Snow had fallen all through the night and it continued to fall through the short bleak morning of the day before Christmas. Though the sky remained overcast, the snow stopped falling about noon, so the plowing crews were able to clear the main highways and some of the side roads. Conor was glad about this because it meant he would be able to get through to his weekend call.
Conor had been ordained a priest the previous June and this would be his first Christmas Mass. He was still studying at Shadowbrook, completing the fourth and final year of theological studies required by the Jesuits, and though he offered Mass privately each morning, he was eager to be out in a parish, hearing confessions and saying Mass for real people facing real problems in the real world. It would mean missing the mulled wine after midnight services at Shadowbrook, but they’d probably give him a drink at the parish anyhow. And it was good to get away. Life at Shadowbrook was fine; it was all that a young priest could hope for; but with nobody but Jesuits living there, it was a hothouse of spirituality, and Conor saw little point in preaching the Gospel to other preachers of the Gospel.
And so on the morning of Christmas Eve Conor packed his overnight case and went out to the back step of the theologate to wait for the car that would pick him up, along with five other newly ordained Jesuit priests who would all be dropped off at parishes around the city. They were a somewhat suspect group in the parishes, filled as they were with radical new ideas about scripture and the sacraments, but at Christmas all the local pastors were shorthanded and so these young Jesuits were welcomed for the work they could do… even though three of them sported beards.
Conor felt happy, he felt fortunate, as he charged out into the snow to do good, to bring a little peace into this world, to make people feel loved and valued and saved. How lucky I am, he thought.
He arrived at Our Lady of Victories parish with an hour to spare before afternoon confessions. The parking lot at the side of the church was still not plowed and no path had been cleared to the front door of the rectory and so Conor, with only rubbers on his feet, plunged into the snow and waded, knee-deep, up the nonexistent path to the stoop. He shivered as the snow seeped down inside his shoes; he would get a cold out of this, for sure.
A snow shovel was propped against the wall next to the door. Conor was just about to ring the bell when he thought, Oh hell, it’s Christmas, and he put down his overnight bag and began to shovel the stoop. When he finished, he cleared the stairs. He had made a good start on the cement walk when suddenly the front door opened and somebody yelled at him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Conor turned around and saw, standing in the doorway, an elderly priest with a red face and glasses. He was wearing a white T-shirt and black trousers, and his belly hung over his belt. His right hand curled around a coffee mug as if it were a grenade.
“You deaf?”
“Oh, sorry, Father,” Conor said, all innocence and charm. “I saw that the walk hadn’t been shoveled, and I thought I’d just give you a hand.”
“Get in here; it’s freezing out there.”
“Why don’t I just finish this walk?” Conor said. “It’ll only take me a few minutes and I’m almost…” but the door slammed before he could complete the sentence. Conor stared at the closed door for a moment, blushed, and said, feeling like a fool, “Done.”
Snow had begun to fall again in heavy wet flakes and Conor pulled his scarf tighter around his neck. Yes, he’d get a cold from this; with any luck, he’d get pneumonia. God damn.
He finished shoveling the walk and then stamped his feet several times to shake off the snow. He stood on the stoop and examined his overnight case. He blew his nose. He took off his rubbers and placed them next to the door. Then he picked them up; they should go inside the door or they’d freeze. This was awful. Should he ring the bell? Should he just walk in as if nothing had happened? He waited there, in dread. Finally he pushed the door open and went inside.
“Out here,” someone called, and Conor put down his rubbers and followed the voice into the kitchen where the priest sat at a table hunched over the sports page of the newspaper while the cook stirred something on the stove.
“Happy Christmas!” Conor said.
The cook turned and looked at him for a moment and then went back to her stirring. The priest said, “Have some coffee,” and kept on reading his newspaper.
Conor took off his coat. “Good afternoon, Father. I’m from Shadowbrook? I’m here to help with confessions and Mass. Gosh, that’s some snow. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get through.” He looked around for someplace to hang up his coat. “You’re Father…?”
“Just toss it anywhere,” the priest said, folding his paper and scooting back his chair, all action suddenly. “Have some coffee. What’s the matter with you anyway, shoveling the walk. You’re a Jesuit, right? Beard and all. What are you, New Breed or something?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Father. New Breed.”
Conor knew exactly what he meant. Any priest this old and this fat used the term New Breed to mean all those things that menaced his existence: antiwar activists like the Berrigans; folk masses with guitars; the usual threats—the threat of English in the liturgy, the threat of birth control, the threat of every single thing they were now talking about at Vatican II, a council already in its second year and bound to turn out liberal and disastrous. That’s what he meant.
The priest merely stared at Conor and Conor stared back.
