BLESS ME FATHER Part 1 - CONFESSION
by Deane Christopher
Edited by Steve Zink
As much as Daniel Parker hated having to go to confession growing up as a young lad, he, as the priest he had become, hated hearing confessions even more. Like Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane, every Saturday, during the celebration of the morning mass, Father Dan would beseech the Almighty to let this cup pass. However, though he did so grudgingly, each and every Saturday afternoon, Father Dan, following in the footsteps of the man he accepted as his Savior and Lord, took up the cudgel as he dutifully and dolefully left the rectory and made his way across the connecting breezeway and into St. Catherine's.
Scanning the sea of pews from the church's vestibule, Father Dan did a cursory head count of the assembled penitents, and came up with the scant count of seven parishioners that were there to avail themselves of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Then, as he made his way down the left side aisle, he consoled himself with the timeworn notion that confession served as a poor man's psychiatric session. The bearing of one's soul for the remission of one's sins, could be most therapeutic.
With a forced cough to alert the assemble penitents that he was ready to hear their confessions, Father Dan drew the somber and soil stained maroon curtain aside, and entered the center compartment of one of the four ornate oaken confessionals of which St. Catherine's boasted. Kissing his stole, Father Dan looped it about his shoulders and, with a prayer to God to grant him the wisdom to perform that ever so sacred duty of his, stilled himself for what was to shortly follow.
Once upon a time, back in the Fifties and early Sixties, St. Catherine's four ornate confessionals would have been occupied by priests on both Friday and Saturday afternoons. On Fridays, the intimidating gaggle of Franciscan Nuns who had staffed the parish's elementary school would march their youthful charges into the church and thereby, dictatorially coerce them into receiving the Sacrament of Confession. But, that was long ago and far away, and the sacrament's name itself had even changed over those years.
Times had changed. The city had changed. And, St. Catherine's had changed accordingly.
Starting somewhere in the mid-Sixties of Father Dan's youth, St. Catherine's saw its parishioners fall away as they fled the city in droves. Accordingly, as the flight to the suburbs began to threaten the city's viability, enrollment dropped and St. Catherine's Elementary School was forced by the dictates of the archdiocese to closed its doors in the early Eighties. And, where once the rectory housed four priests and a saintly overworked housekeeper, it was now occupied by but a single occupant, with that single occupant being none other than Father Dan, who was left to pretty much fend for himself.
Though he never took the liberty when functioning as a confessor, Father Dan could easily address six out of the seven waiting penitents by their christen names. Week in and week out, those same six souls were there religiously. Five women. One man. All elderly. All good Catholics. And, as far as Father Dan was concerned, all as saintly as anyone the Vatican had ever bestowed the venerable honorarium of sainthood upon.
Truth be told, Father Dan thought himself completely unworthy to hear the confessions of such pious people. Knowing them as he did, Father Dan knew that those six lived their faith - day in and day out, loving God and striving to emulate the life of the Man from Galilee in every way imaginable.
However, though he knew in his heart of hearts of the sheer and utter hypocrisy of his deed, Father Dan, exercising the charge placed upon Peter and through him to and his successors, heard their confessions, granted them absolution and, upon hearing their Act of Contrition, proceeded on to levy upon each of those six weekly supplicants their paltry penance of five Our Fathers and six Hail Marys.
It was three-thirty, with six down and one to go.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," a young woman managed with a marked degree of trepidation clearly conveyed in her voice. "It has been...
"Well... let's just say that it's been a long, long time. That's to say that I haven't been to confession for years, father...
"Truth be told, Father, I haven't been in a church for years, either."
Detecting a faint hint of coiled belligerency lurking in the young woman's voice, Father Dan tactful sought to cut through the brooding tension as he said, "That's perfectly all right, child. What's done is done. What matters is, you are in church now, seeking God's forgiveness, and that is all that really counts.
"So, I take it that you would like to confess your sins?"
