Mahelt Marshal (mahelt) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2013-11-24 07:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, !open, ~~mahelt marshal (mahelt), ~~sinead o'sullivan (nishuilleabhain) |
Who: Mahelt & OPEN
What: Church, more culture shock
Where: The church
When: Sunday morning
Warnings: TBD
If Mahelt was in need of a reason to rise from her sickbed, church served her purpose well enough. She had been far too disorientated to attend last Sunday, and she didn't want to miss another, especially since Father Cesare - she'd settled on that, for want of a more fitting title for a man with such a colorful background - had answered her questions and come to her in her time of illness. You couldn't always depend on the Church, she knew that very well, but she didn't judge all priests by Rome's actions. Not even Italian ones. Besides, her faith ran deeper than small upsets, or else she'd have lost it a long time ago.
Not that being suddenly brought forward eight hundred years counted as a small upset. Even so, she was well enough now, and expected that going to Mass might heal her troubled soul as Marius' medicines had her body.
Except that it was not at all the same! Most glaringly, the service was said in the vernacular and not in Latin, and while had Mahelt thought about it she might not have objected to the alteration, in the moment it only served to confuse her. The words were unfamiliar. The hymns were unfamiliar, and it seemed to her that half the people there whispered to each other during the prayers. One even made a loud ringing sound with their modern phone!
It was far shorter than she would expect for a Sunday service, and by the end Mahelt was truly trying her best to focus. It was different, yes. What good did it do to attend and have her mind full of complaints rather than prayers? That could hardly be any more pleasing to God than the disrespect she had noted.
When most of the others filed out, then, Mahelt remained behind, and after a few moments she made her way over to the side-chapel to light a candle and pray to the Holy Mother. First only Ave Maria, whispered over and over, just like when she'd been a girl and her father had come home sick from the battlefield and little Mahelt had prayed for him until her knees ached. What was she praying for here? It soon became clear, as the familiar words gave way to more desperate implorations: '...and keep them, Roger and Hugo and Isabel, oh Mother Mary keep my baby safe, let there be someone to tend to my children and love them...'
Hearing footsteps behind her, Mahelt stopped, glanced around to see who might have approached.