Charles, and we both prayed, and he acceptedrnJesus as his personal savior.” Hernadded quietly, “It was the kind of meetingrnI dream about.”rnWe watched the coffin descend intornthe dark hole, slowly and very quietly.rnThe traffic continued to zoom by. Thernundertaker shook our hands and left,rnleaving his assistant to complete the burial.rnBrace made a joke about his motherrncalling De Profundis the “scuba diver’srnprayer.” I stared at him. Then, for somernreason, I told him that I had preventedrnCharles’ body from being cremated. Hernshook his head in irritation. “It doesn’trnmatter what happens to our bodies. Wernare spirit. When we rise again, we getrnglorified bodies. The Bible says, ‘The searnwill give up its dead.'”rnI wasn’t sure how all those thoughtsrnwere connected to one another. I thoughtrnabout explaining the anti-Christian originsrnof cremation, how the cremation societiesrnof the I9th century were Masonicrnin origin; their motives were to emphasizernmaterialism and de-emphasize the religiousrndogma of the resurrection of thernbody. Instead, I tried a more familiar response,rnremarking that St. Paul called ourrnbodies temples of the Holy Spirit. “Yes, ifrnyou possess the Holy Spirit,” he said, withrna glint in his eye. Fair enough, I thought.rn(Later, I wondered if he had directed thatrnat me. Being a former Protestant, I findrnProtestant suspicions somewhat refreshingrn—much preferable to the insipid ecumenismrnsome of them have fallen preyrnto). I looked him square in the eye, shookrnhis hand, and smiled. “One day, we’llrnknow for sure.” I left him there, at therngraceless burial site, to mull it over. It wasrnanother banner day for the New Evangelization.rnCharles was not merely materially unencumberedrnwhen he left this world. Hisrnsole spiritual sustenance was equallyrnmeager: the groping of a Protestantrnpasserby and the hope-against-hopernprayers of his Catholic social worker forrnhis soul. It was oddly fitting that he diedrnon December 10, the Feast of Our Ladyrnof Loreto. Loreto, Italy, is the site of thernHoly House of Nazareth, said to havernbeen transported there from Nazareth byrnangels. Maybe the prayers for Charles,rnwho had spent his last years homeless,rnpersuaded Our Lady to bring him to hisrnreal home. Yes, it’s a long shot—a realrnlong shot. But to deny the possibility ofrnprayer changing a soul’s destination is notrnto be Catholic. Besides, winter has set in,rnand it’s already tough enough to feelrnMark Fellows writes from South St. Paul,rnMinnesota.rnLetter From Romernby Michael McMahonrnIn the Footsteps of St. FrancisrnI only believed myself close to death oncernon my Holy Year pilgrimage in the footstepsrnof St. Francis of Assisi. I had beenrnwalking in the sun for seven hours alongrnthe ancient footpaths and cart tracks betweenrnGubbio—where the saint tamedrnthe wolf that had been terrorizing therntownsfolk—and Valfabbrica, the only villagernof any size before Assisi itself I wasrnlost. There was no one to ask the way; Irnhadn’t seen a soul since breakfast. Whoeverrnhad been paid to put up the waysidernsigns that mark the Sentiero Francescano—rnthe Footpath of St. Francis—had clearlyrnhad enough of staiggling across the steeplyrnundulating landscape with his paintpotsrnand finger-posts and had abandonedrnthe task when the going had got tough. Ifrnhe had been as hot and tired as I was, Irnthought, I could almost forgive him. Myrnbackpack felt so heavy that I dare not take itrnoff for fear of not being able to pick it uprnagain, and I had ran out of water some fourrnhours earlier. The slow-moving River Chiascornoffered no relief—in high summer, itrnrans brown and undrinkable through uncrossablyrnwide slabs of mud.rnWhen I got halfway up the stony trackrnthat climbs the western side of the gorge,rnI realized that I just wasn’t going to makernit to the top. I slackened the straps on myrnrucksack, lay down across the shadelessrnroad, and fell asleep. Everybody has torndie somewhere, I remember thinking,rnand a remote corner of Franciscan Umbriarnis a better place to do so than most. Irnrecalled that it wasn’t far from here thatrnSt. Francis himself had been set upon byrnrobbers, beaten, stripped of his clothes,rnand left for dead in a ditch. In the event,rnhe survived; I wondered whether I wouldrnbe as fortunate. I was. Two teenagers outrnon dirt bikes found me, looked at mernwith disbelief, helped me to my feet, andrntold me that 1 was only a kilometer from arnvillage: Castello di Biscina. When I gotrnthere, the first person I saw was a gardenerrnsetting up a sprinkler to water a lawn. Irnmust have looked as desperate as I felt, forrnbefore I could ask, he disengaged thernhose and handed me the end of it so thatrnI could drink; while I drank, he pointedrnout the track to Assisi. If he was wonderingrnwhy a fat, unfit, 45-year-old foreignerrnwas dragging a backpack across the countrysidernin high summer, he was too politernto ask.rnHad he done so, I would have repliedrnthat I had been moved to make my pilgrimagernby a chance encounter with arnbook. I had come across Harold ElsdalernGoad’s Franciscan Italy in the spring,rnwhen I had been dusting the bookshelvesrnin my study. It had been sitting there forrnsome 15 years, along with a couple ofrnyards of ancient religious travelogues andrnworks of spiritual counsel that I had inheritedrnfrom a distant relative. In all therntime I had ovmed it, I had not yet openedrnit. When I did, I was captivated. Thernbinding, paper, typeface, illustrations,rnand even the smell of it somehow tookrnme not just to Umbria but to the Umbriarnof 1926, when the book had been printedrnand published; the text took me thence tornthe landscape lived in by St. Francis 700rnyears before that, suggesting it had onlyrnchanged a little since then. And when Irnread that, “for the pilgrim who is a goodrnwalker with sufficient Italian to ask hisrnway, there is nothing more delightfulrnthan to follow him, if possible as far asrnGubbio,” I felt that those words were addressedrndirectly to me.rnI responded quickly to this call becausernlast year was a Holy Year: Pious exercisesrnundertaken at such times earnrndouble spiritual air miles for the faithfril.rnMy own faith being less full than it hadrnbeen, such an opportunity seemed attractive.rnFor some time, my spiritual pilotrnlight had been guttering and flickering,rnand I had been thinking that I should dornsomething about it before it splutteredrn°”I LIBERAL ARTSrn”TAROT OF THE SAINTS “rn”A beautifril blending of two traditions.”rn”Saints lend themselves remarkablyrnwell to correspondences with archetypicalrnimages of the Tarot—St.rnFrances [sic]: a Fool for Christ; St.rnNicholas: the Miracle Worker (Magician);rnand St. Mary Magdalen: ThernFirst Papesse (High Priestess).”rn—from an ad in the fall 2001rnLlewellyn Trade CatalogrnDECEMBER 2001/39rnrnrn