The Broken Rosary The Heart of the Matter

Abstract

There is one episode in The Power and the Glory which I consider a precursor of The Heart of the Matter. The whisky-priest meets an Indian woman with her dead child. The woman refuses to let him bury the child. ‘It occurred to him that she wanted her child buried near a church or perhaps only taken to an altar, so that he might be touched by the feet of a Christ’ (The Power and the Glory, p. 206). The woman follows the priest across the barren mountains, carrying her dead child, until they reach a grove of crosses, where she lays down the body. ‘Did she expect a miracle? And if she did, why should it not be granted her? the priest wondered. Faith, one was told, could move mountains, and here was faith — faith in the spittle that healed the blind man and the voice that raised the dead … . The priest found himself watching the child for some movement. When none came, it was as if God had missed an opportunity’ (p. 209).