The Reluctant Saint

Mother:
Your father was a wonderful man to love - but not to live with.

Bishop:
It always troubled me, the Trinity. You know, Giuseppe, I could never really understand it. Does it trouble you?

Bishop:
No. There are three persons in one God. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Three in one.

Bishop:
Yes, but that's for a child. But a small comfort to a Bishop. You see, I'm a peasant, Giuseppe, just like you. A practical man, so I understand only what I feel, and what I see.

Giuseppe:
Look, look. One blanket and one, two, three folds. Three folds in one blanket - three persons in one God, like the Trinity.

Don Raspi:
[looking after Giuseppe] The senseless man seeks in vain for wisdom. Proverbs: 14.

Father Giovanni:
True. But the fear of the Lord is training for wisdom, and humility goes before honors. Proverbs: 15.

Bishop:
Brother Giuseppe! I knew you'd be here someday.

Giuseppe:
[overjoyed that the Bishop remembers him] Your Excellency.

Bishop:
How are the lambs?

Giuseppe:
Oh, they are sheep now, your Excellency.

Bishop:
Oh yes, of course. Has it been that long? And the studies - they've been hard, eh?

Giuseppe:
[sighs and nods] But mostly I miss the stables. That's where I really belong, I shouldn't be here.

Bishop:
Let me be the judge of that, Giuseppe. There will be many lost sheep to care for.

Father Giovanni:
Look at him. Do you really believe there is a devil lurking inside that humble young man?

Don Raspi:
There was once a Lucifer in heaven.

Gobbo:
Father Giuseppe! What are they doing to you?

Giuseppe:
It's for my own good, little brother. Father Raspi is driving out the devil.

Gobbo:
The devil? You? Oh, no, you're a saint. He's a saint!

Don Raspi:
Take that blasphemous fool out of here.

Don Raspi:
Charity and love are capital virtues, Brother Giuseppe, but my favorite virtue is promptness.

Gobbo:
You? A priest? Then I should be a bishop! Or the pope even!

Mother:
They have thrown you out. They don't want you back because you are an idiot. You have been nothing but trouble since the day you got there - since the day you were born! What have you done this time? Tell me. Answer!

Mother:
I broke a statue.

Mother:
For breaking a little statue they throw you out like a dog?

Giuseppe:
It wasn't little, it was big.

Father Giovanni:
You have a whole year to prepare yourself, with the best instructors of the order.

Giuseppe:
I'll miss the stables.

Father Giovanni:
Gobbo will look after the animals.

Giuseppe:
Father Giovanni, couldn't I stay...

Father Giovanni:
No.

Giuseppe:
- in the stables?

Father Giovanni:
No.

Giuseppe:
I will work harder than...

Father Giovanni:
No, Giuseppe.

Giuseppe:
Just to stay...

Father Giovanni:
Obedience, Giuseppe, is the first rule.

Mother:
Giuseppe, Giuseppe. Do you think I kept you in school all these years for this piece of paper? Do you think it didn't break my heart to see you, a grown man, among school boys? But at least I knew where you were, a place to go every day where the Sisters could look after you. Now - what will I do with you? What will you do with yourself?

Brother Orlando:
Recite the 14th chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians.

Giuseppe:
What man of you, having a thousand sheep, and losing one of them...

Brother Orlando:
No, look again! I said Corinthians! There is more to scripture than the gospel of Saint Luke!

Giuseppe:
But I like Saint Luke.

Brother Orlando:
That's beside the point. You've got to know the entire bible. Now, the 14th chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians...

Brother Orlando:
How I envy you.

Giuseppe:
Next year you will be standing here, and I will be your alter boy.

Brother Orlando:
I hope so!