Author's Notes: I own nothing and I'm not Catholic. So if I've got anything seriously wrong, I apologise.
In nomen Patri, filius and spirtus sanctum.
Are you there, Lord?
It's me, Francis Mulcahy.
I must apologies for troubling you so late, but I cannot sleep.
I lay awake for several hours, and tried reading in the hopes that it would help me to rest, but my eyes kept being drawn to the same words of St. Paul. "God loved the world so much that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life."
I had read those words many, many times before, but I don't think I ever truly understood them till tonight.
Oh, I don't mean to be disrespectful, Lord.
I marveled at Love beyond human understanding, at the sacrifice and at the miracle of the resurrection, but as a child. I don't think I truly understood what it meant to send a man to die.
I couldn't stay in my tent, so I got up, dressed and wandered over here.
On my way, I passed Radar, hurrying in the other direction. I waved, but he didn't see me.
Or perhaps he did, and He did not wish to talk to me. He and Klinger are bunkmates.
Oh Lord, what have I done?
I am a priest, a non combatant, a man who is forbidden by the law to carry a weapon, a man called by you to save men.
And I have sent one to his death.
Max Klinger.
His behavior may be odd, Lord, but he is a good man, who never lets his...eccentricities interfere with his duties. No one has died because Klinger chooses to wear a dress, Lord; in fact some may have being saved, for his strange attire seems to focus his mind on his duties. He does everything the other corpsmen do, just in high heels and who is harmed by that, lord?
He is the only one who attends every service here, if he can, and for all his claims of atheism, he sings the hymns louder than anyone I know.
Oh, Lord Protect him.
And Hawkeye too.
Other criticize him for his behavior, especially towards the nurses, but he's just a boy really lord.
He has achieved so much and projects such a confident manner that it is easy to forget how young he truly is. Barely out of his residency when he was summoned here.
John McIntyre once told me that on meeting Hawkeye here for the first time, he wondered what they'd done with the real Hawkeye. He describes the young man he knew at medical school as (and I hesitate to use such a word to you lord) a nerd, spending all his time holed up in his room, hitting the books.
"Three weeks here I understood it." He said and took another sip of his martini. I pray Hawkeye returns, as without him I fear we will lose McIntyre.
And Major Houlihan, Margret. A woman who will set the world on fire given half a chance, as my mother (May you have mercy on her soul) would have said.
And I know Lord that she is having a relationship with a married man, but Lord she is more sinned against than sinning.
She cares deeply for Major Burns, perhaps seeing in him the spark of the divine that must enlighten all men...even Major Burns. Lord, she may even love him.
And did not St Paul say that out of faith, hope and love the greatest of these was love?
I'm sitting here in the dark. I long to light candles, but fear the light might attract unwanted enemy attention, so I wait for dawn.
I remember my mother lighting candles for her uncle, who never returned from the Western front, and telling me that the lights would guide him home.
I will light three candles, one for Klinger, one for Hawkeye and one for Major Houlihan and pray that the light will guide them back safely to us.
I find myself pondering lord, what you would have done in the situation.
Major Hunilham had already volunteered, as had Hawkeye, reluctantly I grant you, but still. And Colonel Blake suggested that I should draw the name for the corpsman from the hat.
What would you have done lord? Would you have refused?
"Let the cup pass from me." Your words in Gethsemane. You feared death as any man would. As the men I am your humble shepherd for do. Yet in the end, "Not my will, but yours."
Is that what this is lord? Are you testing me? Forcing me to learn of acceptance of your will?
Do you have some great plan involving Hawkeye, Holinham and Klinger, or is it just you wish to show them each other in a better light?
I am your disciple, faithful.
And so I wait here in the night, in a country that could be a garden in another place and another time.
Let not my will, but yours be done, Lord. But please Lord, be with Benjamin Franklin Piece, Margaret Jane Houlihan and Maxwell Quentin Klinger and bring them safely back to us.
The soft breeze blows into my tent. I can see Colonel Blake standing outside the officer's tent, the one they call the Swamp.
He looks as though he has passed a sleepless night and he has a hard day ahead of him.
He may need comfort and friendship, Lord, but he will never ask for it. And for that, all the men, even Hawkeye give it freely.
I fear I am guilty of selfishness lord. After all, I may reproach myself, but I have truly only one man on my conscience. Colonel Blake must hold two.
But I beg your indulgence lord, to remain here with you.
The dawn is just a few hours away.