women. Everyone was asleep, except for Mary. She was sitting upright, in a prayerful trance. Suddenly her eyes became focused and she was looking at him.
He realized he should say something. “Ma’am, I’m very sorry for your loss. If there is anything I can do…” The words seemed miserably inadequate as soon as they left his mouth, but she half-smiled and nodded her head, and he was flooded with warmth.
After awhile the children started to stir and when they were fully awake he drew them outside. It was a very quiet, cloudy day, one of those mournful ones where the sun never comes out at all. At home he might have spent such a day watching movies or reading a good book. Here there was no entertainment, other than sightseeing, which everyone was too somber to enjoy. The worst part was that he was hungry. He imagined the children were, too, and he knew he should be doing something about it.
That’s when Lily spoke up, “Are you hungry, Dad? I brought bread and water.” She opened the backpack he hadn’t noticed she was wearing.
“When did you get so sensible?” he said out loud, but not expecting an answer.
The bread and water helped. “So,” he faced his children. “I sure wish I had paid more attention to Bible stories when I was a kid. Assuming that Jesus will rise, exactly how long did He stay dead? Do you guys know?”
Lily’s eyes shifted a bit. “The Bible says three days…” At his look of concern she quickly added, “I think that just means part of three days. So one evening, one whole day, and part of one morning.”
Their dad sighed heavily. “Your mom is really gonna be mad at me.”
“Oh,” Logan shook his head, “back home it’s just minutes. They won’t think a thing of it.”
“So then,” Lily said, “if we’re here for 36 hours, there it will only be 36 minutes.”
“Is there anything else I should know?”
And they told him. They began with Bethlehem and worked their way through all of the trips they had previously taken. Then they spent the rest of the day taking a tour of Jerusalem. It was the kind of opportunity you never even dream of being able to do, but under the circumstances, and even knowing, as they did, that Jesus would rise again, they couldn’t fully enjoy it. Their lives had never felt so empty of Jesus. So empty of hope.
In the evening they sat around a campfire with some other inhabitants of Jerusalem. The conversation was subdued and they couldn’t understand what was being said anyway. Mary remained in the house, neither eating nor drinking, the whole time. She didn’t sleep either, but the Gonkers did, slumped against each other as on the previous night. They were awakened to a burst of light and Mary’s face, streaming with tears, but she appeared happy. Then the other women grabbed parcels and headed for the Tomb, the Gonkers in their wake.
When they arrived they found that the stone had been rolled away. Seeing this the women ran back to alert the apostles, but Richard stuck his head into the cave. The morning sunlight was shafting in and he was easily able to see there was no longer any body. In point of fact the linens were still tied at wrist and ankle and chin, but the cloth was lying flat on the shelf.
“Do you seek the dead among the living?” he heard a most beautiful voice. And when he turned around there was Jesus. As Jesus’ hands reached to bless each of his children, the last shreds of doubt disappeared from his mind, and he began to spin…
Easter
Richard Gonker became a full member of the church during the Easter Vigil Mass that year. He had been required to attend weekly meetings, but they no longer seemed arduous. He looked forward to attending Mass every week with his family. He didn’t remember going to Jerusalem with Logan and Lily, but he came to an instant and infused certainty that Jesus was real, Catholicism was true and he couldn’t wait to become Catholic like the rest of his family.
The kids still spent a lot of time at Cathedral. Logan and Lily became altar servers. They all went to Adoration, daily Mass, and even confession quite eagerly. Other people wondered why the Gonker children were so religious. But Father Andrew was never surprised about that, and he never felt sorry for the children, who still rarely got to play outside. He knew they were the luckiest kids in His parish.
