Anne Rice
The Road to Cana
DEDICATED TO
Christopher Rice
Invocation.
In the name of the Father,
And of the Son,
And of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The truth of the faith can be preserved only by doing a theology of Jesus Christ, and by redoing
It over and over again.
– Karl Rahner
O Lord, the one God, God the Trinity, whatsoever I have said in these books is of you, may those
That are yours acknowledge; whatsoever of myself alone, do you and yours forgive.
– St. Augustine
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
. . .
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
– The Gospel of John
The Road to Cana
1
WHO IS CHRIST THE LORD?
Angels sang at his birth. Magi from the East brought gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They
Gave these gifts to him, and to his mother, Mary, and the man, Joseph, who claimed to be his
Father.
In the Temple, an old man gathered the babe in his arms. The old man said to the Lord, as he
Held the babe, “A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”
My mother told me those stories.
That was years and years ago.
Is it possible that Christ the Lord is a carpenter in the town of Nazareth, a man past thirty years
Of age, and one of a family of carpenters, a family of men and women and children that fill ten
Rooms of an ancient house, and, that in this winter of no rain, of endless dust, of talk of trouble in
Judea, Christ the Lord sleeps in a worn woolen robe, in a room
with other men, beside a smoking
Brazier? Is it possible that in that room, asleep, he dreams?
Yes. I know it’s possible. I am Christ the Lord. I know. What I must know, I know. And what I
Must learn, I learn.
And in this skin, I live and sweat and breathe and groan. My shoulders ache. My eyes are dry
From these dreadful rainless days – from the long walks to Sepphoris through the gray fields in
Which the seeds burn under the dim winter sun because the rains don’t come.
I am Christ the Lord. I know. Others know, but what they know they often forget. My mother
Hasn’t spoken a word on it for years. My foster father, Joseph, is old now, white haired, and given
To dreaming.
I never forget.
And as I fall asleep, sometimes I’m afraid – because my dreams are not my friends. My dreams
Are wild like bracken or sudden hot winds that sweep down into the parched valleys of Galilee.
But I do dream, as all men dream.
And so this night, beside the brazier, hands and feet cold, under my cloak, I dreamed.
I dreamed of a woman, close, a woman, mine, a woman who became a maiden who became in
The easy tumult of dreams my Avigail.
I woke. I sat up in the dark. All the others lay sleeping still, with open mouths, and the coals in
The brazier were ashes.
Go away, beloved girl. This is not for me to know, and Christ the Lord will not know what he
Does not want to know – or what he would know only by the shape of its absence.
She wouldn’t go – not this, the Avigail of dreams with hair tumbled down loose over my hands,
As if the Lord had made her for me in the Garden of Eden.
No. Perhaps the Lord made dreams for such knowing – or so it seemed for Christ the Lord.
I climbed up off the mat, and quietly as I could, I put more coals into the brazier.
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