Small-town priest faces discomfort and anxiety
As Saskatchewan navigates the pandemic, the Leader-post offers a view through the eyes of people on the journey, in 350 words or less.
The third of five in a new series by Brandon Harder, today's entry comes from Parker Love, interviewed in July.
Father Parker Love wears a white collar, not a white coat.
But that hasn't stopped folks from asking questions he doesn't feel qualified to answer.
There has been fear in Wilcox, Sask., and for a time the doors to the church were closed.
He said mass alone, then.
As the Spanish Flu gripped the province a century ago, what did those who wore the collar tell their parishioners?
It's a Christian thing to listen to the experts, 31-year-old Love teaches, though he knows too well the words of experts don't always bring comfort.
“I read this book on miracles. That was the biggest mistake I ever made,” he says, chuckling.
Not because he doesn't believe, but because he does. He has to.
He also has to accept that he may never walk again.
Like he and his past vices, two of his vertebrae decided to go in different directions.
Some eight years ago, the majesty of God's creation surrounded a young seminary student lying broken near his bike on an Alberta mountainside.
Now a year into his priesthood, he sits in a wheelchair, between hope and acceptance, and that's uncomfortable.
“Sometimes I think my anxiety is more crippling than my spinal cord injury,” he shares.
From the stained glass windows lining the walls of his country church, saints offer him tired looks.
He has a need to believe in something, he admits. Something like heaven, “where suffering is redeemed and removed.”
He repeats these last three words to himself, in quiet reflection. But God is in the suffering — in his and that of others.
Jesus, who was made to suffer, said, “those who are whole need not a physician.”
Parker Love puts his trust in a physician who knows the pain, and he urges his congregation to do the same.
Maybe miracles can be technological. Maybe the experts will stop this virus.
And maybe one day he will stand at the pulpit.
But for now, his voice carries just fine from where he sits.