It was a blistering hot and humid afternoon in December 1912. Outside the small Australian township of Toowoomba, a balding itinerant worker-a swagman in local parlance-knocked on Saint Damian's Convent door.
Toowoomba, situated in the hills of inland Queensland, Australia's northeastern state, was normally blessed with a moderate climate, but today was a scorcher.
It was a hot and bothered Sister Mary Michael who came to the door. Perspiration seeped out from under the nun's heavy black habit, freely covering her brow and making her red face shine.
"So what is it that you're wanting?" Sister Mary Michael asked gruffly, as she scowled at the man from behind the screen door.
"I was wondering if you woulda have some work?" asked the stranger in his broken English. "I am a jack-of-all-trades man. I canna fix things and I do carpentry work and giardiniere-gardening."
The Irish nun looked the man up and down.
"Well, you're a sorry sight if I ever saw one. By all the saints, I would not have considered you for anything on any other day but this. But the roof has collapsed on our chapel and our caretaker is off in Brisbane, no doubt cavorting with drunks and harlots in that cesspool of sin. The drunken good-for-nothing just informed me he needed to go and attend to family business, and this morning he is gone. So you'd best come in," she said, as she opened the screen door.

The man humbly stepped into the darkened interior. It was marginally cooler than the outdoors, but still uncomfortably hot.
"So what is your name, man?" demanded the nun.
"Frankie," he answered. "Frankie Bernardino."
"Well, Mr. Frankie Bernardino, I can't pay you more than a pittance, but I can give you a room and food. If you stay through Sunday there may be more, depending on what gets put in the offering. I'll take what I need for the convent and the children and you can have what's left. It won't be much, if anything. The generosity of the parishioners round here leaves much to be desired. Most of them think that they have it so bad that they can't afford to help others, let alone the church. So are those terms acceptable to you?" asked the nun.
"Si, sorella, I mean, Sister," said the man meekly.
The nun looked at him closer. He was shabbily dressed for sure and obviously needed a bath, but there was a serene air about him that belied his looks. His mouth seemed permanently upturned in a beatific smile and his eyes had a sparkle about them that made him look almost saintly.
"So what are you? Spanish, Portuguese, Italian?" Sister Mary Michael asked, a little less gruffly.
"I am from Italia," replied Frankie. "I am sorry I do not speak English very well. I speak French a little better, if you know French."
"No, we will have to try and make do with English," said the nun. "Come this way. I'll show you the chapel, and then if you think you can make the repairs, I'll show you your room."
As they passed outside the back of the convent, some of the aborigine children who came there to day school waved at the stranger. Frankie smiled at them and stopped to say hello, until Sister Mary Michael hurried him along.
As they entered the chapel, the sun shone through the small stained-glass windows, but more prominently through the large hole in the roof. Frankie stooped to pick up a fragment of one of the beams, and as he squeezed the spongy wood it crumbled between his fingers.
"Termites," he said. "They have been, how you say, hardworking!" A termite was dislodged from the wood and climbed along his finger. "Salute, Fratello Termite," said Frankie, as he held his finger up. "You and your brothers have been busy. But-a you should-na be eating a house of prayer. God is not pleased."
Sister Mary Michael shuddered when Frankie said the word "termite," for she knew full well the destruction that they could cause.
"Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" she said as she crossed herself. "Can you stop them before they eat up the whole chapel?"
"I can-a try!" said Frankie, with a reassuring smile at the nun.
"Mr. Bernardino, I think you might be a godsend, but I will be reserving my judgment on you. Come, I'll show you the caretaker's room where you can stay."

The caretaker's room was rudimentary, to say the least, but Frankie seemed pleased with it. That evening he joined Sister Mary Michael and the three other nuns who lived at the convent for a meal and evening vespers. Then he retired.
It was a surprised Sister Mary Michael who saw Frankie the next morning up bright and early, as he joined them for matins, morning prayer. "I am surprised, Mr. Bernardino, to see you so diligent in your worship and prayers. You are a far cry from our regular caretaker."
Frankie smiled one of those beatific smiles that she had seen the day before. "I enjoy talking to the Father," he said. "I like-a to know that He come first every day. I have-a the peace to know whatever happens next, He and I are, how-a you say, on-a good terms."
After breakfast Frankie had Sister Mary Michael write a short note saying that he was temporarily in the convent's employ and further stating the calamity with the chapel roof. With this, Frankie explained that he would go around to the various merchants in the town and see if they would be able to donate the materials needed for the repairs.
"You'll need a lot of luck to get anything out of the hardhearted lot that live in this town," said the nun none too positively.
Frankie smiled again and, pointing his finger upwards, he said, "Let's see what-a God will do."

