February 2024 Flash Lit 2 (last go) - Control

Padre Pablo put on the gold-and-silver-embroidered green chasuble and made sure it was smooth over his round belly.  Then he looked around for Jorgito.  Where was that boy?  Padre Pablo prayed, not for the first time, for patience with the native relationship with punctuality, which was fraught at best.  As the mission bell rang out to call the people to Mass, Padre Pablo thanked God for reminding him that the natives had not had the benefit of growing up with bells to remind them of their duties.

Jorgito still did not appear.

 

I’ll get out his surplice, the padre decided, so one he arrives it will be easier.  He opened the cabinet and there was Jorgito asleep in a nest of wrinkled linens.

 

“Wake up, my son!” Padre Pablo said, shaking the boy gently by the shoulder.  “It is time for the Lord’s Supper!”

 

Jorgito rubbed his eyes and then his belly.  “Good,” he said.  “I’m hungry.”

 

“Not that kind of supper.  That’s later,” the padre explained.

 

It took a few minutes to extract Jorgito and get him presentable.  The boy had lost his sandals again, but Padre Pablo figured that Jesus Himself had gone barefoot, so it would be all right.

 

The congregation blinked obediently at the padre throughout the Mass as he preached to them about the work of salvation and doing one’s duty with a cheerful heart.

 

Afterward, the other Spaniards herded the native men back to the fields to hoe weeds and the women to the kitchens.

 

It was all under God’s control, Padre Pablo thought.