Short Story: The Finding of a Saint

Sister Agatha was somebody whom I deeply respected, and why wouldn’t I?, for I knew, without a doubt, that she was a living saint. I was a witness to it. It was the Feast of the Assumption of Mary in the Year of our Lord 2006, and when we were proclaiming the Mass, I saw her deep in prayer and swaying. But her swaying looked peculiar to me. My eyes went to her shoes, and I saw, to my great astonishment, that they were not touching the church floor. She was floating.

But I decided to practice prudence unless I threw unnecessary commotion her way and broke her meditation. But the sight of it burned a new and overpowering zeal in me for the Lord. My heart earned to imitate her, and I prayed the Lord may grant me but a scrap from the table of the feast to which He had called the pious sister. After the Mass had ended, sister Agatha bid me a warm goodbye and left to do her daily chores, but I stayed behind and adored the Eucharist until the priest of our assembly had cleaned the vessels, cleared the table, closed the book, and replaced the cloth. As he descended the steps, I went to him and confessed to him what I had seen.

The priest made the Sign of the Cross, and I did the same. “Truly, we are blessed by her presence,” he said. “And you being granted such a vision, for none but you were able to see it. But keep it a secret from her, lest we distract her mind and soul from the Lord and place it upon herself. We must not be the cause of her temptation.”

“It is good, father, that I stayed behind to ask you of this. Thank you.” I asked leave and went to do my duties with a light and joyous heart.

I never told sister Agatha of her mystical levitation, but the knowledge of it helped me with my own devotion to Christ. In the following years, sister Agatha kept having these experiences, and neither she or anybody else had wisened to it except me.

But one day the father became gravely ill, and try as the doctors might, he were unable to help him, and his illness was hard upon him. He had always been a man of a frail constitution; fever, colds, and headaches regularly assaulted the poor father and left him sick for days on end. However, this time the situation seemed dire. Two weeks were past, and yet his maladies showed no sign of decrease, and his face looked paler than ever. I feared for the worst, and without another moment of delay, I fetched sister Agatha (for I knew that God had bestowed her with special grace and as scripture told us that ‘the prayer of a just man availeth much’), and she was more than willing, and together we knelt before the Tabernacle the entire night and prayed fervently for the kind father’s life.

The next day when we went to visit the priest to labor for him, to our great but welcome surprise, we found him sitting on his bed, his spectacles propped upon his nose, reading the scriptures. His fever had broke, and his face was flush with rosy color. He smiled at us, and the sight of him healthy, not coughing or breathing hoarsely but reclining there with his eyes no longer bloodshot and his temples no longer covered with nervous sweating moved me so much that I choked back tears.

And in that state of joy and relief, I forgot my vow of secrecy I had taken with him and blurted out: “Father, sister Agatha’s prayers worked. Truly she is a living saint!”

Sister Agatha looked at me looking utterly lost. The father gave a sheepish look and sighed. I stood there with my mouth open, horrified. Sister Agatha turned to me and asked what I had meant, on why I deemed her prayers efficacious and not mine also, and why I called her a living saint. Seeing I could not deflect her curiosity and not wanting to lie to her, I meekly disclosed what I had seen happening to her for the past few years.

“This is why I sought you out when I heard about the father’s condition. Oh, forgive me, sister Agatha!”

She looked at the priest, her eyes wide as saucers.

“Is this true, father?” she asked.

“Yes,” he confessed with a defeated smile. “I advised her to keep it a secret, as I did you.”

“What do you mean, father?” I asked, but sister Agatha questioned me instead.

“You saw me floating on the feast of the Assumption on that year, correct?” she asked.

“Yes, the very year,” I said. “Since that day, I was inspired by you to labor more in my faith for the Lord, and that one day the Lord might grant me a holiness akin to yours.”

She stared at me for a moment, and then clasping her hands over her mouth, broke out into merry laugher. “What does my Christ mean by playing such mirth with me?”

Now I was confused. “What do you mean, sister Agatha?”

“My sister,” she said, holding my hands in hers. “On that day, when I had come back from my chores to ask the priest about the later vigil, I found you in adoration, and I saw an angel placing a wreath of lilies upon your head. I held myself back and watched in awe. After you had talked with the priest and went away, I too went and spoke with him and told him about what I had seen, and he told me to keep quiet lest I distract you from the Lord and unto yourself. And from that day on, I saw many wonders happening with you, and I prayed to the Lord that He would give me a faith as deep as yours.”