The Confessional

Quiet hush of the old church¾it’s November, 1960¾my turn for the confessional. I pass the bent woman who just exited the confessional, she is old, so old¾what could she have confessed? Has her faith wavered in her old age? Has she slighted a neighbor? None of my business, I guess I only want a distraction.

Passing through the heavy velvet curtain was like leaving the world of movement behind, left with only the stillness of sin.

“In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost” I said as I bent to the padded kneeler. The little sliding window moved to the left, leaving a yellow tinted screen behind a carved wood grille.

“Bless me Father for I have sinned.”

“Yes, I’m here, thy sorrows be bade with sympathy, and unite bitter tears of repentance with the tears of His blood” he says through the little window.

I panic now, the scent of lemon-oil and terebinth all around (and somewhere the scent of eternal death: Hoc est enim Corpus meum)

“You may proceed, I am listening”

I clear my throat, my nervous habit, my “tell.”

“Bless me Father for I have sinned,” I say again¾hoping for something more, something less ordinary than this. Nothing comes. I decide I cannot tell my sin, I cannot announce my filthy actions¾what came over me? What agent of the Lucifer tricked me? What will Mother say?

“Yes,” he says, less patient, “Please continue.”

“I spent time at work on a personal phone call,” I lie, not knowing what else to offer up. “And I didn’t tell a store clerk when she undercharged me,” another lie. Christum Dóminum forgive me for telling lies in the confessional.

“Is that your confession? Have you thoroughly examined your conscience? Your Redeemer, you know, beseeches you to confess all transgressions, both great and small.”

“Yes Father, these are my sins”¾do I tell this man, this man in a box, that I have knowingly slept with a married man, a man with a wife and child, that I am no longer a virgin, a clean temple? Do I tell him that I am now with child? A bastard? What could he possibly do? Absolve me and make me pure again? Take this child from my soured belly and let me have my quiet life back?

“I have nothing further Father; I have confessed my sins with all sincerity.”

“Well then, daughter in Christ, I ask that O Almighty God, Who, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies has vouchsafed once more to receive they prodigal child. Pray the Rosary twenty-five times, The Our Father thirty and ask the Blessed Virgin for guidance in your daily life. Dominus sit in corde tuo et in labilis tuis.”

“Thank you Father.” I said, my right hand making the sign of the cross at my forehead, over my lips and heart. I rose from the kneeler and exited. I didn’t stop to make the recommended prayers¾the wooden doors waited¾get through them and outside. The safety and sanctity of the church, like my chastity, were soiled now. I thought of St. Leo the 1^st, how with his eloquence he had overcome Attila the Hun, and I couldn’t even confess my sins, behind a privacy screen to the Parrish priest.

Back on the sidewalk, I realized I was really frightened. I wasn’t afraid of the possible impending fires of Hell that might surely wait for me at the end of my life for my sins committed¾no¾I was afraid of the life that would grow in me, of the person it would become. I was frightened of the questions it might ask someday, and the winter she (would it be a girl?) might come to feel for me when I refused to answer her questions. Would I resent her for reminding me of my sin? Would I see his eyes in hers? I decided then and there, no matter the cost I would never discuss my transgression. I would live as saintly as possible, take no selfish joy¾