"Yes, Father. I would... But, I'm not exactly sure how to go about it anymore. It's been so long, and there's been so many..."
"That's perfectly all right, child. God doesn't need to hear numbers. He isn't into tally sheets. All He cares about is that you are heartfully sorry for having offended Him, and that you do your best to sin no more.
"That's to say that all I really need from you is a broad brush overview of your sins in order to be able to grant you absolution. All right?"
"Yes, Father...
"Well, you know the Ten Commandments don't you, Father?"
"Yes," Father Dan had to chuckle at that. "I do believe that I have - what you might call - a working familiarity with them."
"Well, other than the first three that pretty much deal with God. Save for the business about keeping holy the Sabbath, I guess you could say that I've pretty much covered all the others. Save for the one that deals with killing someone. I mean, you've got to believe me, father. That's something I would never, ever do."
"So," Father Dan humorously encouraged, having listened to the disjointed preamble to the girl's rambling rendition, "I take it that what you're saying is, you were pretty heavily into sex, drugs and rock and roll?"
"Yes, Father. I was. Especially so when it comes to the bit revolving around sex and drugs..."
Keenly aware of the fact that the young woman kneeling on the other side of the starched white gauze anonymity screen needed to vent the pent-up anguish that tormented her soul, Father Dan asserted himself as he politely asked for her momentary indulgence. Receiving it, he pulled back a portion of the maroon curtain and made a quick scan of the church proper. Assuring himself that there were no other penitents awaiting the opportunity to avail themselves of his services, Father Dan continued on to inform the young woman that she need not hurry, informing her as he did so that if she felt the need to talk, he was there for her.
And, talk she did.
Amid a wealth of sobs and sniffles, for the next hour and a half the young woman told her lurid, but far from uncommon tale of a good girl gone bad. She told of how she'd gotten involved with a bad crowd, and how her life had devolved from there.
Hash. Heroin. Acid. Speed. Coke. Crack. Alcohol. If it was out there, she smoked it, swallowed it, snorted or shot it.
Having left home at the tender age of fifteen, for no other reason than she was a willful teenager and so being, hated living under what she perceived at the time to be the arbitrary and tyrannical rules imposed upon her by her dictatorial and totally un-with-it parents. Eking out a life as an amoral street urchin who lived life within the encapsulated moment of the here and now, she did whatever was necessary to sustain herself. If that meant she had to steal, she did so without remorse. Lies became her truth, her weapons, her means of survival. By her own admission, she wore the mantle of a true sociopath with an arrogant sense of belligerent pride. She was quick, calculating and ever so cunning; using and abusing her friends before her friends had a chance to use and abuse her.
Sex was another oft used tool in her vast arsenal of the survivor skills. Through it's rather generous and casual use, she managed to secure for herself the mainstays of life, with those mainstays being shelter, clothing and sustenance. She, by her own admission, was a flirtatious hussy and when necessary, a shameless whore. If money was needed, she got it. By hook, by crook or by hooker. Sexual favors were routinely traded for a fix, a fifth or just food.
Her life, like so many of America's youth, became the purple haze of aimless depravity. Though she knew it not, the young woman had discarded her claim on humanity on the day she bid adieu to the constraints that her parents had so lovingly placed upon her and so, had become the sub-human refuse that Jethro Tull had so artfully encapsulated in the mystical, musical and image engendering term 'aqualung'.
Though the young woman's story differed from those told by countless other lost souls only in the specifics she enunciated in her tawdry tale, Father Dan began to discern an elusive sense of familiarity with the girl's disjointed account. Slowly, his logical mind began pick out certain pertinent facts that gave him the distinct impression that he knew - or, had known - the girl. Some of what she told him spoke to the fact that she had once lived within the boundaries of St. Catherine's parish. In fact, as Father Dan came to realize, she had attended school at St. Catherine's during her formative years.