Later that day a wagonload of wood and other materials was delivered to the door. Sister Mary Michael stood with her mouth agape when one of the deliverymen knocked on the door, asking where it should be delivered.
"'Round the back, man," she finally managed to say. "By the chapel," she added, yelling out to the man as he headed back to the wagon.
Later that evening, when Frankie returned to the convent, an animated Sister Mary Michael accosted him in the hallway. "By all the saints, man, how did you do it?" she demanded. "I've begged, cajoled, threatened with hellfire and damnation, and have well nigh crawled through Main Street on my knees, trying to squeeze pennies out of the merchants of this town. And in one day you have come back with all these building supplies for free. It is for free, isn't it?" she added nervously.
Frankie chuckled. "Si, sorella, it is gratis. I just say I need-a help and show the note. I say 'I am accattapane--beggar--for God,' and they help me."
"Oh, Lord love you, man!" squealed the nun. "To be sure, you must teach me how you do it. But the chapel--can you start on it tomorrow?"
"Si, sorella," said Frankie. "Tomorrow I will begin. Today has been a big day and I am, how-a you say, all worn out. I think I will have to go bed now. But no worries, sorella. Tomorrow I start."
"Bless you, Frankie Bernardino," said the nun. "The sisters and I will say a rosary for you tonight before retiring."
"Grazie, sorella," said Frankie.

***

The following morning Frankie was there again for matins, and after breakfast he headed for the chapel. The serenity of the chapel and the serenity that seemed to hover around Frankie blended well together.
Looking up at the hole, Frankie considered the job before him. After about ten minutes he walked outside and scaled a ladder he put up against the side of the building.
He stepped gingerly onto the roof. His first few steps were uneventful, but as he got closer to the hole his foot went through the roof all the way up to his knee. With some difficulty he extricated it, but even though it would have seemed that his leg should have been badly gouged by the sharp timber, there were no apparent scratches.
Frankie gingerly crept backwards on the roof towards the ladder.
"Do you know what you're bloody well doing?" came a voice from the street. It was Art Kershaw, the proprietor of the largest hardware and building supply store in the town.
Frankie leaned over the roof, looked down at the burly Australian, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Thought as bloody much!" said Kershaw. "Get your bloody self back down here before you fall to your death. You've got the smile of a saint but obviously the roofing skills of a nitwit. That roof is a deathtrap. If it is already caving in from the termites without anyone walking on it, then the whole bloody thing is rotten."

Frankie carefully got back onto the ladder and climbed back down.
"Reckon I'm gonna have to get a few of my blokes to help," Kershaw said. "I've got no bloody idea why I am getting involved in all of this," he added as he shook his head. "Must be the bloody sun. Addled my brains, it has. But you," he glowered at Frankie, "stay off that roof!"
Kershaw got on his horse, which had been tethered to a nearby eucalyptus tree, and rode back into town. "I'll be back in an hour," he yelled over his shoulder as he left. "And stay off that bloody roof!"
Frankie smiled and went to sit under the tree. A little bird landed on a branch a few feet from him and started chirping incessantly. Frankie whistled and talked softly back to it, until a few minutes later his attention was drawn to two Aborigine children who were staring at the spectacle. He waved at them, and as they ran over the bird flew off.
"We heard from the sisters that you're gonna fix the chapel," the boy said.
"Si," said Frankie.
"Doesn't look like you're doing much," said the girl. "You stopped for smoko already?"
"Smoko?" answered Frankie quizzically. "I don't smoko. What are your names?"
"I'm Jacko and this is my sister Julie," answered the boy.
"You live-a near here?" asked Frankie.
"Yeah, not far. Our mum's gone walkabout and our dad is in the Outback working on a sheep station, so we sort of hang around here for now," said Jacko.
"Will she be home for Christmas?" asked Frankie.
"Dunno," answered Julie. "Never can tell with walkabout. It's in our Abo blood. When we got to walkabout, then we got to do it until we don't got to do it no more."
"What-a will you do for Christmas then?" queried Frankie further.
"Dunno. Guess we'll just hang around here with the sisters," answered Jacko.
"Hmmm!" said Frankie, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger as if in thought. "Then we'll-a have to see what we can do about that. I have an idea."
The three of them sat under the tree for the next hour, coming up with a Christmas plan, until interrupted by an agitated Sister Mary Michael who came around the same corner the children had an hour before. "Why, you two little scalawags! I've been searching high and low for you for the last hour. I've a good mind to give you a thrashing for being out here when you're supposed to be learning your catechism. And you, Mr. Frankie Bernardino, you're supposed to be fixing our roof and you are sitting on your backside under a tree. I'm beginning to have my doubts about you all over again. I went into the chapel and there's nothing done except another hole in the ceiling."
"Mi scusi, sorella, I am a sorry for taking the children away from their catechism. Si, it is my fault. Please don't-a punish the children. If-a you like you can spank me instead. See, here is a stick and I'll bend over and you canna spank me instead of them."

