Padre Blazon Character Analysis

Padre Blazon is an old and eccentric member of the Jesuit group of scholars with whom Dunstan studies for a time. Dunstan has a particularly close relationship with Padre Blazon, whose understanding of Christianity, faith, and God is unusual and thoughtful. Padre wishes Jesus had lived to be an old man—for he is an old man himself, and realizes there is nothing in the teachings of Christ that tells us how to be old. He advises Dunstan on how to handle and think about Mrs. Dempster’s sainthood. He dies an elderly but still energetic man, and tells Dunstan on his deathbed that he has finally figured out how to be old.