Saturdays in the box

Matt recoiled inside at the thought of having to go to confession on Saturday afternoons at St. Luke’s.  His mother drilled in him and his brothers that they should go at least once a month as a sacramental obligation.  He delayed and made excuses but knew he couldn’t put it off indefinitely, as the numbers would keep snowballing, making full and accurate recall all the more difficult, nearly impossible.  And then he’d have to resort to using ballpark figures.

At the age of nine, Matt didn’t have all that great a range or variety of sins be they mortal or venial.  Most mortal sins were committed by adults, was his understanding. Sifting through them and sorting them out with the right nomenclature for each was the task of the requisite examination of conscience.  Before long he fell into the habit of doing it during the four-block walk to St. Luke’s.     

There were four sins that usually sufficed as baseline to cover for his examination of conscience – disobeying his mother or father; saying a profane or blasphemous word, fighting with a brother, neighborhood kid or a kid on the school playground; or lying or telling half-truths about finishing chores or homework.  That was just about all that Matt could dredge up, though far in the back of his mind he suspected there might be others of which he was unaware or had forgotten – the ones that got away.  In his mind, one sin was usually followed by a host of others.  

Next came assigning a number to identified sins, which, to his chagrin, forced him to round off the ones in high volume and concentrate on the offenses fewer in number.  It hadn’t been long before Matt realized that the large, rounded-off figures suggested a lack of thorough examination of conscience and was in effect just a careless and sloppy way of confessing transgressions. Will this make a liar out of me, and how the heck do other people do it, he wondered.

But he’d soon discovered that his mental gyrations in pinning down sin made little difference with Father Humprey, for the penance was always the same:  three Our Father’s and three Hail Mary’s.  Now and then, he’d single out a sin like disobedience and admonish him for not honoring his elders.  Once he told him to apologize to his mother for talking back.  He did so, reluctantly.  His mother said she couldn’t remember exactly when, but thanked him anyway, this occurring frequently with him and the other four children.

He’d feel something heavy and ominous as he walked through the large oak doors of St. Luke’s.  It was the way the sun’s rays shone aslant through the clear windows like white-hot saber blades and the miniature dust devils whirling through diagonal shafts to the marble floor.  In places outside of sunlight’s reach, there were deep shadows in the corners of the chancel, altar sanctuary and the organ loft above.

The church was nearly empty Saturday afternoons when Father Humphrey heard confessions.  Usually, Matt would see a few quiet kneeling, bent-over penitents in the pews alongside the confessional. He could hear every whisper, throat-clearing and the lightest footfall on the polished floor.  The confessional booth was carved in oak with scrollwork – angels mostly -- and had three curtained sections:  the priest seated in the middle and kneeling penitents on both sides.  A sliding screened window separated the confessor from penitent.  The priest could only be viewed in silhouette through a screen since there was no inside light, artificial or natural. 

While kneeling in the coffin-size box, even before the parting of the screen, Matt would know it was Father Humphrey.  The musty odor of his garments and the smell of cigarette breath gave him away.  It always made him cringe to think that he’d expect so much more of him because he was an altar boy. Was he undeserving of the sacred privilege of sharing the dais a few steps below him for the most holy ritual of the Mass?  And him being only an arm’s reach away from him and the tabernacle.  Of course, he’d think his altar boys should be held to a higher moral standard, at least a notch or two above the rest of the kids his age in public schools, where sinning was as commonplace as dirt or grass, so he’d been led to believe.

When Matt turned 15, almost 16, and a freshman in high school, his parents finally gave him permission to hang up the cassock and surplus for good on the practical reasoning that he’d be too busy with extracurricular activities like debate club, drama club and soccer.  He was a natural athlete like his dad, and had the same striking good looks – a strong jaw, bright hazel eyes, cleft chin and a full crop of curly brown hair.  Family predicted he would reach his dad’s height of six-foot three.  And he had his father’s compulsive need for perfection.

Father Humprey, now in his upper sixties, bid Matt goodbye after Mass with a quick shake of the hand after having him wait while he removed his chasuble. He smiled weakly and wished him well, before returning to the divesting of his vestments.  His sermons were repetitive and uninspired.  He’d review the gospel line by line, and he used certain phrases a lot, like “avoiding the occasion of sin” or “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

It was now 1965.  Matt was attending St. Paul’s parochial high school in this mid-sized factory town in Connecticut.  The teaching staff was comprised of lay Catholics, nuns and a few priest instructors.  The principal was an aging Jesuit educator. 

One day after Religion class, Father Giannini asked him out of the blue if he’d consider the vocation of the priesthood.  “No”, said Matt, “I haven’t had the calling, and can’t help but ask, have you been talking to my mother?”  The priest laughed, knowing Matt’s mother’s desire to have one of her boys wearing the white collar.

Three weeks before Easter at St. Luke’s, Father Humphrey was hospitalized for prostate surgery. The priest assigned to cover for the pastor was a missionary on brief leave from Brazil to visit nearby family after being on assignment two years.  His name was Father Seamus Flaherty.  Far from clean-cut like other priests, he had a large growth of flaming red hair and a beard, and was young, mid-30’s or so. His Sunday homily (if one could call it that) shook the pillars and vaulted ceiling.

No sooner had the visiting missionary introduced himself than he abruptly asked the worshippers in the back ten rows to move closer to where he stood in the pulpit.  After what seemed like a very long pause (30 seconds in reality) during which the members of the flock might have heard a mouse peeing on cotton in the baptismal font, individuals and family groups got up from their pews and lumbered forward in staggered order, looking back and forth to ascertain what others were doing.  When a third of the back rows were emptied, Father Flaherty flew into action in a loud voice and animated gestures as he cautioned them about being too damned comfortable, chasing after “shiny objects” and “things that glitter” before all else, needing to one-up and leave behind the other guy, and feeling complacent about it being enough to attend Sunday’s dutiful ritual.  Some congregants rolled their eyes, some looked stunned into a rigidity of posture, others squirmed enough to wear through the wood stain of the pews.