Jacko and Julie giggled loudly and Sister Mary Michael went redder in the face than anyone had perhaps ever gone before. She was just about to explode when the sound of horses and men coming up behind her caused her to turn round. It was Art Kershaw and three other men on horseback, plus a mule carrying carpentry tools.
"Good thing I didn't find you up that bloody ladder," Kershaw said as he pointed his finger at Frankie. "Me and my boys will take things from here."
"Mr. Arthur Kershaw, what in God's name are you doing here?" asked the astonished nun.
"Saving that numskull's life," said Kershaw, nodding once again in Frankie's direction. "He's got the smile of a saint and the brains of a wombat. If I left him up on that roof alone, your next bloody service would be a funeral. I don't know why I'm doing this other than that, Sister, but I am going to fix your roof."
For the second time in two days, Sister Mary Michael's mouth hung open. She really did not know what to say.
"Better shut that, Sister," said Kershaw with a smile. "Lots of flies around here, and one of them might just fly in."
A befuddled Sister Mary Michael mumbled her thanks, and, after a few more awkward moments, turned and herded the two children back to the classroom.
After she left, the men broke out laughing. Once they'd regained their composure, Kershaw got them to work.
"It'll take us a couple of days," he said turning to Frankie. "The whole roof has got to go. Tell the nuns to cover up the furniture and whatnot below. It's going to get awful dusty down there."

***

On day one Kershaw and his men got the roof off. That evening they doused the wood with petrol and set it on fire. "Only way to get rid of the termites," he explained.
On day two Kershaw and his men arrived early, but had not been there more than ten minutes when two more wagonloads of men and supplies pulled up.
"Seamus Kerrigan, you bloody Irish hooligan, what are you doing here?" demanded Kershaw.
Kerrigan was as tall and lanky as Kershaw was short and burly. The two walked over and stared each other in the eye.
"I wouldna be letting you, you heathen upstart, be helping a Catholic mission without me having something to say about it."
"Why, you Irish hypocrite!" said Kershaw, staring Kerrigan down. "You haven't darkened a door of a church these fifteen years I've known you. Since when did you get religion?"
"Since that man over there," retorted Kerrigan, pointing his finger at Frankie, "came to my place of business and asked if I could help with the materials to fix this chapel of the good and holy sisters of my religion, not yours. So here I am with me crew, and I am a-planning to fix this chapel and save it from the shoddy mess you and your crew of butchers would make of it."
"Shoddy mess? Crew of butchers? Why you bloody drunken ne'er-do-well. I ought to tear your grinning head off."

As the two faced each other and seemed ready to come to blows, Frankie ran in between them. "Signori, signori, per favore. No fighting! There's-a plenty of work for everyone. Canna we not all do the work?"
"Work with that bloody sorry excuse for a human being?!" growled Kershaw. "Not for all the tea in China."
Hearing the commotion outside, Sister Mary Michael came steaming out through the doors of the chapel. "What in the name of God Almighty is going on out here?" she demanded.
Her eyes then fell on Seamus Kerrigan and she froze in her tracks. "Good God! Seamus! By all the saints in Heaven above, what are you doing here?"
"I've come to fix the roof on yer chapel!" exclaimed Kerrigan. "But this dopey Australian galah is in my way. By all that our people have suffered at the hands of the English, I am not going to let the son of pommy immigrants fix my own sister's chapel."
"Your sister?!" exclaimed Frankie and Kershaw in unison.
"Yes, my sister!" shouted Kerrigan.
Sister Mary Michael went white. "I have never breathed a word that you, you fallen-from-the-grace-of-God hellion of perdition are my older brother. I have tried to hide from the shame of you becoming a heathen apostate. And now you come here and shout it out to everyone! You have shamed me, Seamus, and you have ignored me these many years. I will not have it that you are coming now, offering to fix my chapel. I would rather sit in its ruins than let you lift a hand to help me!"

Kerrigan stared down at the ground at his sister's tirade. She marched over to him and made as if she was going to slap his face, but at the last moment wheeled around and ran crying back into the chapel.
Kerrigan slumped down on the ground where he stood and also began to sob.
Kershaw and Frankie watched the whole scene. And then Kershaw shook his head in disbelief. "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" he exclaimed. "That has got to have been one of the most bizarre things I've ever witnessed. Crikey! Stop your blubbering, man," he said turning to Kerrigan, "else you're going to have me start soon. Why the hell didn't you tell anyone the nun was your sister?"
"'Cause she hates me!" said Kerrigan. "These fifteen years I've known she was here, but I never went to see her because she hates me! So here comes this chance with this Italian fellow here and I figures, well, it's Christmas and maybe here's me chance. So much for trying!"
"Letta me speak to her," said Frankie, coming over and laying a hand on Kerrigan's shoulder. He then strode into the chapel.
The interior of the chapel was draped with tarpaulins and sheets to keep the roofing dust and debris off the statues and pews and other things inside. In a corner, slumped on a covered pew, sat the nun with her head in her hands, crying uncontrollably.
Frankie gingerly walked over and squatted in front of her.
After some moments, Sister Mary Michael looked up and stared at Frankie. "What is it with that smile of yours, Frankie Bernardino? It is almost a sin for such a smile to be wasted on a swagman."
"It is-a my small gift from God," replied Frankie. "And now I think it is your turn to receive-a a gift from God."
"And what gift is that?" asked the nun, still sobbing.
"The gift of forgiveness," replied Frankie.
"I cannot forgive that man," said the nun emphatically. "The torment that he put my sainted mother and me through with his wayward ways, his fighting, his blaspheming, and everything else--his running away and leaving us to fend for ourselves. I saw my mother die more of a broken heart than the consumption that ate her up. He never came home to help. No, I cannot forgive him."
"I wasn't-a meaning that you forgive your brother," explained Frankie further. "I was-a meaning that you need to receive God's forgiveness for yourself."
"What on God's earth do I need forgiveness for?" retorted the nun.
"For holding on to hatred and bitterness in your heart," answered Frankie.
"Why, you impertinent man," retorted the nun angrily. "How do you know what is in my heart?"
"You have-a shown it today to everyone here," answered Frankie quietly. "Your brother, he is like-a prodigal son in the Bible. He is-a coming home to you today. Be like the father in the story and welcome him home."
The nun stared at Frankie and tears came once again to her eyes, as she could not deny the truth of what he was saying. "How does an Italian swagman know such truths?" she asked. "There is more to you, Frankie Bernardino, than meets the eye.
"I do not have the strength to go out there alone. Can you come with me?"
"Si, sorella," answered Frankie.

