Revelation

by Donna Hruska

It’s funny how you can hear about a thing all your life and never really understand it and then, bang! all of a sudden there it is, clear as day. Take grace, for instance. To tell the truth, I never was too sure about it. I don’t mean I didn’t believe in it, exactly. I did, the same way you believe a lot of things you can’t see. Mom was always talking about God giving you the grace to do this or that, and I learned in religion class about it being a gift of God to help you do good and avoid evil. But when you get right down to it, in all my twelve years, I never saw any. I mean, you take electricity, you can’t see that either. But you can see what it does, like turn on a light, and if you touch a hot wire, you feel it. But grace? You’re supposed to get it when you receive Holy Communion. But, sometimes you feel different afterwards and sometimes you don’t. So it’s not something you can count on feeling. And like I said, I never saw any– or anything it did–that is, until recently.

The way it happened was my little brother Joe was getting ready to make his First Holy Communion. Now Joe, in a lot of ways, isn’t a bad little kid for a second grader. You know, he pays attention in school and doesn’t get into too much trouble at home. But at church, he was always a terror. It was like he had this silly streak in him that only showed up when he walked through the church door. My Grandma used to say about my Great-Uncle Henry that if he ever walked in a church the bell would probably fall on him, and there were times when, for Joe’s sake I was glad our church didn’t have a bell. He’d wiggle and whisper and turn around to grin at some other kid or play with our little brother Daniel. By the time Mass was over, everybody in the whole church was looking at us. It got so I was mortified to go to church with him. Once, I even asked Mom if I could go to Mass with my best friend, George O’Malley and his family, but she just laughed at me and told me not to be so self-conscious. Self-conscious! Who wouldn’t be self-conscious if he had to sit beside this wiggly kid and have everyone in the whole church know he’s your little brother?

So anyway, when he got in second grade last fall, I figured Sister would straighten him out before First Communion time in the spring. After all, if they were going to study about it all year long, you’d figure it would stick, right? Well, not with Joe, it didn’t. Not that he didn’t improve any. He was better, I’ll admit. He didn’t giggle and play around much any more, but he just didn’t seem to realize how serious it was.

He was more quiet, but it didn’t look to me like he was praying. And Daniel could still get his attention easy enough.

But I kept on thinking he’d straighten out before First Communion time rolled around. But then one day he came home and mentioned, that they had been measured for their First Communion gowns that day. You know, they wear these goofy robes now instead of white shirts and ties like when I made my First Holy Communion. Well, that really hit me because I hadn’t realized how close it was. After he’d gone out to play I tried to talk to Mom about it.

“Mom,” I said, “do you really think Joe’s ready to make his First Holy Communion?”

“Of course,” she said. “He’s been studying about it in school all year. He’s past seven years old and the Church considers that the age of reason.”

“But, Mom, he’s about the most ‘unreasonable’ kid I ever saw when it comes to paying attention in Mass. I just don’t think he takes it seriously enough.”

She stopped peeling potatoes and looked at me for a minute. Then she said, “Each person is different, Tom. Joe is naturally going to react differently than you did. But I’m sure he’s ready or I wouldn’t let him go through with it.”

Well, o.k. If she was sure it was all right, I’d drop it. Nobody was going to listen to me anyway. But, I still didn’t feel easy about it.

The Saturday for First Communion came and Joe was up early. But at the last minute, he couldn’t find one of his shoes and we were almost late. We had to sit near the back and I got stuck behind a fat lady with a big hat who kept crying and wiping her eyes so I couldn’t see or hear a thing at the altar.

Then the music started and all these little kids in their white robes came marching in so slow they’d have made a snail seem like a racehorse. I was watching for Joe when they marched down the aisle nearest me. Finally there he came with his hands together like he was praying and his head straight, but with a silly grin on his face and his eyes rolling back and forth like he was watching a ping pong game.

“Oh boy,” I thought, shaking my head. “I might have known.”

I couldn’t see him when he marched up to receive Holy Communion because of that fat lady and her hat. But when I was coming back from receiving Communion myself I passed him and he waved at me, if you can imagine it.

After Mass we all went to the Pancake House and had a big breakfast. It was a lot of fun because we kept seeing all these kids we knew who had been at church too.

The next day was Sunday, so, of course, we went to Mass again. It was about half over when I happened to glance at Joe.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was this little freckle faced former Sunday morning terror–and he was praying. I mean really praying. You could just tell that he was by looking at him. He had a kind of a glow about him–and he was serious.

Then, just to top it off, about that time here came Daniel, crawling down the pew behind everybody and started tugging on Joe’s coattail. And you know what Joe did? He just looked at Daniel, put his finger to his lips and said “shhh!” then went back to his prayers.

So that was it. That’s how I learned about grace. I mean, if you stop to think about how he was before and all, it couldn’t have been anything else. Nothing less than something supernatural would have done it. So, the way I figure it, maybe you can see grace after all.