Pageant Question: You have been granted a miraculous healing power that could terminate any single disease, which one disease would you choose?

Father Mark wasn't used to having parishioners actually wanting to speak with him.  He was used to having brief, polite conversations at the end of Mass; stern conversations with parents of Sunday school kids; whispered confessions muffled by oak and worn velvet.  But not a request to go out for coffee, and never from someone his own age.

The cavernous church emptied further with every funeral.  Grey, silver, white and bald heads dotted the first ten rows.  One Sunday morning, at 10:30 Mass, now the only Mass held because of the poor attendance, there was a new face under a shock of unruly dark brown hair.  A new, young face.  The young man stood and sat and knelt just slightly after everyone else, not as familiar with what Father Mark once overheard someone call "Catholic aerobics".

One Sunday evening as he dozed in the confessional waiting the usual handful of "I took the Lord's name in vein when I couldn't get my pill bottle open," Father Mark popped to attention when he heard a new voice.  "Father, may I speak to you?"