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"I'm exhausted," I said, breaking the silence. "Less than a week ago, I finally learned who I am and what I want in life. Now I feel like I've been caught in a storm that's tossing me around, and I can't seem to do anything about it."
"Resist your doubts," the padre said. "It's important."
His advice surprised me.
"Don't be frightened," he continued, as if he knew what I was feeling. "I know that the church is in need of new priests, and he would be an excellent one. But the price he would have to pay would be very high."
"Where is he? Did he leave me here to return to Spain?"
"To Spain? There's nothing for him to do in Spain," said the priest. "His home is at the monastery, only a few kilometers from here. He's not there. But I know where we can find him."
His words brought back some of my joy and courage--at least he hadn't gone away.
But the priest was no longer smiling. "Don't let that encourage you," he went on, again reading my mind. "It would be better if he had gone back to Spain."
He stood and asked me to go with him. We could see only a few yards in front of us, but he seemed to know where he was going. We left Saint-Savin by the same road along which, two nights before--or could it have been five years before?--I had heard the story of Bernadette.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"To find him," he answered.
"Padre, you've confused me," I said, as we walked along together. "You seemed sad when you said he wasn't at the seminary."
"Tell me what you know about the religious life, my child."
"Very little. Only that the priests take a vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience." I wondered whether I should go on and decided that I would. "And that they judge the sins of others, even though they may commit the same sins themselves. That they know all there is to know about marriage and love, but they never marry. That they threaten us with the fires of hell for mistakes that they themselves make. And they present God to us as a vengeful being who blames man for the death of His only Son."
The padre laughed. "You've had an excellent Catholic education," he said. "But I'm not asking you about Catholicism. I'm asking about the spiritual life."
I didn't respond for a moment. "I'm not sure. There are people who leave everything behind and go in search of God."
"And do they find Him?"
"Well, you would know the answer to that, Padre, I have no idea."
The padre noticed that I was beginning to gasp with exertion, and he slowed his pace.
"You had that wrong," he said. "A person who goes in search of God is wasting his time. He can walk a thousand roads and join many religions and sects--but he'll never find God that way.
"God is here, right now, at our side. We can see Him in this mist, in the ground we're walking on, even in my shoes. His angels keep watch while we sleep and help us in our work. In order to find God, you have only to look around.
"But meeting Him is not easy. The more God asks us to participate in His mysteries, the more disoriented we become, because He asks us constantly to follow our dreams and our hearts. And that's difficult to do when we're used to living in a different way.
"Finally we discover, to our surprise, that God wants us to be happy, because He is the father."
"And the mother," I said.
The fog was beginning to clear. I could see a small farmhouse where a woman was gathering hay.
"Yes, and the mother," he said. "In order to have a spiritual life, you need not enter a seminary, or fast, or abstain, or take a vow of chastity. All you have to do is have faith and accept God. From then on, each of us becomes a part of His path. We become a vehicle for His miracles."
"He has already told me about you," I interrupted, "and he has taught me these ideas."
"I hope that you accept God's gifts," he answered. "Because it hasn't always been that way, as history teaches us. Osiris was drawn and quartered in Egypt. The Greek gods battled because of the mortals on earth. The Aztecs expelled Quetzalcoatl. The Viking gods witnessed the burning of Valhalla because of a woman. Jesus was crucified. Why?"
I didn't have an answer.
"Because God came to earth to demonstrate His power to us. We are a part of His dream, and He wants His dream to be a happy one. Thus, if we acknow
