Reckoning: Chapter 9: The End of the World Summary & Analysis

The Szubanskis had gone to church when they lived in England, but they stopped the habit when they moved to Australia. Magda missed Mass; but Margaret remembers that, when Magda was three, she repeatedly yelled “shut up” to a priest during his service.

Magda’s second experience with religion came from the Vincents, who had recently become Jehovah’s Witnesses. Trying to convert the Szubanskis, the Vincents hosted a Bible study in their plastic-covered sitting room, but Peter decided it was nonsense. Once, Magda asked the Vincent kids what would happen to her family during Armageddon. Jodie Vincent replied that they would not be saved because they are “Catholic idolators”; however, people from the olden days would be resurrected. Tempted to live in the same world as Daniel Boone, Magda considered converting, and she counted down the days to Doomsday on a calendar.

True to her Catholic roots, Magda judged her conscience harshly. Margaret and Peter considered sending Magda to Catholic convent school along with her friend Izabella Kobylański, the daughter of a Polish family who survived Auschwitz and migrated to Australia. The Kobylańskis exposed Magda to Polish food and culture; she longed to speak Polish so she could understand Adam Kobylański’s stories.