Then it dawned on Father Dan. He knew the girl's parents intimately. They had, for all intents and purposes, become his extended family over the course of the last several years. Once a week, barring other commitments, he had become a regular dinner guest at the Millers every Tuesday evening. He went fishing with Karen's dad, and gladly accepted Jean Miller's help every Sunday afternoon when it came to the odious task of totaling up the morning's collection envelopes.
Shortly after their daughter had high-tailed it out of their lives, a befuddled and traumatized Gus and Jean Miller had appeared at the rectory door one evening. Not knowing were else to turn, they were there to seek out Father Dan's guidance in the matter of their wayward daughter. Unable to give the Millers much advice as to how to go about the thankless task of trying to find Karen's whereabouts, save to repeatedly urge them to file a police report, Father Dan did what he could to help the two of them to reconcile themselves to the fact that they were not bad parents. They had done the best they could with respect to their daughter's upbringing, and they were not doing themselves any good by second guessing themselves. If the fault lay with anybody, Father Dan repeated reassured the Millers, it lay with their daughter, Karen. Not them. Karen had made the decision to disassociate herself from her parents all on her own. If there was ever going be a reconciliation, that, too, would have to be Karen's choice.
Father Dan knew that there were two types of child abuse in the world. The one fostered on children by out-of-control parents was no longer tolerated by the mainstay of American society. However, the type of abuse that was enacted on parents by a growing host of delinquent children was not only tolerated, but in a strange turn of events, countenanced by a liberal interpretation of the existing laws. Over and over again, brow beaten parents found themselves to be pretty much restricted from stepping in and nipping a problem in the bud. In an odd, to be almost ironic turn of events, as parental responsibility expanded to the point where it encompassed damn near everything their children did, the ability of the parents to affectedly influence their children dwindled to a point where the prevailing laws of the land rendered it almost impossible to exercise any real parental control. By an insidious, unspoken government mandated policy, a child-dominated form of anarchy was increasingly finding its way into the American household. Children, like one Karen Miller, tended to be the unintended consequences of the trend toward a kinder, gentler nation.
Lucifer, Father Dan had come realize, was once again gaining the upper hand.
"Well... as far as sins go, I think that that pretty much covers it, Father.
"However, before I'm finished, I'd like to ask your advice about something that's troubling me. You know, as in I'd really like to get your take on it, Father."
Thinking that the other shoe was about to drop, Father Dan nonetheless said, "All right, child. Ask away."
"Well..." There was a raw sense of hesitancy clearly conveyed in Karen Miller's voice. "To make a long story short, Father, I think I'm pregnant."
"Oh. All right." Father Dan, feeling like he knew where this was going, found himself riddled with trepidation. "So, you think you might be pregnant," he tactfully prompted.
"Yes, Father... I mean, while I haven't as yet done a pregnancy test on myself because I'm pretty much tapped out right now, I think it's a safe bet than when I do, it'll show that I am pregnant."
"So, I take it that what you want from me is some guidance as to where you can go to get some prenatal care.
"As I recall," Father Dan continued, "the archdiocese is associated with a free clinic that provides assistance for young girls that are in similar situations. If you would like, when we are finished here, you can accompany me over to the rectory so I can give you their number. Or, better yet, you can use my phone and call them. And, hopefully, they'll be able to set you up with an appointment for Monday.
"Tell you want. If you get them to give you an appointment for the first thing Monday morning, since I've got to run down to the Catholic Center anyway, I'd be more than happy to give you a lift..."
"Father," Karen tentatively beseeched. "Look. I really appreciate your offer. But, I'm not really interested in prenatal care, because if I am pregnant, I'll more than likely get an abortion."
Hating how clinical and cold hearted he sounded, in a knee-jerk reaction, Father Dan responded, "Child. You do know that the Church looks upon abortion as a mortal sin."
"I know they used to. I mean, as out of touch as I've been since I've been out on my own, I wasn't sure if the Pope changed his mind about it the way he did with the not eating meat on Fridays business. Not to mention all those saints that aren't saints anymore..."
