A Deleted Scene

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.
Cicero

I wanted the magic and the characters to be believable within the context of what we know and accept about the world around us.
Terry Brooks


The story I’m about to tell is supposedly true. Father Gregorio Raya, former parish priest of the town of Cuapa, related it to me while I was conducting research for writing Bernardo and the Virgin.

Mother Teresa made two trips to Nicaragua to help establish a center of the Missionaries of Charity, the order she founded. Prior to the first trip, Pope John Paul II asked her to visit the town of Cuapa. His Holiness had closely followed the Vatican investigation of the apparition of the Virgin Mary to Bernardo Martínez, and he was interested in Mother Teresa’s impressions of the case and of the seer.

Father Raya rode with the future saint in the van that took her from Managua to Cuapa. As they approached the town, she turned to those inside the vehicle and said, “Please don’t point out Bernardo to me. If he truly saw Our Holy Mother, I will be able to recognize him.”

Thousands had congregated at the apparition site to greet Mother Teresa. As soon as she stepped out of the van, she walked, ahead of the others, through the multitude, taking the time to personally greet all those who approached her.

“The crowd around her was dense. I never would’ve thought it possible for her to pick Bernardo out,” Father Raya said to me.

But, suddenly, while Mother Teresa was surrounded pilgrims, she turned her head—her nose pointed upward as if she had detected a singular scent—in the direction where Bernardo stood. Smiling, Mother Teresa briskly made her way through the outstretched hands of the faithful, straight toward the seer.

When at last she reached Bernardo, she opened her arms, embraced him, and said, “Blessed art thou, favored son of our Holy Mother.”

I tried to include this incident in Bernardo and the Virgin. But after the sixth—or perhaps seventh—draft, I chose to delete it. In spite of having been assured that the account of what I’ve related here was the truth, in the novel the episode seemed contrived, like poorly conceived fiction.

Thus, I learned this lesson: when writing about mystical experiences, sometimes the truth can strain a reader’s belief far more than fiction.