LHeureux - The Miracle

Praise for The Miracle:

LHeureuxs snappy, succulent novel of faith and body, starts out sharp and ends with a razor slash. Lean, crisp prose delineates Father LeBlancs quest to be a good priest and the faith-sustaining events that propel him there.

The Baltimore Sun

[A] profound, gentle novel Measures up here to [LHeureuxs] best storytelling. This novel is darkly funny and lightly told.

San Jose Mercury News

Mr. LHeureuxs timelyand riskyattempt to put a human face on religious aspirations, limitations and belief could not be more brave, or, as it turns out, more rewarding. This powerful book may be Mr. LHeureuxs finest.

Washington Times

LHeureux brings the priest [in The Miracle] through his crisis of faith with the same tenderness that makes all his books such a pleasure to read.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

Engaging and thought-provoking.

Christian Century

A wry but revelatory look at the connection between faith and love LHeureuxs strength is his ability to expose the all-too-human foibles and flaws of his outstanding ensemble cast, as he connects the dots with short, punchy scenes that instantly get to the heart of the matter. As usual, LHeureux also looks unflinchingly at a variety of tough moral issues, balancing the serious stuff with humor in a deceptively light style that makes this book entertaining as well as challenging.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A finely crafted story of a young priests crisis of faith (and love) is [LHeureuxs] latest success. Deeply moving and personal, told with great restraint and skill.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

There is great humanity in this well-crafted story, expressed largely through the appealing characters of priests, and a final message: choose life.

Booklist

THE MIRACLE

OTHER BOOKS BY JOHN LHEUREUX

Quick as Dandelions

Rubrics for a Revolution

Picnic in Babylon

One Eye and a Measuring Rod

No Place for Hiding

Tight White Collar

Family Affairs

The Clang Birds

Jessica Fayer

Desires

A Woman Run Mad

Comedians

An Honorable Profession

The Shrine at Altamira

The Handmaid of Desire

Having Everything

a novel by

JOHN
LHEUREUX

Copyright 2002 by John LHeureux

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

LHeureux, John.

The miracle: a novel / by John LHeureux.

p. cm.

eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-5558-4681-7

1. ClergyFiction. 2. MiraclesFiction. 3. MassachusettsFiction. 4. Seaside resortsFiction. 1. Title.

PS3562.H4 M47 2002

813.54dc21 2002016413

Design by Laura Hammond Hough

Grove Press
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

FOR JOAN

Choose life.

Deuteronomy 30:19

THE MIRACLE

AT THIS TIMEIT IS THE EARLY 1970SFATHER PAUL LeBlanc is still an ordinary parish priest in South Boston, a huge Irish ghetto that stretches from the Southeast Expressway down to Quincy and out to the coast. South Boston is very Catholic, with four different parishes and thirteen priests, and St. Matthews parish, where Father LeBlanc is stationed, is the most Irish of them all. This is a neighborhood of spruced-up three-deckersgray and white and tanwith some wood and brick two-deckers, and a few single-family houses with driveways. No matter the color of the houses, they all seem gray when you stand at the corner and look down the street. It is a gray parish. There are a lot of Irish barsMcGillicuddys, Aherns, Matt Dohertysand even the 7-Eleven is run by a guy they call Maloney. Actually he is Italian, and his name is Meloni, but it sounds Irish when you say it. So. All the cops are from South Boston, and so are the firemen, and if you own a grocery store or a drugstore or a beauty shop in the parish, most likely you live there. Most people work at Gilette or city hall or one of the utility companies. Nobody has money and everybody has something they are after, a better job or an education for their kids or a house of their own with a front yard and a backyard. Unlike the hippies who spend their time lying down in the street to protest the war in Vietnam, everybody here in St. Matthews works and expects to go on working. Father LeBlanc loves the place and he loves being a priest. There are no miracles in his life except the ordinary oneswaking, eating, speaking, sleepingand he doesnt aspire to miracles. He just wants to be a good man and a good priest and, mostly, he keeps out of trouble.

Mostly, because in fact he is often in trouble, though not serious enough trouble to get himself exiled. He has protested against the war in Vietnam, as most of the priests do, but it is the way he did it that was bad: at Sunday mass, during the Prayer of the Faithful, he saidit just came to him, he didnt plan itLet us pray that our Lord will forgive our country the murders we commit each new day in Vietnam, and the congregation responded, haltingly, Let us pray to the Lord. The phone rang all afternoon as parishioners with sons in Vietnam called to complain. Father LeBlanc was summoned to the pastors office and, after a long lecture on common sense and moral responsibility, Father Mackin asked him, please, to think about what he was going to say before he said it. On the following Sunday, Father LeBlanc apologized from the pulpit. That was a bad moment.

And he has taught religion to seniors at the high school until rumors got back to the principal that he had slighted the doctrine of papal infallibility and implied that masturbation was not a sin. What he actually said was Yeah, sure, the pope is infallible, but only when he speaks from the chair of Peter. Thats a folding chair, by the way. And of masturbation he wondered aloud, Its a mortal sin? Hmmmm. An interesting question. After that he was assigned to teach Latin.

And once, but only once, he said mass using a loaf of wheat bread and Gallo wine for the consecration. It was a private mass for a group of nuns he studied with at Boston College, and one of them wrote home about it, and her mother mentioned it to a friend of the family, and, in short, it took only a week before Father LeBlanc was in serious trouble.

So he stands warned: priests like him get transferred every day. Next stop, the boonies. He is a wild priest, a troublesome priest, and it is only a matter of time until he is dealt with.

To the parishionersexcept to the ones who have sons and daughters in VietnamFather LeBlanc is a wild priest but a good one. He is handsome and young and not exactly sexy, but strong. He is a guy who is full of energy and life, and it is always exciting to be with him because he knows how to relate to people. He is friendly and normal. He is funny. There is nothing queer about him, the way there sometimes is about priests who wear that cassock all the time.