“Have some coffee,” the priest said, and this time he pointed to a little side table with a coffeepot and some cups. “How long have you been ordained, Father?”
“Six months; almost six months to the day.”
“Six months. That’s not long, even for a Jesuit. You burn draft cards and that sort of thing? You want to stop the war?” He waited for an answer, but there was none. “What kind of last name is that you’ve got, anyway? French? You French?”
“I’m half-French. Half-Irish. Hence Conor for a first name.”
“Hence,” the priest said, with a laugh. And in a prissy voice, “Hence.”
Conor stared into his coffee cup. “And your name, Father?”
“Pure Irish. Mahoney. And this is Mrs. Carberry; she’s Irish too.”
Mrs. Carberry turned and frowned at them both just as another priest entered the kitchen, this one also in a T-shirt and black trousers. He was thin, scrawny even, with a pointy face and the smell of alcohol on him. He could have been any age between forty and sixty. “And Father Riley is my assistant. He’s Irish too. This is the Jesuit, Riley. Father here is a French Jesuit. With a beard. Shovels walks, he does.”
Father Riley rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Can’t wake up,” he said. He walked to the refrigerator and stuck his head inside. “Nothing here but a load of cast-iron crap,” he said.
“Now, listen up, sonny,” Father Mahoney said to Conor. “Everything around here is done by the rules. In liturgy, we follow the rules of the church. And around the house, we follow my rules. Got it?”
Conor smiled. “But of course.”
“But of course,” Father Mahoney said, in that voice again. “But of course. So, here are some rules. Confessions this afternoon from three thirty to five thirty. Dinner at six. Not six fifteen. Six. Confessions again from seven thirty to nine. Midnight Mass at midnight. Get there at a quarter to. It’ll be a High Mass, but don’t panic; I do most of the singing. One thing Jesuits can never do is sing. I’ll be celebrant, Riley here will be deacon, you’ll be subdeacon. There’s a rubrics chart in the sacristy, so study it sometime before Mass tonight. One thing Jesuits never know is rubrics. Got it?”
“Got it. And I do happen to know the rubrics.”
“You happen to. Good. Now do you happen to know why I don’t want you doing any more shoveling?”
“Father, it’s Christmas,” Conor said, the peacemaker.
“I don’t want you shoveling because we pay a man, pay him very well, to do exactly that. But he’s out today… on a bender. And when he comes in tomorrow or the next day or whenever he finally makes it, I want him to see just how much trouble he’s caused us. See?”
“See,” Conor said. Father Mahoney took one last sip from his coffee cup and left the kitchen. Conor turned from him to Mrs. Carberry, who was now busying herself at the sink. He turned to Father Riley, who still stood with his head in the refrigerator.
“I wonder if someone could tell me where my room is?” Conor asked. Without a word Mrs. Carberry pointed to a door at the far end of the kitchen.
“Happy Christmas,” Conor said.
“It’s merry Christmas,” Mrs. Carberry said.
Above the door to the confessional was a slot for the visiting priest’s name. Conor was just inserting a strip of white cardboard printed with his name, followed by the SJ, when Father Mahoney came up behind him and said, “I see you’re advertising the SJ. That should bring the customers in.”
Conor could tell some answer was expected, but he refused, and offered the old priest only a hard smile.
Father Mahoney took a step backward and said, almost apologetically, “It was only a joke,” and when Conor continued the hard smile, Father Mahoney turned and made his way slowly down the aisle and across the church to his own confessional.
Conor sat in the darkness and thought of his wet feet. He caught cold every year, and once he’d caught it, it would stay around till spring. He’d dried his hair and changed his socks before coming out to hear confessions, but he had only the one pair of shoes and of course they were wet all through. It’s that damn Mahoney, he thought, and then asked God’s forgiveness because Mahoney was probably a good priest according to his own lights, dim though they were, and who could guess what private suffering Mahoney had to endure, etcetera, etcetera.
There was no room for emotion, hot or cold, in Jesuit piety, Conor liked to say. No room for hate or even resentment, and certainly no room for sentimentality. And so, who was he to judge the Mahoneys of this world? The long course of Jesuit training—fifteen endless years—was intended to produce men with a naked and ruthless knowledge of self. It went without saying that self-knowledge presupposed the desire and commitment to reform the self in the likeness of Jesus Christ. And he himself was as far from that likeness as you could get, Conor knew. So leave poor Mahoney alone. And at once he found himself thinking, Yes, leave the dead to bury the dead. But at just that moment someone entered the confessional on his right, and Conor immediately forgot his failure of charity, his head cold, the unspeakable Father Mahoney.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It is two weeks since my last confession, and these are my sins.”
“Mm-hmm,” Conor murmured, an encouraging sound.
