He asked me what he
was to do. He had known it, man and boy, this sixty years, and had
always shown it as St. Joachim; he had never heard anyone but myself
question his ascription, and could not suddenly change his mind
about it at the bidding of a stranger. At the same time he felt it
was a very serious thing to continue showing it as the Virgin's
father if it was really her grandmother. I told him I thought this
was a case for his spiritual director, and that if he felt
uncomfortable about it he should consult his parish priest and do as
he was told.
On leaving Montrigone, with a pleasant sense of having made
acquaintance with a new and, in many respects, interesting work, I
could not get the sacristan and our difference of opinion out of my
head. What, I asked myself, are the differences that unhappily
divide Christendom, and what are those that divide Christendom from
modern schools of thought, but a seeing of Joachims as the Virgin's
grandmothers on a larger scale? True, we cannot call figures
Joachim when we know perfectly well that they are nothing of the
kind; but I registered a vow that henceforward when I called
Joachims the Virgin's grandmothers I would bear more in mind than I
have perhaps always hitherto done, how hard it is for those who have
been taught to see them as Joachims to think of them as something
different.
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