Where was he? Noxious weeds, seeds of faith... Damn it, how could he be expected to preach with clowns like that interrupting him? He glared out at the congregation, challenging them to accuse him of dereliction of duty. They sat absolutely still, eyes fixed in front of them. Maybe they weren’t with him at all? Maybe they were in their usual Sunday trance? He cleared his throat and began, “Today’s Gospel, in case you didn’t hear it, is about Our Lord’s argument with the Jews, who refused to recognize in Him the Son of God, greater than Abraham and the prophets. ‘If I say the truth to you,’ he tells them, ‘why do you not believe Me?’ Well, why? Why was He so concerned about them? What did He want them for? Why does God want us to believe in Him?”

He stopped and looked around. Watch and Pray was murmuring the rosary to himself, fingers slipping along the beads at a great rate. The teacher was looking at his nails, comparing one hand with the other.

“There’s only one answer,” he said. But what was that? He remembered something about a wager – Pascal, was it? – that it was safer to believe than to take a chance on not believing. But that couldn’t be it; there must be more to it than that; Pascal wouldn’t have taken such a mean way out. Surely someone else must have tackled the problem and come up with a quick answer? Yes, the quicker the better, for now Watch and Pray had stopped shifting the beads; the teacher, all of them, were looking up at him with renewed interest.

His eye was caught by the big collection box on the porch on which a couple of young fellows were leaning casually. “Why d’ye want this church?” he asked. “Why do ye need that article of furniture down there on the porch, which some latecomers seem to think is placed there for their comfort? Now, I’ve spoken to ye before about that box. ’Tis all one to me whether ye fill it or not. ’Tis not my porch, nor my church. If ye want a cracked and gutterless porch, well, that’s your problem.” And then he added one of his throwaways, almost under his breath. “Ye’re well used, God knows, to be the laughingstock of the parishes around.”

As they stirred, some uncomfortably, some with irritation, he smiled a little, knowing that he had them to handle as he wanted. “Not that ye need ever be ashamed of the building itself. Your great-grandfathers put it up – God only knows how they did it, two years after the Famine. It must have been a change from hearing Mass in a smoky kitchen or around a slab of rock in a corner of a field. No, they didn’t do a bad job, even if it is a bit damp and has the door on the windy side. I’m just wondering whether ye would have put up anything at all.” He was really harrying them now. “Oh, yes, ye milk yer cows and fill yer churns, ye have yer breakfast, the bowl of porridge, the eggs and bread and butter, maybe the rasher and black pudding. Ye get yer Sunday papers and see that the Russians or maybe the Yanks have sent another rocket to the moon. What do ye want a church at all for?”