“What?”
“Nothing. That’s fine. Go right ahead.”
“Oh, okay. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It is two weeks since my last confession, and these are my sins.” Pause. “I was mean to my little brother twice; I told a lie once; I sassed my mother seven times; I masturbated six times; I forgot my evening prayers twice; and I took the Lord’s name in vain nineteen times.”
Ah, Conor thought, the sin sandwich. They all did this, dropped the big sin in the middle of all the little ones, hoping it wouldn’t get too much notice. “I see,” Conor said. “Well that’s fine. It sounds as if you’re trying hard to be a good guy. How old are you anyway?” There was silence. None of them were used to being spoken to as if they were people. After a while, the boy said, “How old?” And then, “Fourteen.”
“Fourteen!” Conor said, as if he were astounded that anybody could be fourteen. “Well, that’s a really rough age. I had a terrible time when I was fourteen. Let me ask you something about your confession, okay? You said you were mean to your little brother; how old is he?”
“Six, Father.”
“Oh, six. Well, they can be an awful pain in the neck at six, right? But of course, you’re so much older—you’re practically a man now—you can be patient with him. I mean, you want to be, don’t you.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Sure, of course you do. I know you do. Now, the other thing. Taking the Lord’s name in vain. What do you think about that anyhow?”
“It’s a sin, Father.”
“Well, I don’t know how much of a sin it is, but it sounds lousy. Don’t you think? I think so. Oh sure, all the other guys say it and we figure we sound like one of the guys, you know, we really fit in if we say it too. But it sounds like hell. It’s a bad habit.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Now I guess that’s all. Oh, wait, you mentioned something else; masturbation, was it? Well, a lot of fuss is made about that. I don’t know. Just do your best and try to help around the house. And be nice to your little brother, especially tomorrow, because it’s Christmas and he’s gonna be very excited and will probably drive you crazy. But just try to make it a nice day for him and for your folks, your mom and dad, all right?”
“Yes, Father.” Relief in the voice.
“You’re a good kid, don’t forget that. Now, for your penance say one Our Father and thank God you’ve got such a good family.”
Conor gave the boy absolution, sketched a large sign of the cross in the air, and slid the little window closed. He sighed once, happy, and tilting his head to the other side, slid open the little window on his left.
Let me help, he prayed silently, let me just help.
“Bless me, Father…” It was a woman’s voice—birth control, of course—and Conor’s long afternoon of confessions began in earnest.
The same old sins. There were no new ones. Fornication, adultery, masturbation. Birth control. Drunkenness. Theft. Wife-beating. And then the nice category nobody minded confessing: sins against charity. Uncharitable thoughts, uncharitable conversations, uncharitable actions. No murderers and no rapists; apparently murderers and rapists made their confessions only after they’d landed on death row. And so Conor sat there for two hours and heard the endless catalog of small failures. Of good people. Because only good people came to confession in the first place.
“God bless you, you’re a fine woman,” Conor said, and gave her as a penance that she do some nice thing for herself; nothing big, necessarily; just buy herself a magazine she wanted, or take a morning off and watch television, or something; just to thank God that life is good. He gave her absolution then, and as he slid the window shut, he prayed—a little self-conscious about the words—oh you whom I love, please let me help.
During the final hour he had begun to sneeze and his handkerchief was already soaked through, but he didn’t mind. This was wonderful. This was the priesthood at its most intimate and effective. He could sit here frozen and sneezing forever.
Conor, busy in the confessional, was very late for dinner. Father Mahoney gave him a long look as if he suspected him of criminal activity, and then he explained that they had to serve themselves tonight because Mrs. Carberry had the evening off, that Conor had already missed the soup course that was Mrs. Carberry’s masterpiece, that out of respect for Mrs. Carberry’s troubles—she had buried her husband earlier this month—they would eat their small meal in silence.
Conor was surprised that the laconic Mrs. Carberry—it’s merry Christmas—featured so largely in the life of the rectory, but he was grateful for the silence because he had come to dinner fearing another inquisition. Beard, birth control, New Breed. He shot a quick glance at Father Riley who, very clearly, was drunk. Conor gave his complete attention to chewing the stringy meat. Veal?
When Father Mahoney got up to clear the table, Conor started to get up too, but Father Mahoney gestured him back to his chair.
“But I’d like to help,” Conor said.
Father Mahoney repeated the gesture and then gathered the plates and took them to the kitchen.
“Well, that was delicious,” Conor said, half to Father Riley and half to his plate. He looked up and saw Father Riley staring at him, curious.
“What was it?” Father Riley said.
“The dinner,” Conor said. “It was delicious.”
“But what was it?” Father Riley repeated.
Conor looked at him blankly.
