like Brother Andre

Like Brother Andre, I left my heart in Montreal. They are going to canonize him. He was the gatekeeper and the barber at the college across the road from whee they eventually built the oratory. And he was a healer. He spearheaded building the St. Joseph's Oratory across the road, on the side of the mountain.

I grew up in Montreal.  I played with the Catholic girls next door. I was six or so when one day their father took me with them when they went to the oratory. It wasn't finished. It took years to build. I think they kept running out of money. But I was impressed. I was impressed by the people going up hundreds of stone stairs on their knees. (This would drive my orthopaedic surgeon nuts.) At the same time they were saying their rosaries. I figured that if you really prayed like that something big would have to happen. But the big deal was that the girls got to kiss Bother Andre's pickled heart. It in a glass jar. Their father took out his white handkerchief and whipped the glass and then each of them got to kiss the heart. But he wouldn't let me because I was a Protestant. It was so unjust and so unfair.

So it gave me some satisfaction when many years later the heart was stolen. I think that there even might have been a question of ransom. I think that the oratory guys refused to pay. A year or so later the police, acting on a tip, found the heart in the back of an apartment's bedroom closet.

Now he is to become a saint. Does that mean the heart gains beatific holiness? I so wanted to kiss it then. I wonder where it is now? I've lost the inclination to kiss it, on the other hand I just might to get my own back. Would I be blessed?  Brother Andre left his heart in Montreal.

"Jesus of Montreal" was filmed at the Oratory. Blood is always a crowd pleaser: