Father Gregory fantasized about stigmata. At night, when he was alone with his Scotch and his Sinatra CD's, the priest looked at his hands. They were pale and smooth, the hands of a man whose harshest labor was carrying a large Bible or swinging a censer. Hands that touched no woman, caressed no child. He imagined how they would look with nail marks in the palms. He closed his eyes, sipped his drink, and, in his fantasy, felt more like a man than he did at Mass, when he offered the essence of the Son of Man to those who came to him. He thought of Jesus, taking a boat out to sea in a storm, riding through Jerusalem on a donkey, carrying the cross up the hill. He looked at his unmarred hands again and felt ashamed.
A sharpshooter in the killing fields of self-deception, the priest told himself he wanted the wounds of Christ so that he could pull others into the vortex of absolute faith. But he was desperate for scars of the Crucifixion because he doubted. If God gives me stigmata, I will know that He is there, he reasoned. But how can He give it to me if I have no faith to receive it? Father Gregory pondered the circular injustice of his dilemma, and then prayed for grace. A gift he knew he didn't deserve.
There was no one he could talk to about this dilemma. His confessor would tell him to pray and to forgive himself for his humanity. But Father Gregory harbored a secret belief that humanity, his or anyone's, didn't need to be forgiven. He said Mass four times a week and heard confessions on Wednesdays and Fridays. This was the worst part for him - listening to his parishioners as they sought chastisement, absolution or just someone to listen. How pathetic, Father Gregory often thought, to sit in an uncomfortable chair and talk to a man who can't see you. A weak, faithless fake of a man.
In the depth of his mind, Father Gregory knew he would receive no stigmata. He didn't believe in miracles, and even if he did, he knew that such gifts were given only to men and women of profound faith, or to people who gave no thought at all to miracles. He reminded himself that the Blessed Virgin had yet to appear in Manhattan or Los Angeles, and that she certainly could not be bothered with him.
Lying in his bed late at night, Father Gregory prayed to be worthy of his priesthood, then prayed to be able to believe he should pray. He remembered his early years as a priest, and how he had felt that God was in his heart every moment. Had God gone away, or had he lost his heart? He thought of seeking an assignment to a foreign mission, where he would have to work in the fields or dodge bullets of civil unrest. Then he could do real work, give his faith a reality test. These fantasies, of course, were really about seeing himself as a romantic figure, and when he allowed himself to indulge them, Father Gregory became burdened with shame for the sin of his narcissism. He had no idea how to present himself to the Holy One without thought for his own welfare. He added self-absorption to his inventory of personal weaknesses.
On a Friday morning in early April, the priest sat alone in the confessional booth, reading the Psalms and staring at his hands in the votive light. He heard footsteps approach the booth; someone entered.
"Bless me Father, for I have sinned."
A man's voice. Quiet, deep.
"How long since your last confession?"
"I don't know. About twenty years."
There was a silence. Father Gregory was used to the awkward silence of penitents, especially those who had not confessed in years.
"Perhaps you could sum up your sins. What is on your mind that made you come in?
"Mine is the worst sin, Father."
More silence. Father Gregory had never had a murderer or a rapist confess, and he imagined his luck was about to run out.
"I am guilty of the sin of self-love. I put myself over everyone, even God.
"We all do that. It is a universal sin."
"But it is burning a hole inside me, Father. I can't sleep, I can't concentrate on anything."
"Have you seen a therapist?"
"I don't need that kind of help, Father. I need someone to take me back to the heart of God."
"You want spiritual counseling?"
"Yes."
Father Gregory began to perspire. His chest felt heavy, and he struggled to keep from sighing. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, then allowed the tips of his fingers to explore the smooth skin between his hairline and his nose.
"I can refer you to a spiritual director."
"I thought perhaps you could do it."
"There are licensed directors who can spend more time with you."
"All right. But I have no pen or pencil. May I call you later for the names?"
"Yes, of course. Are there other sins you wish to talk about?"
The man went on to describe his years of preoccupation with career success, his neglect of his family, his brief affair with a co-worker, his corporate manipulations that had hurt innocent people. Father Gregory struggled to maintain his attention. How did psychotherapists do it? Sit in a chair all day and listen to this endless recitation of confession and sorrow. He prayed with the unknown man, gave him some penance and suggested he go to confession more often. The man agreed, and thanked the priest for his prayers and guidance.
It was a slow day. People were trickling into the church. His colleague, Father Hunter, would be saying the midday Mass. Father Gregory closed his eyes and concentrated on the smell of the candles. He rubbed his cheek where he had nicked himself shaving that morning. When he cut himself, he had looked in the mirror and seen the smooth face of a man whom some would call attractive. He had remembered a day, many years ago, when Jenny, a girl from his high school, had touched his face and moved in so close to him that he could smell the soap from her shower. She had placed her forefinger on the placket of his buttondown shirt and had slipped it between the top two buttons. Jenny had moved her finger back and forth, touching his undershirt, and he had begun to sweat.
The sound of the bell rang the priest out of his reverie, and he sighed with relief. He stood up to join the congregation, but something made him sit again. It was uncomfortable in the booth, but he felt as though his legs were glued onto the wooden seat.
The smell of good soap, and the slightest pressure on the cloth of his undershirt.
