Pope's additions to the rosary bring memories of mysteries

Boston Herald

He would say it's a reach because he never believed in these things. And I admit it is a reach. There is no direct connection between Pope John Paul II's announcement Thursday that he has added five more mysteries to the rosary and my friend Father Coen.

Except for the connection in my mind.

And isn't that what faith is about? Reaching, and maybe stretching a little, for what it is you've been looking for? And for what it is you know is there?

I told him, years ago, how a bird flew in my bedroom window five days after my mother died and how my mother always believed that a bird in the house was a messenger. And how I believed that this bird was a message from her. And he smiled, a kind smile, but I could see he was mentally patting my head. He never placed much stock in messages or signs from beyond.

Father Coen was a practical man who believed in God, in the goodness of people and in prayer. He especially loved the rosary and prayed it all the time, not just in church and in the chapel at the rectory, but when he was in the car, too. He prayed it alone driving back and forth to the Cape every week and he prayed it whenever he took a long trip. We were speeding toward Forestburg, N.Y., when I learned this. He picked up his rosary beads and I thought it was my driving. But he said no, it was just something he did. "You pray the rosary in the car?" I asked. He did. And so did his sister, Ruthie.

So there we were, the three of us, somewhere on Interstate 84, saying our Hail Marys. I was embarrassed at first, but Father Coen prayed the rosary the way he lived, with an ease and a joy that put everyone else at ease. And on the way back from New York state, when we said the rosary again, I wasn't embarrassed at all.

The rosary became one more bond between us. I would ask, on Tuesday nights, when he came home from the Cape, if he had said it on his drive back to the rectory, and he always would say yes, he had. No matter the season or the weather. No matter if he was so tired that he had to pull over and rest for a few minutes. No matter what other things were on his mind. It was this much a part of him.

When he went to Ireland, he brought me back two sets of red glass rosary beads. For months after his stroke, until his death, I carried them in my coat pocket. I keep them tucked in a handbag these days. I haven't said the rosary much since he died. He would tell me it's time. He would say, put them in your pocket again.

And this is the connection. His voice and these words. The pope adds five new "mysteries of light" and declares the next 12 months the Year of the Rosary and I hear Father Coen, loud and clear. I hear him praising these new mysteries: Christ's baptism, his first miracle at the wedding at Cana, his proclamation of the coming of the Kingdom of God, his transfiguration in front of three disciples and his institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper on the eve of his death.

Father Coen used to say that it was significant that Christ performed his first public miracle at a wedding, that it wasn't happenstance. That marriage meant this much to God. He would preach this again today. And he would talk about God's great love and compassion and say that unlike the other 15 mysteries, these new ones emphasize not just Christ's divinity, but also his humanity and are a bridge that connects Jesus as God and Jesus as man.

He would talk about his own personal love of the rosary as well. That's what he did. He told stories. And that's why he was a bridge, too. God was never just a bird flying in a window to Father Coen. He saw God everywhere, in all the birds and in all of us. That's why he just smiled at my tales.

I wait to sense him. I wait to dream him back. But I don't dream and I don't sense him beside me. And yet, I remember his voice and his words and if I reach just a little, and if I stretch just a little more, I hear him in the silence.