Bishop J. Donald Doherty was chuckling at the large map of his diocese that covered most of his desk, its parish churches marked by bright blue crosses, the parish boundaries by dotted blue lines, their schools and the diocesan high school by (of course) little red schoolhouses, the cemeteries by bright green crosses. Near the northern edge of his fief lay a lonely blue cross, circled by him, a moment ago, in heavy black ink. He pressed the intercom button on his phone.
"Ed, you remember that strange letter from those people calling themselves Saint-what was it? Ambrose? Aquinas?" Asking for the old Mass? I'm going to give them Forty Martyrs."
"Don, you can't do that-er, sorry."
"Relax, Ed. Haven't had so much fun in years. It's perfect."~ ~ ~
Double doors with glass windows led into the nave, which was carpeted in surgical green, with brown spots scattered about, some bearing fresh bits of ceiling tile. Just inside the doors stood a wide concrete birdbath, evidently a combination baptismal font and stoup, with two small birds of the same material perched on the rim. The free-standing altar directly ahead bore a festive drape of pale blue satin, richly ornamented with vines and flowers. The tabernacle of indeterminate metal with abstract dove stood on a narrow shelf beyond it, flanked by thirsty-looking ferns in green plastic trugs.
"Fern bar," Houghton commented brightly.~ ~ ~
Few of his parishioners had ever heard of Septuagesima, he was sure. Sometimes he thought he knew how the Irish felt when they labored to restore Gaelic, or the Israelis when they revived Hebrew as a spoken language.