And then, as if to quiet nerves, he spoke in a softer voice of his missionary work in the favelas or shantytowns on the outskirts of Sao Paolo, a place of desperate poverty, drugs, disease, violence, poor sanitation, minors sold into prostitution – deep despair everywhere.  And how he and his fellow missionary had become enemies of the gangs and the complicit local government for “stirring up trouble” with their activism on behalf of the pobres.  They accused the sacerdotes of meddling in business trade, upending the social order, and being aligned with Marxists outside their borders. He went on to say that he and his “missionary brother” only wanted to give these people some hope, the hope of “the real radical Jesus,” and a chance to break out of what seemed like a fate already sealed, that a greater faith in God would inspire in them a greater faith in themselves and a love of justice.

Matt didn’t know what to make of all of this.  He overhead a man sitting behind him whisper loudly that Flaherty was a proponent of “Liberation Theology”.  After Mass, the men and women stood outside the front door where they normally lit up cigarettes and engaged in small talk and gossip with friends and neighbors.  But the chatter this Sunday was all about this visiting priest.  They jabbered on and on about it, one old man growling, “Who the heck does he think he is laying into us like that?”  Matt overheard his English teacher, Miss Lillian Hasley, comment, “Wow, that was a radically different type of fire and brimstone.”  A gaunt short man in a fedora commented, “That priest should be disciplined by the bishop, why I’ll be the first to complain.”

Matt knew it was time to go to confession before Easter Sunday.  It had been a year.  He lied to his mother about having gone before Christmas.  With this long span of time, he knew he’d have a much larger and more embarrassing sins to reckon with, like having impure thoughts, touching himself, leafing through a Playboy magazine he found on the sidewalk.  He didn’t want to go, and wrestled with his conscience about it, before finally deciding to tough it out as if it were a weightlifting workout.

He got there, made it that Saturday afternoon, 2:30, and waited for his turn to go into the box.  He’d already tallied up his impure thoughts, touching himself, “the lie” to his mother, and all the usual lesser sins of swearing, anger, picking on his brothers and so forth.  As soon as he entered the confessional, he knew it wasn’t Father Humphrey, by the odor alone.  Truth to tell, there was no detectable odor at all.  After hearing the clack of the parted window, he could see the profile of Father Flaherty’s hair and beard.

Matt wasn’t sure whether he was relieved it wasn’t Humphrey or whether this missionary priest might make things more difficult and complicated.  “Bless me father for I have sinned. It’s been a year since my last confession,” and breathed deeply before commencing to rattle off his transgressions:  impure thoughts 103 times; lying 3 times (once to his mother about going to confession before Christmas); touching himself 3 times (in sotto voce), and the other usual peccadillos about talking back and getting angry at brothers and kids at school.

The reaction behind the screen was, “Well, my boy, you must be in your teens, no?  And wouldn’t you know, 103 impure thoughts.  Are you sure it wasn’t 102 or even 106 or maybe half that? Looks like you and your body’s dealing with God’s procreative hardware and magical hormonal chemistry, and you’ve put a big red label of lust on it.  Good job! You must be good at math and lust for sure.”

“And this thing about touching yourself, was it an accidental slip of the curious hand?  You can expect that your hand will grow more hair than on your head and might fall off from guilt and shame.  Not to worry, my son, I have to ask, have you done anything to relieve the suffering of others or made their burden lighter?”

Now Matt was flummoxed, speechless.  He managed to stumble through a few words about being sorry for all his sins, and he really wasn’t sure about doing good for others – he’d need time to think about it.  

“Okay, my boy,” the Reverend said while giving the sign of the cross of forgiveness, “let me ask, do you do chores or odd jobs for pay?” 

“Yes, father.”

“I’ll tell you what, for your penance I want you to put aside five dollars over the next month and pay a visit to Jeremy, the young man with cerebral palsy who sits in his wheelchair on the corner of Main and Oak selling candy bars from his red wagon.  Give him the five bucks you’ve put aside and tell him you only want one ten-cent candy bar.  Then, ask him what it’s like to be him and have this handicap.  Hear him out.”

“Are you the first born, my son?” the redhead cleric then asked.

“No father, I’m not.”

‘Oh good, I also want you to ask your mother to describe in detail the labor pains she had in giving birth to you, and why she’d put herself through it again to have you.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Before you go, young man, please send up a prayer for me, that I live to continue to do my work, for I’m weak and sometimes shaky in my faith.  Now go in peace.” 

With that, Matt got himself up and parted the curtain, feeling unsettled, a bit angry and confused.  He started mumbling to himself on the walk back home.  No, I’m not doing it, no I won’t, never thought I’d miss Father Humphrey and his penance. Who is this guy anyway? Was he making fun of me? Who does he think he is?

Father Humphrey was back at Sunday Mass the next day.  Matt was there with his family but mentally in absentia.

The church members never saw the red-headed firebrand again.  Matt’s mother was convinced he was a good man of God though misguided.  His father admired his bravado and forthrightness but thought he might benefit from “cooling his heels.”

If anyone asked Matt, hypothetically, why he complied in full with Father Flaherty’s penance, he knew he’d be hard put to explain – or to describe the feeling afterward.

At Mass a month later, Father Humphrey announced that the Reverend Seamus Flaherty died in Sao Paolo, Brazil, from gunshot wounds while tending to his people in the favela.

“May the Lord have mercy on his soul,” he intoned from the pulpit, and asked them to pray for him. 

Then Father Humphrey commenced to read the Gospel and piece it out so the parishioners could understand.