“I’ll tell you what it was,” Father Riley said. “It was a goddamn rubber boot, that’s what it was.”
Conor laughed at what he presumed was a joke, but Father Riley merely continued to stare at him with that same curious look.
Father Mahoney returned with a pot of coffee and two wedges of chocolate cake. “Devil’s food,” he said, smiling, and told them to leave their plates on the table; he would get them later. “Fathers,” he said, bemused, and left the dining room.
They were silent for a moment and then Father Riley lifted the coffeepot and said, “Some?” He filled Conor’s cup but poured only a splash or two into his own. From deep inside his cassock pocket he pulled out a half pint of scotch and poured at least half of it into his coffee. Conor stared at him, astonished, and Father Riley said, “I’m not hearing confessions tonight.” And then, when Conor continued to stare, he added, “It’s all right. It helps me relax.”
Desperate, Conor asked, “Does Father Mahoney always serve at table? That’s very impressive.”
“Once a month. It’s a thing with him.” For a moment he assumed Father Mahoney’s mocking voice: “So he’ll never forget that he’s a servant of God, and therefore a servant of man. Or so he says. I think he just likes to do it.”
“Well, it’s very impressive.”
“There’s something I want to ask you.” Father Riley stared at Conor with his curious stare, and then took a long swallow of his drink.
“Yes?”
“ ‘Yes?’ ‘Very impressive!’ ‘Quite delicious!’ You are the proper little priest, aren’t you.” He raised the cup to his mouth. “Well, you’re young.”
“I think I’ll go take a look at the rubrics for tonight’s Mass,” Conor said, and started to get up.
“No, please. I’m sorry. I do want to ask you something and I am sincere about it. Okay? Okay. So keep your seat. What I want to know is how you Jesuits get away with preaching birth control. And why do you want to? I mean, the pope has said we can’t. Period. And that’s that.”
“Well, I’m afraid I see it as a little bit more complicated than that, Father. Maybe sometime we could talk about it. Right now… well.”
“Right now I’m too drunk to understand, you mean. Right? Try me. Go ahead, explain.”
As soon as he saw he had Conor hooked, Father Riley pulled the bottle from his pocket and refilled his cup. “It helps me concentrate,” he said.
And so, doubting he should do this but unable to stop himself, Conor explained the complicated process of reasoning by which he—and indeed most of the other young Jesuits from Shadowbrook—concluded that he was not preaching birth control but only helping concerned Catholics to form their own consciences in an intelligent and responsible way. “Do you see the difference?” he said.
“But how do you actually do it?” Father Riley asked him. “What do you actually say?”
“You just help them see where they feel their duty lies. It’s their conscience, after all.”
“But how do you get them to see? What do you tell them?”
Conor gave Father Riley a long hard look. How drunk was he? And was he sincere? Or was Riley just getting the goods on him so that he could stagger off to old Mahoney, or even to the bishop, and cause all kinds of trouble?
“You could help me,” Father Riley said. “Sincerely.”
Conor blew his nose and thought about it. This could be very dumb. Everybody knew that parishes were the last outposts of the scalping conservatives and here he was about to tell a drunk how he advised penitents in confession. There would be trouble with the pastor. There would be trouble with the bishop. There would be trouble back at Shadowbrook. And eventually Conor himself would have his ass handed to him. No, he should simply refuse.
“I’m coming down with a terrible cold,” Conor said.
“Help me,” Father Riley said.
Oh God, Conor said to himself, help me. And to Father Riley he said, “Well, I do this. First off, I talk to them about the other things they’ve mentioned—you know, the usual stuff, impatience with their kids, missing Mass, sins against charity; stuff like that. And after I’ve talked for a while, I say something like—let’s see—‘I think you mentioned that you’ve been practicing birth control? Is that right?’ And they’ll say they use the pill, or they’ve been trying to stop, or they know it’s a sin. But the thing is to ask them, right away, why they think it’s a sin, and invariably they’ll say: ‘Because the church says it is.’”
Conor paused to see how Father Riley was taking this. He was hunched over his coffee cup but not drinking.
“And then?”
“And then I try to explain that it isn’t just a question of what the church says; the birth control issue is far more complicated than that.” “But what do you say?”
“I say that, yes, the church sets down as a general rule—and I underline those words for them: as a general rule—that Catholics shouldn’t use birth control. But the issue, I tell them, is essentially a personal one, involving private rather than general norms of morality, and so it’s the responsibility of each of us to inform our minds on the matter so that we can properly form our own consciences. You see, I’ve got it down to a rote speech, practically.”
“And then you help them inform their minds.”
“An informed conscience is absolutely essential.”
“Got it.”