He had wanted to run, but his feet were nailed to the floor of Jenny's living room just as they were now nailed to the floor of the confessional. Her parents had gone to a dinner party. Her eyes were a soft brown, and her hair swirled around her face, softening the angles of her nose and chin. She looked as though she were waiting for him to do something, but he was paralyzed with fear and excitement.
Touch her. Smile at her. Say something. Be a man.
She had removed her finger from inside the placket of his shirt, and had used it to trace the shirt buttons down to his belt buckle. The glaring evidence of his excitement had humiliated him, but his shame wasn't enough to make it go away. His shoulders had shrugged involuntarily and his breathing had become quick and audible.
I have never seen the tip of her finger. I have never even thought about it.
Jenny's finger had continued its earnest expedition down the trail of his khakis, finally liberating him. For every time he had gone to confession and told the priest he had masturbated, the teenage Father Gregory hadmasturbated dozens of unconfessed times. He was a sinner, and it was his sinning that gave him the most excitement. But this, this was beyond any shameful pleasure he had known alone in his bedroom. When he had seen Jenny's finger transform into her delicate yet all-powerful hand, he had gone blank, too terrified to move, too excited to think.
He heard Father Hunter muttering the Mass and he heard the shuffling of feet. As long as he thought about Jenny, he became one with the sensations in his body, but when he heard the Mass bell, he was again the judgmental observer. He tried to pray for purification, but he was distracted by his own intense quivering. After the mass, three people came in to confess. The only female was an elderly parishioner, and Father Gregory was relieved that he did not have to hear a younger woman's voice. He resolved to seek counseling, to go on retreat, to spend more time in private prayer.
That evening, Father Gregory sat in his apartment drinking Scotch and listening to Ella Fitzgerald. He wondered what it would be like to dance, not alone, but with a woman. He wondered if he should stop drinking, or take up a vigorous sport, racquetball, perhaps. He looked at his hands again and tried to imagine nail wounds, but he could not bring back the image. His hands had held the sacred chalice, had covered the heads of children with blessing. They had held the blessed sacrament.
Hands on Jenny's thighs. On her back.
Father Gregory felt dangerously melancholy. He blamed the Scotch, got up, put on his jacket and went out into the street. He was wearing a turtleneck, no clerical collar. As he passed a store window, he saw his reflection and realized he hadn't bothered to comb his hair. He suddenly felt very hungry and stepped into the little Italian restaurant he had passed dozens of times. There were no available tables, so Father Gregory sat at the bar and drank a glass of red wine. The woman in the next stool smiled at him. She didn't appear to be flirting, but what did he know?
He smiled back at the woman, who appeared to be in her mid- to late thirties, maybe five or six years younger than he.
"I don't know anything about the food here. But with all these people, I guess I made a good choice."
She laughed. "It's always crowded. They say it's the best pizza in town, but I come here for the shellfish."
Father Gregory smiled. He looked to see who might be with the woman, but everyone around her was engaged in private conversation. She was drinking white wine. He noticed her hands. They were delicate, with long fingers. The room filled with the smells of marinara sauce, fresh dough and anchovies. Candlelight was everywhere, and a Giuliani guitar concerto flowed through the bar like spring water. A tall man with a beard entered the restaurant, and the woman seemed to light up. The tall man came over to the bar and lightly kissed her, then ordered a drink.
I am guilty of the sin of self-love. I put myself over everyone, even God.
Father Gregory's turn came, and he sat at his table, ordered a plate of clams with red sauce and watched the woman and her friend as they talked. The woman and her lover. He watched them when they sat at a table and ordered, and he watched them as they ate. The woman had smelled of good soap and cologne. She had smiled at him, even though he hadn't combed his hair.
But it is burning a hole inside me.
The priest ate his dinner and sat for a while in the warmth of the restaurant, catered to by waiters, soothed by guitars. He ordered a glass of cognac. The woman and her friend were sharing tiramisu and drinking coffee. Father Gregory imagined she was sitting at his table, eating tiramisu with him and telling him her plans, her opinions, her secrets. He again found his feet nailed to the floor, unable to move him out of his chair and walk him back to his apartment. When he saw the waiter coming toward him, he paid the bill quickly, gathered his resolve, and walked home.
The priest considered the dangers of alcohol and impulsivity. But a life without wine or Scotch could not erase the aroma of marinara sauce, the sound of guitars or the memory of a woman's smile. Why were the pleasures of wine, marinara and Giuliani allowed, but not the pleasure of the memory of a woman's face? Father Gregory again promised himself he would seek help for his problem. The strains of Italian guitar music lingered in his head, and he inhaled deeply. He lifted his hand and touched his own face, then was flooded with loneliness.
He remembered a tweed jacket he had loved when he was a boy. He had outgrown it in his adolescent years, but hadn't been able to give it up, the way a toddler must touch base with a blanket that links him to the certainty of his
mother. When he became a young man, he had grown thin from exercising, and the jacket had fit him again, but he had lost interest in it.
Father Gregory closed his eyes and saw Jesus on the cross. He saw the penitent in the confessional. He saw himself, young and gangly, in his tweed jacket, then he saw a smiling woman eating tiramisu by candlelight. He looked at his hands, but instead of seeing nail marks, he saw the hands of another man-a man who wanted to touch a woman with soft brown eyes. A woman who smelled of good soap, and who was waiting for him to do something.
