MONDAY MORNING was always the worst. It was not just that，
being a member of the clergy， I found the day after Sunday a letdown.
Partly it was memory: my late husband， Patrick， also a member of the
clergy， needed more wifely reassurance and general affirmation on
Monday morning than on any other day. Sunday， the busiest day of his
week， he woke up exalted， ready to do the Lord s work， the parish s
work， and to be father， husband， brother， son and all-purpose friend to
a vast number of people who would turn up at the ten-th rty service to
tell him (1) how wonderful he was， (2) that their problem (whatever it
was) had come to a nasty head and they needed to have a private
conference with him immediately or (3) they didn t wish to be nega-
tive， but felt that he， Patrick， would want them always to be honest，
and with that in mind they (or he or she) felt called upon to state that
his (Patrick s) sermons were not as good as they used to be.
Patrick took all that in his stride as he shook hand after hand. He
always had two Comments that he felt could cover any contingency
(excluding personal tragedy): \"Thank you very much for letting me
know how you feel\" and/or Tll take it up with the vestry.\"
Which makes him sound cynical--which he wasn t. Far from it. A
product of the sixties， Patrick came to the Episcopal priesthood out of
the civil-rights and anti-war movements. He was an idealistic activist，
and he remained that， more or less， for all of his short life. Becoming
rector of a parish did not dent his idea/ism， but it did bring him up
short behind tiresome and depressing details， such as trying to pay the
heating bill for the church and parish house and having to draw up an
annual budget when people felt it against their principles to pledge
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