Psalm 19:14
Saturday 11th August: It was a more than beautiful day. Bright sunlight glinted through the large, round, stained-glass window that loomed over the altar of the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Sumner, Springfield, Mass. This great hall of a church always lifted his spirits. He looked at the altar, pristine and unadorned, whilst Christ crucified, a celebration of love, hung from the rafters at the East end of the Church, as if suspended in space. He felt as though resurrected himself, just through being here. He made his way to the side of the church where a few souls waited, his responsibility this day. Then his mood jarred, awkward, unbidden.
Poor Angie. Like one of Pavlov's dogs, his response was automatic. The thought of her again summoned anger. He saw her now, the curve of her smile ephemeral in his mind's eye, bettering a da Vinci. He liked her hands. Hands fit for the Queen of Heaven. Hands to pray with. They were ivory in his remembrance, like something from a long gone era, ivory and small but long-fingered, hands worthy of a violinist.
Father Sebastian grunted softly and narrowed his dark brown eyes. Sweet Mary Mother of God; why was this problem affecting him so? He felt a sense of shame. Not guilt. Like most men, Father David Sebastian had little understanding of guilt. He regarded guilt as an uniquely female emotion. That re-visiting and dwelling on sin was something Father Sebastian understood, as a man understands what it is to walk on the moon. He observed it, even marveled at it, but it was not a part of his personal universe.
What Father Sebastian was feeling was profoundly different. Shame. Shame is a thing of now. Hideously real. Father Sebastian felt shame at his anger and, though he scarce dared confess it, shame at the way he was allowing himself to think of poor Angie.
Priests had their ways of dealing with these things of course. Thinking of women as objects, dehumanising them, was effective but inevitably disabling. Father Sebastian had tried and rejected that path. The imitation of Christ was a better way, becoming like Jesus as best you could, filling your mind with prayer and selfless love. But even that path was imperfect, for Christ himself was tempted as other men. Fully, else his trial in the wilderness had been mere sham. No, Jesus was tempted indeed but dealt with it as only the God-man could. How tempted? More so, no doubt, than mortal man, when He, God incarnate, walked with the Magdalene. But He mastered sin and rejected it. Father Sebastian recognized that he himself was built of frailer stuff. And with that recognition came shame. But not too much of it. He too was as God made him and he had his own remedy, which was to avoid being alone with a woman except in the sacred space that was the confessional.
So why this shame over Angie? Was she his Magdalene? The corner of his mouth curled into the beginnings of a smile as he set aside the thought. He had heard the scrape of the curtain rings on the rail. Another soul in need of comfort. At the sound of the formulaic words he shook himself gratefully, like a dog doused in water on a hot day, and turned to listen, his eyes narrow again, alert.
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned . . ."
Father Sebastian's chin twitched and his face became gloomy. He sighed inwardly. Mary Young. He knew that urgent, pleading voice.
He knew most of his parishioners by voice but Mrs Mary Young of the big house, 200 Longhill, she he knew all too well. He was fond of her in his way. Did Mary Young know what it was to sin? To really sin? Father Sebastian had his doubts.
Practically perfect, like a latter-day Mary Poppins, she was an exemplar to the youth of the parish. She actually reminded him of Mary Poppins. And she looked a little like Julie Andrews. Was Julie Andrews subject to the corruption that was, in his experience, the norm amongst the women that dragged the curtain aside to talk to him of their dark secrets - of the desires that they had shaped and woven into the fabric of their reality? No not Julie Andrews, not the Blessed Mary ever Virgin, and most certainly not Mrs Mary Young with her china-blue eyes and round, fair face. Yet here she was again, back to confess once more, as she did each month that passed - to confess to trivia - to yet again confess to nothing - whereas those genuine reprobates more worthy of absolution he was likely to see once a year at best.
What was she going to confess to now? Had she said "shit" when she dropped the pasta? Or failed to remember her evening prayers last Thursday week? Father Sebastian slapped himself on the wrist in virtual semblance of self-reproach and allowed himself a wry smile, then settled in to listen. It was what he was there for, after all.
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