servant, aye, even less than a servant, a mere drudge in the Seminary kitchen, brought back with it the most humiliating memories of his youth. And yet she worked as a servant for his sake. On the days when he went to confession and communion his Superior obliged him to go and kiss his mother's hand and ask her pardon for the faults he had committed. The hand which she dried hurriedly with a dishcloth smelt of soapsuds and was chapped and wrinkled like an old wall, and he was filled with shame and rage at being forced to kiss it; but he asked forgiveness of God for his inability to ask forgiveness of her.
Thus God had revealed Himself to Paul, as hidden behind his mother in the damp and smoky kitchen of the Seminary: God Who is in every place, in heaven and on earth and in all things created.
And in his hours of exaltation, when he lay in his little room staring with wide-open eyes into the darkness, he had dwelt with wonder on the thought, "I shall be a priest, I shall be able to consecrate the host and change it
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