The Catholic Church does not live in the gray world of situational ethics. Rather, it exists in a world that is either white or black, light or dark, good of bad, right or wrong. It neither recognizes nor condones a fudge-factor. It is therefore, the Church's way, or the highway. The Church does not, nor would not equivocate.
According to the Church's dictates, human life began when a man's sperm fertilized a woman's ovum. To extinguish that life for any reason whatsoever was a blatant violation of the Thou Shalt Not Kill clause of the Law God gave to Mosses in the form of the two tablets upon which were inscribed the Ten Commandments.
Under the circumstances, Father Dan had no wiggle room whatsoever. He, by his own choice, had become an ordained representative for the doctrines that the Catholic Church so staunchly adhered to and so unabashedly professed. While he could sugar-coat his response so as to soften the blow, Father Dan could not in good conscience allow Karen to leave the confessional without informing her of consequences of the act she was contemplating. Were he to simply remain mute on the matter of abortion, he would be derelict in his duties as a priest and a follower of Christ.
Knowing that their conversation had reached the point at which critical mass might well be achieved, Father Dan, following in the footsteps of his namesake, entered the proverbial lion's den as he said, "Karen, I implore you to please reconsider the notion that you might actually go so far as to have an abortion.
"Were you to do so, you'd be breaking one of Our Lord's sacred laws. You'd not only be party to the taking of a life, but you'd be condemning your immortal soul to the possibilities of eternal damnation.
"Please. I implore you, child. Before you take such a drastic step, I want you to do some serious soul searching and consider the other options that are available to you."
"And, just what might those others options be, Father?" Karen irately snapped. "I mean, are you seriously suggesting that I raise this child when I haven't a clue as to where or when I'm even going to get my next meal? Much less, where I'm going to end up sleeping tonight?"
"Sure. Why not?
"Trust me. There are plenty of places you can go that will move Heaven and Earth to help you get your life straight. And, if you'll let me, I promise that I'll do everything I can to help you in that regard as well. Plus, there's your parents.
"I mean, I'm sure that they'd be more than willing to help you out. All you have to do is let them...
"...and, if you decide that you either don't want to raise your baby, or that you feel that you are incapable of raising your baby, there's always adoption to consider..."
As persuasive as Father Dan was tactfully endeavoring to be, to his chagrin, he soon realized that his entreatments were falling on deaf ears. Karen Miller had literally tuned him out as she withdrew into the shell of her inner self. Instead of talking Karen out of the possibility of her getting an abortion, Father Dan had to deal with the prospect that he may have inadvertently driven her toward the path that he had tried to counsel her against taking.
Needless to say, Father Dan felt like he had somehow failed not only Karen but, to a much larger extent, the unborn child that was quite possibly developing in God's Holiest of Holies. While he tried to console himself with the notion that it was ultimately Karen's decision to make, he nonetheless felt that he bore some responsibility.
'Oh, Lord,' he prayed to the loving and forgiving God of the New Testament, and not the jealous, wrathful God of the Exodus and Sodom and Gomorra fame. Though Father Dan knew Them to be one and the same God with only the perception of mankind clouding and confusing the issue, he fervently prayed to the compassionate Father of which Jesus so often spoke, and not to the stern and unyielding God of Noah, Abraham and Mosses.
He prayed for a miracle. He prayed that God would hear his prayers and act on behalf of Karen's innocent unborn child. To that end, he repeatedly offered himself to be used in any way God saw fit. Over and over and again, he recommitted himself to abide by the ever so simplistic and all encompassing law that Jesus had enunciated when responding to the taunts of the Pharisees that had goaded Him into stating the greatest of God's Laws. Reaffirming his faith, Father Dan enunciated the fact that he would love God above all else and then, adding the codicil that encompassed the remaining Seven Commandments of the Old Testament, the Seven Commandments that pertained to his fellow man, he would do as Jesus instructed and so, endeavor to love his neighbor as himself.
