The village was old; no one remembered clearly when it had been founded, or by whom. But it was known to be older than many cities that are wealthy today. Matters of fate, of the routes of the railways, of economic networks: although it had never been populous, it was now dying.
People had been leaving for years, little by little. The children left for the city, and then the old folk left too, for the cities or for the hereafter. The village priest was old as well. But he neither left nor died. At one point a bishop wanted to transfer him, to rotate the clergy of the region a little, but the residents of that time asked that he stay, and so it was decided. Having long passed the age of retirement, he did not ask for it, nor did anyone in the curia remember.
The priest’s routine was exemplary. He prayed the Hours without fail, unhurriedly, and putting joy into it. The church was open, unlocked, as it had always been since he arrived. «How could one close the house of God?» he had said at the time. The Mass, holy from every angle, was offered each evening at dusk. But those attending dwindled and then disappeared as the years went by.
The Father began taking it to people’s homes; he celebrated beside the beds of the sick or in the homes of neighbours, and so managed to have some relative attend, so that the Word might, in some way, spread. When the time came that he could hardly walk, he began to celebrate alone. He never knew for certain whether he was by then the only inhabitant of the village.
With extremely limited mobility, he nonetheless remained healthy. He ate very little of what he had in the pantry and —a seminary habit from the war years— went on bathing in cold water every morning. It cannot be said how many years went by, but it can be said that the Mass was offered. Like night and day, the priest persisted. Neither did the hosts run out, nor did the wine diminish, nor was the ardour of divine love consummated in him extinguished.
The world did not know, and does not know, how many wars were averted and how many tears ceased through the daily sacrifice on the solitary one’s altar. It seems that one day Christ came, not only in the sacred species, and, embracing him tenderly, took him with Him.
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