Farewell to Lisbon

WE HUMANS are great planners. We think about how to manage our lives, and hopefully even pray about that. Then, considering what we feel is the best action and, hopefully, what the Lord seems to be asking, we make a decision. We follow through. We are on our way. Unfortunately, some people may disagree.

Consider newly canonized Carlo Acutis. A boy in Assisi, Italy, Carlo was enthralled with Saint Francis, who prayed in various churches and tended the poor. At the age of nine, Carlo began asking his parents for sleeping bags and food for street people. “Not leftovers, but what we eat,” he told his mother. He also had a strong disagreement with his mother when she wanted to buy him a second set of sneakers. He told her that one set was enough.

Carlo believed that the Eucharist was the focal point of our faith. Daily leaving his friends, Carlo would say, “I have to go and pray now,” and then make his way to a church to sit before the tabernacle. “Those who sit in the sun become tanned,” Carlo noted. “Those who sit before the Eucharist become saints!”

Carlo reasoned that, if people understood that the Eucharist was the Body and Blood of Christ, they’d be flocking to churches. So having taught himself computer languages, Carlo developed a website devoted to the Eucharist, along with other websites on Catholic matters. When his Brahmin “nanny” told Carlo not to work so hard, Carlo replied. “I have to work.” He had an intimation. “I will die young.”

Learning of Carlo’s Miracles of the Eucharist website, the Vatican made the website into an exhibition. Fifteen-year-old Carlo contracted an aggressive form of leukemia, and died in 2006 while the exhibit was making its debut.

Like Carlo, Fernando, the future Saint Anthony of Padua, had to put limits on interactions with others. About a year after he entered the Augustinian monastery in Lisbon, Fernando made an unpopular decision. Let’s imagine his decision and its repercussions.

Moving away

Brother Henrique, the monastery porter, hesitated before knocking at the closed door to Brother Fernando’s small, sparsely furnished cell. Like Henrique, Fernando was a new novice, recently clothed in the Augustinian white habit with black mantle, a garb that made the two young men look similar from behind. Novices had one day per week allotted to visitors. Fernando’s visitors took advantage of that.

Three times today, Fernando had been in the parlor. First his parents. They never missed visiting. Then Fernando’s cousin from Sintra, a merchant who frequently passed through Lisbon. “And who always stops to see you,” Henrique had said after the merchant’s third visit. Fernando had smiled. “We were boys together.”

Today an elderly, stooped woman also arrived; Henrique nicknamed her “the bag toting lady from Alfama.” Months previously Henrique had asked, “Is she a relative?”

“No.”

“So why is she here?”

“She’s looking for a kind word,” Fernando offered.

“Of course. And you give her that.”

“Everyone deserves God’s charity, Brother.”

“That includes you, Br. Fernando. You never take time for yourself.”

“Oh, I do.”

Henrique frowned. Maybe in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep.

Vespers at the monastery

Today a fourth visitor arrived. Stylishly dressed in embroidered purple surcoat and matching hose. The unfamiliar gentleman remained standing while Henrique left to summon Fernando.

Henrique knocked at Fernando’s cell. No answer. Second knock. Nothing. There were two other places where Fernando might be. One was the vast library.

Henrique made his way to Fernando’s second favorite room. Scattered about, monks were peering over volumes, but Henrique didn’t see Fernando’s expressive face among them. Softly closing the library door, Henrique made his way to Fernando’s favorite place, the chapel, now brightly lit by afternoon sunlight flooding through the narrow windows. There he was, in the front, kneeling.

Quietly, Henrique tapped the still figure’s shoulder. As Fernando turned, Henrique motioned for him to follow. Out in the corridor, Henrique pointed to the parlor. Fernando bowed and strode toward it. He won’t be long, Henrique thought.

Sure enough. Soon the first bell rang for Vespers. Henrique tapped at the parlor door. “Pardon, Senhor, but it’s time for prayer.” The man bowed and left wordlessly. Quickly, Henrique locked the monastery door. No more visitors today. If they hurried, he and Fernando would reach Vespers before the second bell.

Moses’ meekness

That evening, at recreation in the monastery courtyard, Henrique sat near Fernando. The sun dipping toward the horizon cast long shadows about them. “That Senhor who came to see you, who was he?”

“A friend of my father. He was telling him about me.”

“You didn’t know him?”

“No.”

Henrique was frustrated. “You’re like Moses!”

“Me? Like Moses?”

“You remember Father Paulo’s teaching in his Old Testament instruction?”

“You mean about everyone coming to Moses for advice, and his father-in-law telling him that he needed to acquire assistants?”

“Exactly.”

Fernando grinned. “I’m hardly as important as Moses. Or as busy.”

“One person can consume a great deal of time. How long were you with your cousin?”

Fernando ignored the question. “You know what it says about Moses in Numbers 12:3. ‘Moses was a man exceedingly meek, above all men that dwell upon earth.’”

How did Fernando remember these things? Henrique had no idea that such a passage existed in the Book of Numbers.

“Moses represents the meekness of patience and mercy. So maybe I do try to be like Moses.”

“Patience and mercy? Where is the mercy of these people? Don’t they know that you’re in a monastery?”

“The question is, ‘Don’t I know that I’m in a monastery?’”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Sometimes you baffle me.”

“It means that I’m petitioning the abbot to send me to our monastery in Coimbra.”

“Coimbra! That’s several days’ journey from here!”

Fernando smiled. “Exactly.”

Only Fernando would think of this. He loved prayer and study. However, he was too charitable to refuse visitors. So he would move several days’ journey away. Most would not travel that far.

How clever! How charitable! How effective! Then a realization came.

“I’m going to miss you,” Henrique confessed.

“And I – you.”

Two weeks later, Fernando was gone. The parlor bell rang. Fernando’s parents.

“He’s been moved to Coimbra,” Henrique told them.

Fernando’s father reddened. “How could the abbot? I demand to speak with him.”

When the abbot arrived, he explained. “We live a life of prayer, study and solitude. Fernando asked to go where he could thus live.” Although Henrique had closed the parlor door, he heard through it a shriek and an expletive. How many more times would he have a similar encounter until all of Fernando’s visitors knew?

Meditation

Have you ever made a decision unanticipated by others? What responses did you get?  Did you have a confrontation? How did you respond? If you had to relive this confrontation, what might you do differently? Does God seem to be calling you to make a difficult or unpopular decision? What is it, specifically? What reactions do you anticipate? How might you handle them?