To say that Father Dan was distraught that evening would have been he grossest of understatements. Karen Miller was never far from his thoughts. Over and over and over again, he found himself engaged in the fruitless endeavor of second guessing himself. He wondered if he had maybe pushed too hard. Then, upon reconciling himself that he hadn't, he began to speculate if he might not have pushed hard enough.
Having completed the laundry list of prayers that comprised his daily office, an extremely frustrated and despondent Father Dan once again sought God's intervention as he prayed, "Please, Lord. I know I'm asking a lot of you, but if that poor girl today really is with child, I implore you to step in and do something to insure that this innocent baby of hers has chance to live a normal and fruitful life..."
Father Dan fell asleep that night on his knees, with his head and upper torso slumped forward upon his bed.
A cramp in his left calf, compounding upon a sever bout of stomach churning nausea, rudely roused him shortly after four that Sunday morning. Knowing that he had only a few precious moments to make it into the bathroom before he threw up all over the place, Father Dan made it painfully to his feet and somehow managed to hobble across the room and scramble down the hall and into the first of two bathrooms of which the living quarters of the rectory's upper floor boasted. Plopping himself down before the porcelain throne, he lifted both its lid and horseshoe shaped seat. Whereupon, he leaned forward and proceeded to retch up his guts.
While most of the projectile vomit he spewed up entered the bowl with sickening and disheartening splash, some of its particulate matter ended up splattered on the lanky, unkempt strands of chestnut hair that hung alongside his face and from there, down into the bowl itself.
Catching a glimpse of the hanging strands of chestnut hair in his peripheral vision caused Father Dan to do a frantic double take. He was well aware of the fact that he had neither long hair nor chestnut colored hair. Having spent the first eight years of his priesthood serving as an army chaplain, he'd gotten into the regimen of keeping that steel gray hair of his shorn in a no nonsense close cropped military fashion.
Feeling that something was drastically wrong, Father Dan, kneading his calf as he did so, rose unsteadily to his feet. Gingerly taking a side step, he repositioned himself in front of the sink and the medicine cabinet that was mounted on the wall directly above it.
"Oh, my God!" Father Dan wildly exclaimed in a girlish voice as he took in the image of a rather gaunt and bedraggled young woman incredulously staring back at him from out of the perceived depths of the mirror's silverized surface. "I'm a girl."
Then, after a frenzied and mind jarring moment or so of examining his new feminine visage, Father Dan realized just who the girl was he had become. Having seen many pictures of his now younger feminine self while at the Miller's house, he felt reasonable certain that the girl he had become was none other than Karen Miller.
God, he knew, worked in mysterious ways. But, if he wasn't dreaming, and what appeared to have happened had really had happened, it had to be one of the strangest and most cockeyed miracles that had ever occurred.
"God," Father Dan often joked, "had a sense of humor." But, in this instance, he was keenly aware that God's joke was on him. God had delivered. But, not in the way Father Dan ever imagined He would. God had come through with the miracle that Father Dan had prevailed upon Him to produce. The onus was now on Father Dan, as the new Karen Miller, to complete the miracle.
After quickly running through the gauntlet comprised of denial, rage and panic, Father Dan did what he always did when facing the whirlwind of what appeared to him to be an insurmountable quandary. He asked himself what would Jesus Christ do when faced with a similar situation. Immediately he had the answer he sought. Jesus would do what His Father required of Him. Father Dan, in an effort to emulate his Savior and Lord, would do no less. Though he felt unequal to the task, he would take up the cross that God had placed before him. And, if that meant facing the prospects of becoming a mother, Father Dan, upon the realization that God had in a extremely convoluted manner entrusted him with the sacred duty of bringing a life into the world, reconciled himself to becoming the best mother he - nay, she - could be.
With a solemn and softly uttered, "Thy will be done," Father Dan freely accepted the fact that she was now Karen Miller.