In the story a Catholic man, while discussing religion with the agnostic narrator, recounts his youth as an altar boy when the village atheist, a baker named Blacker, tried to bribe his ten-year-old self into providing a consecrated Host.
Greene captures in his art the qualities, or lack thereof, possessed by the vehement atheist. See his familiar-sounding description of Blacker:
"There was much more hate than love, poor man, in his make-up. Can you hate something you don't believe in? And yet he called himself a free-thinker. What an impossible paradox, to be free and to be so obsessed."
Even Blacker's words prefigure Myers' own:
"'What's the fuss? It's only a bit of bread' [Blacker said,] looking so longingly and pleadingly up at me that even as a child I wondered whether he could really think that, and yet desire it so much."
Tolle legge, take and read.
(Found via this comment at the blog What's Wrong with the World)
3 comments:
Wow, thanks for finding/sharing this.
I suppose this response of yours is better than no response at all, but to respond to Myers' desecration of the Eucharist with a made-up, fictional story is actually sort of weak in my opinion.
What I'd like to see is the recounting of *actual Eucharistic miracles* that were a result of attempted Eucharistic desecration. I know they are out there, and that they exist, but no one is really stepping forward with them. Maybe I will research this and put them on *my* blog.
I cannot verify where this came from for example - but there was a case once of someone stealing a consecrated host from a Mass, then keeping it in an attic in a steamer trunk - the person later noticed that a strange light was coming from the attic, and upon closer inspection, from the trunk. Like I said, this is supposed to be a true example - I am hoping and actively praying for some sort of Eucharistic miracle to happen in the case of P.Z. Meyers
Thanks for posting this. Fiction is a powerful vehicle for truth telling. Must have been or Jesus wouldn't have used the method so much himself. Greene is, of course, a strong apologist whether writing in a fiction or non fiction form.
We are still looking for miracles and proofs to which Jesus also had a fair bit to say including if he should raise this temple in three days many would not believe.
Again, good post. Thanks.
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