Now, with the stress of the High Mass out of the way, James was eager to get back to the Shawn, Sana, and the ossuary issue. He knew that the upcoming week was going to be critical, and he prayed that his secretaries had made some progress. As he came up the stair, the first thing he saw was that the wooden bench just outside his office was occupied by what looked like a fifteen- to sixteen-year-old towheaded boy with such a beauteous face, beatific smile, and lustrous, shoulder-length, golden hair that James did a double take, believing he could be having a vision of the Angel Gabriel. The boy was dressed in a black habit with a hood, cinched with a medium-blue cord.

Gathering his wits with some difficulty, James broke off eye contact with the youth and passed into his office. Quickly, he slipped behind his massive oak desk to catch his breath, knowing that Father Maloney would undoubtedly momentarily materialize. The big question in James’s mind was whether or not the boy was someone chosen as the possible interventionist. If so, James’s immediate impact was off the charts, which was something he was hoping for. Yet as positive as that was, there was a problem. The individual was too young, a mere boy, and James asked himself if he could possibly entrust someone so immature with such an important task.

As James expected, the door opened after a sharp knock, and in stepped the secretary. Carrying a folder, Father Maloney quickly crossed to the desk and handed it to James. “His name is Luke Hester, and yes, he was definitely named after the evangelist Luke.”

“He is striking,” James said. “I have to commend you on that, but isn’t he too young for a theological emergency? There is going to be a need for some innate psychology.”

“If you check the rapid biography I’ve thrown together, you will learn that he is older and therefore hopefully wiser than his youthful, angelic looks suggest. He is twenty-five years old, about to be twenty-six in a matter of months.”

“My word,” James exclaimed. He placed the folder on his desk and opened the cover and stared at the date of birth. “I never would have guessed.”

“There was a kind of mild hormonal problem that had never been investigated,” Father Maloney stated. “But that problem has been attended to and his hormones are now in the normal range. The brothers where he lives had him evaluated and treated a few years ago here in the city.”

“I see,” James said, rapidly glancing through the biography and learning that Luke was an only child of a devout Catholic mother and lapsed Catholic father. The boy had run away from home to join a Marian society called the Brotherhood of the Slaves of Mary when he turned eighteen.

“Have you spoken with him?”