The two arose and walked back out into the street. Seamus still sat where he had been when Frankie had left him, while Kershaw had plopped himself down under a tree and was talking quietly with some of his crew.
The nun walked over to Seamus and knelt down before him.
"Can you be forgiving me, Seamus?" the nun asked as she put her hands on both his shoulders.
"Forgiving you, Bridget?" he asked her, referring to her by her childhood name.
"Aye, for the years of hatred, bitterness and--" she paused "--and for my rejection of you."
"No, it is I who need your forgiveness for the pain I caused you and Mammy."
"You have it freely given to you, Seamus. But do I have yours?"
"Of course, you silly girl. I do' na' know why you are needing mine, though, for it is I who was in the wrong."
"I was in the wrong just as much for being so angry and bitter against you." Sister Mary Michael wiped her eyes. "Now let's get up out of this dusty street, for we have many years of life to catch up with. You are quite the businessman I see now! What a difference from your tearaway days."
Seamus got up slowly and lifted his sister to her feet.
"What are you grinning at? You look like a cat that just swallowed a mouse," he snarled at Art Kershaw.
Kershaw laughed. "Well, it's just all so touching. So now can I get on with putting on this roof?"
"Aye, but my lads will be a-helping you," said Seamus emphatically.
"Oh, all right!" replied Kershaw. "I suppose they can help with the unskilled stuff."
"Unskilled!" yelled Seamus. "Why you tub of lard, my men are highly skilled tradesmen and…"
"Signori, signori," said Frankie, running in between them again. "There is-a plenty of work for all."
Both antagonists looked down at the little Italian who had squeezed himself in between them and was trying rather unsuccessfully to push them apart. Simultaneously they began to laugh.
Then Kerrigan turned around to go with his sister. As he left the scene, he yelled over his shoulder to his crew boss, "Keep an eye on them and don't let them get away with any shoddy work."

***

The work proceeded on the roof for several days. With the large crew now working at it, it was easily repaired and ready for the Christmas Eve midnight mass. A visiting priest was going to perform the service, but Frankie, Jacko, and Julie had a little surprise up their sleeves. They had asked the worshippers to come an hour early. Frankie had also begged Art Kershaw to come, even though he wasn't a Catholic.
At around 10:00 P.M. the worshippers gathered inside the chapel. Frankie entered and asked them to come outside around the back.
There in the bright moonlight stood a replica of a stable. Frankie had built it with some of the leftover roofing material. Tethered to one side was Art Kershaw's mule, and in the middle were Jacko and Julie dressed as Mary and Joseph, with a doll in a manger representing Jesus.
"We need-a some wise men," stated Frankie who went over to Seamus Kerrigan and Art Kershaw with some capes and cardboard crowns.
The two weakly protested for a few moments, but then joined in. Jacko and Julie's father Roger had returned from the Outback the previous morning, and he was also pulled into the play as the third wise man.
It was not common for white folks to mix with Aborigines, but Sister Mary Michael, who had been in on the plot, explained to Kershaw and Seamus that one of the wise men had been supposedly "a black fellow," as she put it.
Roger came pulling a baby camel beside him to add to the authenticity of the scene, camels being quite numerous in the Australian Outback. Frankie assumed the role of a lone shepherd.
Sister Mary Michael read the Christmas story by lamplight as the men acted out their roles.
"I feel like a jackass," Kershaw whispered to Seamus at one point.
"You're a wise man for once in your sorry life," Seamus joked. Kershaw stifled a chuckle at the seeming incongruity of the scene.
The congregation applauded wildly at the end of the play, and then Sister Mary Michael invited everyone inside the chapel for mass.
As the people filed in, the nun spied a familiar figure disappearing into the convent. Instead of following him, she waited outside and about five minutes later Frankie appeared with his swag on his back.
"And you would be just sneaking out of here?" she asked, surprising him.
"I need-a to go," he answered meekly.
"Indeed you must, to be sneaking out at this hour! I know who you are, you know."
Frankie smiled broadly. "I knew you would-a figure it out."
"It took me a while to put all the pieces in place. Talking to the birds, the brother termite business, a beggar for God, that smile, the Christmas play, even the name of our mission. Thank you for blessing our place with your presence, Francesco di Pietro di Bernardino, or should I say Francis of Assisi. You have repaired our church, and I don't just mean the building. You have healed me of my wounds, just as you tended the lepers long ago. You have done wonders here."
Frankie smiled. "Go to mass, sorella. You have quite a flock to attend to. I must-a be about our Father's business, but I look forward to the day when we will-a meet again."
The nun and Frankie embraced and then she turned and headed to the chapel. She didn't turn back, for she knew the swagman saint would no longer be there. But she also knew that he would never be gone.
(Published by www.activated.org , used with permission)