Not every day do you get a chance to converse at length with a hermit, and it’s even rarer to be hosted in a hermitage. Therefore, Father O’Malley spent much time reflecting on an encounter that had touched him deeply. He had been so impressed with the hermit’s determined isolation and resilience that he had made Noam the subject of his homily at Sunday Mass. The man’s deep personal loss, and his stoicism in the face of it, gave a recharge to his faith, which, though never wavering, was sorely jaded by many 21st-century events and people’s reactions to them. How refreshing, therefore, to meet someone whose existence transcended the artificial borders of time created by current modes and mores.
His sermon had been successful; he knew that. The best-received of his homilies had always been