“I tell them they should ask themselves three questions. Like this. I say: ‘First, you should ask yourself if you are shirking your Christian responsibilities; that is to say, do I just want the pleasure of sex without the responsibility of children? Now, you’ve already got three children, you said, so obviously you’re not out just for pleasure.’ Or, if they don’t have any children, I say that ‘probably you’ll want to have children later, someday.’ Anyway, I take away their worry about the sex part. ‘Second, you ask yourself if there is some real need for you to use birth control. But you’ve already indicated financial reasons… or psychological, or physical, or whatever. I just fit the answer to the case, you see. ‘Third, you should ask yourself if this is going to help you and your spouse lead a fuller, happier, more responsible Christian life. Now only you and your spouse together can answer that, so you should have a discussion with him or her, and then once you’ve made up your mind to use or not to use birth control, then just go ahead and live comfortably with your decision. And whatever you do, don’t mention it in confession again, because eventually you’re sure to run into some crazy priest who’ll scream and yell and say you’re committing mortal sin.’”
“Fantastic.”
“Wait. I’m not done. Then—because by now they’re usually so excited they’re liable to forget—I give them a quick run-through once again. I say, ‘Now I’ll repeat those questions just to make sure you’ve got them right.’ And then I send them on their way. Rejoicing.”
“Fantastic.”
“Well, it’s sound morality, I think. And it helps people to assume responsibility for their own lives.” Conor paused a moment and then added, “I try to get them past fear, past blind obedience.” He paused once more. “I try to help them see it’s only love that matters.”
Father Riley, saying nothing, looked past Conor into empty space. At once Conor felt trapped; he turned to see what Father Riley was looking at, expecting to see Father Mahoney, expecting to be denounced for hypocrisy, for New Breedism, for God knows what. But no one was there; Father Riley was merely looking into a new world of possibilities.
Conor let out a long breath and turned back to Father Riley.
“Well, I hope that helps,” he said, but he was thinking, I’ve done it now; I’m gonna pay for this.
“I always wanted to be a priest,” Father Riley said, and a boozy tear slid crookedly down his cheek.
Conor excused himself to go get ready for evening confessions.
A number of people were lined up at his confessional when Conor arrived, but now he had heard them all and was free to think about himself for a moment. On the walk over to the church he had helped push a stalled car, and when the wheels suddenly caught traction, they sprayed snow and slush all over him. His feet were wet again and his cassock was soaking from the knees down. He blew his nose, too hard, and got a terrible pain in the ear. And he was sweating. Pneumonia, just watch.
He wanted a drink. Maybe Father Riley would still be in the kitchen after confessions, maybe with a new bottle, and Conor could have a good belt and then lie down until midnight. But of course he couldn’t lie down; he’d have to study rubrics for the midnight Mass. Because of course that damned Mahoney was right; Jesuits never knew what to do or where to go during a High Mass. Still, as subdeacon, he’d have very little to do; it would take only a few minutes to go over the rubrics.
Conor thought of Father Riley. He was supposed to be the deacon. Could he do it? With all that booze in him? Worse yet, with all that booze in him, would he blab to Mahoney about the birth control stuff? And, oh God, this filthy cold coming on.
I’ve got to learn prudence, Conor told himself. Prudence in speech. Prudence in action. What a boring virtue. “Prudence, the ugly stepsister of incapacity.” Blake? Yeats?
There was a rattle and a clunk in the confessional on his left, so Conor closed one window and opened the other. He would have to think of prudence later. After a moment of waiting for the penitent to start, Conor said, “Fine. You can begin anytime.”
“I can’t see you.” A woman’s voice.
“That’s okay. So long as we can hear.”
A long pause.
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
“Do you have a beard?’
“Um, well, yes. But what is the point?” Conor began to feel very uneasy. This is not how confessions were supposed to go. There was no room for the personal here, no room for chats. If there were any chatting to be done, the priest would do it. “What is the point of asking if I have a beard?”
“A friend who came to confession this afternoon told me about some priest. She said to be sure to go to the one with the beard, but I can’t see through this screen.”
“Well, perhaps we can begin,” Conor said, a little icy, and the woman, picking up his tone, began at once. Birth control again.
It was like that for the next hour: a succession of women and men who had not been to confession in months, a year, in several years. Conor was moved and sympathetic, but he had been rattled by that first woman, chummy and chatty, and so he was careful to remain a little distant, a little formal, a little… he searched for the word… a little priestly.
His head ached and his throat felt raw. Between the penitents he checked his watch; it was eight thirty. Good. He wanted to lie down.
And then, just as he was about to slide the screen open, he heard the voice of Father Mahoney booming from the other side of the church. “You people kneeling over there. Yes, you. Come over to this side and I’ll hear your confessions.”
