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“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. But really, if you remember me, or at least my voice, I’m here for some advice, if you’re still up for offering it,” Prin said.
“Okay! But tell me your sins first, my son,” the priest said.
He spoke in a sing-song way. This wasn’t the same old man Prin had talked to the last time he’d come to this church. But you never know. And it was too late, anyway. He couldn’t just skip out now that he was already kneeling.
“Father, the sin that weighs most heavily upon me is having just eaten meat,” Prin said.
“On Good Friday! Naughty boy! Did you forget, somehow? It happens, I know. Back home in the Philippines, my grandmother used to always tell us peccatum ad rem, very bad! Peccatum per accidens non est peccatum? It’s okay!” the priest said.
“No, Father, I ate it on purpose, fully knowing I was breaking the rule of abstinence,” Prin said.
“Uh oh,” said the priest.
“Yes. My own mother mentioned something she had learned in convent school, actually, about our natures being both fallen and at the same time—”
“Are you really going to blame your sins on your mother and her convent school memories? Here comes everybody living la vida loca, right? But anyways, you are saying you ate meat on Good Friday on purpose?” the priest asked.
“Yes,” said Prin.
“That is a mortal si-in,” the priest said.
“Yes, Father, and that is why I’ve come to confession. Shall I make an act of contrition now?” Prin asked.
“I thought you said you came here for some advice,” the priest said.
“Well, yes, but actually it was related to another conversation that I had with a different priest here at the parish,” Prin said.
“There is no other priest at this parish,” he said.
“I was here a couple of weeks ago and spoke with a … Father Tom,” Prin said.
“And so now you have broken the rule of abstinence, and you are lying to a priest. I have been the only priest here for three years,” the priest said.
Prin ducked out of the burgundy drapery and looked around. This was absolutely the same church he’d come to after that first meeting with Wende and the others. If not a priest, who the hell had been sitting on the other side of this filigreed window screen?
“Father, I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to explain it. But you’re sure there’s no Father Tom associated with this parish?” Prin asked.
“Maybe many years ago, when all the priests here were Tom and Dick and Harry types. But not these days, sor-ry!” the priest said.
“So whatever absolution I received—probably isn’t valid, right? He tapped his watch to remind me of my sins,” Prin said.
“Oh, wait, that fellow! Yes! He’s famous for doing that during confessions. I forgot, I took a group to Lourdes earlier this month and someone filled in for me. The Archdiocese must have sent Father Fernie. Father Tick-Tock Tom, we call him. Shhh, that’s a secret,” the priest said.
“Yes. Okay then. So, I wasn’t lying to you, and I take it he’s not here today, and I do have that one sin in particular to confess—eating meat on Good Friday. But what’s really weighing on me, Father, is having to tell my wife something,” Prin said.
“Uh oh. I don’t like the sounds of that!” the priest said.
“Father, I have to go overseas for work, and it could be a dangerous trip, both in terms of the place I am going and the person I am travelling with, the woman I am travelling with, if you understand what I mean. The danger is at least in my heart and eye if not otherwise, due to a medical condition, but anyway, really, I don’t want to go but —”
“Let me guess,” the priest said.
There came a long, long pause.
“God wants you to go,” the priest said.
Where had the sing-song gone?
“Father, it seems like you’ve heard this before, but—”
“And also what you just said, and what you’re going to say next, what you all say next,” the priest said.
What was Prin going to say next? He didn’t know. How could this priest know? How could he know Prin had heard a voice? The Voice? Yours?
“So, say it. Say that the stripper really likes you and you’re concerned about her and her kids and that she’s actually an exotic dancer who wanted to be a ballerina when she was a little girl. You know this because you talk. You text. Say that you’re just doing research and that’s why you’re looking at those pictures. Say you’re taking the money because you’re planning to give it to charity,” the priest said.
“It’s not like that at all!” Prin said.
“Bingo again! Next, you’ll say that really you don’t want to do something, something that will probably get you in trouble, get your family in trouble, get your soul in trouble, but you think God wants you to do it, and you’re such a good Catholic boy and so you don’t want to disobey God. And now you want me to tell you it’s okay to do what you really want to do. But does God really want you to do this? And before you answer, remember the Third Commandment,” the priest said.
“I am not going to commit adultery!” Prin said.
“That’s the Seventh,” the priest said.
“I meant taking the Lord’s name in vain!”
Jesus, how could he get that wrong? Why did he get that wrong?
“So, now that we’re talking the same commandment, go on,” the priest said.
“Look Father, something really happened. I’m convinced I felt God’s presence a little while ago, and that it moved me to do this, that He has moved me to do this. I heard Him. He … spoke to me,” Prin said.
“Then why not just tell your wife?” the priest asked.
That was it? No jumping out of the confessional to dial 911 or the Vatican?
“Because she probably won’t believe me, and for the same reason you don’t believe me,” Prin said.
“What I believe about you doesn’t matter. Even what she believes doesn’t matter. EVEN what you believe doesn’t matter,” the priest said.
“Then?” Prin asked.
“If we could ask Him, right now, on today of all days, what He believes about you?” the priest asked.
“Are you still there?” the priest asked.
“I am,” Prin said.
“So tell me, what does God believe about you, right now, and always, no matter what you believe about Him or believe He’s told you to do?” the priest asked.
“Father, I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know. How can I know, how can any of us know? Look, I just came in here because I ate steak on Good Friday and also because I need to tell my wife something strange but true. I still do,” Prin said.
“Whatever it is, it can’t be stranger or truer than what God believes about you,” the priest said.