My God, Conor thought, talk about bringing in customers! What a scandal Mahoney was. What a woebegone wreck of the priesthood. What a commentary on how hopeless priests were. But what could you do about it?
Conor slid the window open and yet again it was birth control. And yet again he launched into his three-point speech. Love is what matters.
“You three over there.” It was Mahoney’s voice, booming. “Two of you come over here. It’s nine o’clock and we’re closing now. So you two come over here.”
God, I hate that man, Conor thought.
He refused to be rushed with this last confession. He was saying the words of absolution and had just raised his hand to begin making the sign of the cross when someone knocked hard and long at the door to his confessional. Mahoney, of course. “Father? You! Father! We’re locking up now, so finish up here and leave by the left rear door. The left. Rear. No more confessions after this.”
Conor repeated the words of absolution, apologized to the penitent, and then sat silently for a moment, blushing, furious. That utter fool!
As Conor went out by the left rear door, he was startled to find Father Mahoney there, shouting at three young men who were standing at a little distance, up to their knees in snow.
“This isn’t a supermarket, you know,” Father Mahoney was saying. “If you want to go to confession, you get here on time. You can’t just come in here any old time you want. This is not Safeway.”
The three young men continued to stand there listening, uncertain what to do. Finally, one of them turned and started making his way out to the street. The others followed him.
Father Mahoney cleared his throat noisily and said to Conor, “I know that type. Confession once a year and then three hundred and sixty-four days of sin.”
Conor had watched the scene in disbelief, his annoyance at Father Mahoney giving way to embarrassment and then to rage. Suddenly he came to himself. He jumped down from the steps and took off after the young men. “Wait!” he shouted as he plunged through the deep snow. “Please wait.”
He caught up with them at the street, out of breath and soaking wet all over again. He apologized for Father Mahoney; he grimaced and shook his head conspiratorially so they would know he was on their side; and then he led them off one by one to hear their confessions. He stood on top of the church steps, his back turned, his head lowered. It was just as Father Mahoney had said; none of the three had been to confession in a year. All the more reason, Conor thought, for hearing them. It was like the Middle Ages, really: priest and penitent huddled at the church door, the once-a-year reconciliation on the feast of Christ’s birth, the snow falling. It was romantic, beautiful. It was an act of love.
Conor absolved the last of the three, shook his hand, and waited as he went down the steps to rejoin his friends. They turned and waved to him. “Happy Christmas,” Conor called after them. He watched as they made their way down the snowy street. One of them jumped in the air suddenly and let out a war whoop; the others laughed, and one of them scooped up a snowball and threw it at the one who had whooped.
“I have done a good thing,” Conor said to the empty air, and then he descended the steps and walked slowly through the snow to the rectory and to the inevitable encounter with that fool Mahoney.
Conor paused inside the front door, listening. There were loud voices in the kitchen; Father Riley, thoroughly drunk by now, was trying to explain something to Father Mahoney, and Father Mahoney was trying to convince him to go to bed. Conor was shucking off his rubbers when suddenly the voices grew louder and he heard Father Riley say, in his muzzy voice, “Listen to me. I’m serious. We just have to tell them to ask themselves three questions, and then it’s all right and they can practice birth control.” And he heard Father Mahoney say, “Go to bed, Father. Now.” Father Riley protested further, and again Father Mahoney said, “Now,” and then Father Riley broke off in the middle of a sentence, walked unsteadily into the living room and, without a word to Conor, went up the stairs to bed.
So, this is it, Conor said to himself, and squared his shoulders, ready for the fight. But when he entered the kitchen, expecting to find Father Mahoney red-faced and righteous, he was astonished to find him instead with his eyes shut and his hands knotted in prayer. Conor stood there waiting for Mahoney to open his eyes and get on with it, but the old priest continued to pray for what seemed like minutes.
Conor stood silent all this time, waiting.
“Ah, it’s you,” Father Mahoney said finally. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Little cat feet,” Conor said, his voice cold, his wits ready for combat.
But Father Mahoney did not seem to hear him. He took a deep breath and Conor, watching him, realized suddenly that Father Mahoney was a very old and very tired man.
“My son,” he began. He ignored Conor’s smile, which might have been genuine or merely ironic, and continued in a tired voice, “You are a very, very young priest. What you say in confession is between you and God, and therefore between you and the bishop as well, but it’s God finally that you’re going to have to answer to. But since you’re preaching birth control—in the confessional of all places—and here in my parish, I feel it is my duty to say this to you.”
Conor’s smile was certainly not genuine.
“I want you to ask yourself one question. Not three. Only one. You make a lot of people happy by what you say in confession. They wait outside your confessional. They stand on the church steps in the snow. And they think you’re wonderful. Of course they do. Of course they do. But I want you to ask yourself this question. Whom are you serving? Who is your God?”
Conor had been ready for a direct attack, for bombast. By the time he was able to take in just what Father Mahoney had said, the old priest had turned and walked slowly from the kitchen. Conor stood there in silence, listening to the slow soft footfalls as Father Mahoney ascended the stairs.
I’m getting pneumonia, Conor thought; I’m going to die of this. There is a large wet cat asleep in my head.
His mind was racing back and forth through the day: his cold, confessions, Father Mahoney, poor old drunken Riley, the three guys whose confessions he had heard on the church steps. But always he came back to Father Mahoney asking him, “Whom are you serving? Who is your God?”
Conor was sitting with his hands folded in his lap, his eyes lowered, the model of religious propriety. Father Riley was sitting next to him, he too a model of religious propriety. Father Mahoney was—forgive the expression, Conor said to himself—preaching. They were halfway through midnight Mass and everything was going smoothly. Except for the cold. His throat was raw and his nose was stuffed and he wanted a drink. Surely old Mahoney would loosen up after Mass and give them all a Christmas belt of Irish whiskey.
Conor shot a glance at Father Riley. Amazing. He was sitting there, hands folded, eyes straight ahead, as if he had never had a drink in his life. How had he done this? Evidently his powers of recuperation were mammoth. Two hours earlier he had scarcely been able to walk and talk and now here he was, clean shaven and clear eyed, the perfect little Irish priesty-poo.
Priests. They made him sick. Always so right, so righteous, so complacent. Look at that old fool Mahoney up there, mouthing platitudes about the stable, the shepherds, the wise men. The wise men; my God!
Conor forced himself not to listen. He had spent the past two hours going over and over tomorrow’s homily and now he mentally recited it one more time. He had written it a week earlier and had timed it with a stopwatch. Seven minutes exactly. Theologically sound. And to the point. “Love shows itself in deeds, not words. The word of God is love.”
Father Mahoney stopped preaching, finally, and the dreadful choir began the Credo. Conor tried to give his attention to the Mass itself but his mind would not stop racing. Then the last notes of the Credo faded away and he came back to himself. At that instant he decided he would say tomorrow’s Mass in English. He had made the translation himself and, though he had never yet used it publicly, he always carried it with him on weekend calls. Just in case. It was only a matter of time anyhow until Rome authorized the Mass in the vernacular, so no one would care. Except Mahoney. But he’d never find out.
In no time at all they were at the consecration, and then they were distributing Communion, and finally—Conor’s mind was still on tomorrow’s Mass in English—Father Mahoney was giving the last blessing and the choir was bleating out “Joy to the World” and it was all done.
They took off their vestments in silence. Conor kept hoping Mahoney would propose a nightcap or two, but perhaps this wasn’t the right moment. Father Riley disappeared almost immediately, in pursuit of his own nightcap, no doubt, and then Father Mahoney got involved in a long conversation with the head usher, so Conor had no choice but to walk back to the rectory alone. Could it possibly be that Mahoney had no intention of offering drinks at all?
Snow was still falling, and it was very wet now, so the street was deep in slush. Cars were stuck in the snow and horns were honking, but everybody was calling out happily to everybody else as if—Conor found himself thinking—as if it were really Christmas. He was suddenly very depressed.
“Father? Have you got a second, Father?” A bald-headed man in a red-and-black mackinaw thrust a package—unmistakably booze—into Conor’s hands. “It’s for Father Mahoney, could you give it to him for me? It’s a little Christmas cheer. And Father. No sampling, right?” He let out a loud laugh and punched Conor on the arm. “Get it? Just a joke. Merry Christmas, Father.” And he was gone.
Conor sat in his bed, comfy, propped up against the pillows. “Fate and free will,” he said, filling his glass with scotch. “Here’s to Father Mahoney, who alone has made this possible.”
Now that he had opened it, he would have to take the bottle back to Shadowbrook. The card too. Imagine becoming a thief for a bottle of booze.
“Here’s to you, Father Riley.”
Conor refilled his glass and put the light out. The last thing he wanted now was for Father Mahoney to stop by and invite him to have a drink.
“And to you, Mrs. Carberry.”
He sat in the dark, drinking and toasting penitents everywhere.
“Happy Christmas to all,” he said. “God bless us, every one.”
Conor woke at six, his eyes on fire, his throat raw. At first he could not remember where he was, but then he saw the half-empty bottle beside his bed and he remembered: Our Lady of Victories parish. And he had the seven o’clock Mass to say. And then the ten o’clock Mass.
He was sick. The cold had settled in all right, but the hangover was the worst part of it. He knew how it would be: dull pain for a few hours, and then nausea for a while, and then—after the entire day had been ruined—recovery. The important thing was to get through Mass before the nausea set in. Oh God, how did these things happen?
He blew his nose until it began to bleed and then he dragged himself to the shower. A shave, a clean shirt, a forced fleeting smile in the mirror; he began to feel a little better. But when he came through the passage into the kitchen, the smell of cooking made his stomach turn and he thought he was going to be sick. He put his hand to his mouth and concentrated on keeping a calm stomach.
“Good morning, Father, and a merry Christmas to you!” Father Mahoney was full of high spirits this morning. Conor mumbled a good morning and made his way to the little table with the coffee cups.
“I’m making french toast especially for you,” Mrs. Carberry said. “So you’ll have a French merry Christmas. Right after your seven o’clock holy Mass.”
The thought of french toast made Conor’s stomach turn once more.
“You’re very kind,” he said.
“Sure, it’s only the start. There’ll be ham and eggs and coffee cake and my own biscuits…”
Mrs. Carberry went on listing the things they would have for breakfast, but Conor interrupted her. “I never have more than coffee,” he said. “But it’s nice of you to go to all that trouble.”
“Trouble! It’s no trouble. It’s all the pleasure I get in life, baking this and that, a little peach cobbler, a little…”
“Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. A Christmas kiss for you, my dear,” and Father Riley, fresh from his five-thirty mass, planted a kiss on Mrs. Carberry’s cheek. “Merry Christmas, Father,” he said to Father Mahoney. “And to you, Father.”
They’re all mad, Conor thought; they’re all possessed. Yesterday nobody would speak a civil word and this morning nothing can shut them up. He took a long drink of coffee and immediately choked. “Excuse me,” he said, and made for his bedroom.
Only twenty minutes until it was time for Mass and his head would not stop pounding. Just so that I don’t get nauseous, he said to himself, anything but that.
He got out his English version of the canon—yes, that will make them a wonderful Christmas present—and folded it into his breast pocket. He glanced at the opening paragraph of his homily. Even hungover, he had that by heart. If he could just pull himself together a little more, everything would be perfect.
Walking over to the church he was dazzled by the sun. The snow had stopped and it was a beautiful winter morning, the air bright and clear. Conor slit his eyes against the light.
Mass started out well. The altar boys knew their Latin responses and the organist was on key and—proving the existence of a merciful God, Conor thought—the choir did not sing at the early morning masses. But everything began to go wrong at the Gloria. Conor went suddenly cold and his forehead broke out in sweat. He couldn’t concentrate. Reading the Epistle and then the Gospel, he couldn’t get any genuine feeling in his voice, in his heart. And now it was time for his homily.
“Love shows itself in deeds, not words. The word of God is love.” But everything he said sounded flat, rehearsed. It was all words. Only words.
Desperately, Conor tried to feel something. Anything. And so, while the words fell from his lips in perfect order, the sentences balanced, the images sharp, Conor’s mind raced through this weekend for something to draw meaning from: the confessions, the good advice given, the sincerity and warmth of the people he had counseled. He thought of these things, but he felt nothing.
And then after the homily, while he was pouring the wine into the chalice, the smell of it went straight to his head and from there straight to his stomach. His eyes burned and his head swam. He was going to be sick. But by an act of the will, he choked back the nausea and went on. The important thing now was just to get through this.
But then all at once, as he was about to say the words of consecration over the bread, he realized that he had completely forgotten to say the canon in English. He should be saying “This is my body,” instead of “Hoc est enim corpus meum.” He forgot his nausea for a moment in the sheer annoyance of it all. He had brought the canon with him. His own translation. His own words leading up to the consecration of the bread and wine.
Illogically, Conor found himself thinking, It’s all Mahoney’s fault. And immediately, as if by thinking of him he had made the man come alive at the altar, he heard Father Mahoney’s sad little question, “Whom are you serving? Who is your God?”
Conor bent low over the chalice for the consecration of the wine. He spoke the words simply, feelingly, in English. “For this is the chalice of my blood, of the new and everlasting covenant, the mystery of faith, which shall be shed for you and for many others unto the forgiveness of sins.”
He could feel a stir in the church as the people, probably for the first time in their lives, heard the actual words of consecration in language they could understand. He felt proud, even brave, to be shattering the verbal constraints of this old religion.
Conor spoke the last of the words: “As often as you shall do these things, you shall do them in memory of me.”
He paused then and gazed into the amber wine, this sacred drink that is the true blood of Christ, and saw mirrored there only his own hard eyes, swollen, scorched. And for a second that would last forever Conor knew who it was he served.