Bless Me Alexios For I Have Sinned

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine

Meltin’ in a pot of thieves

Wild card up my sleeve

Thick heart of stone

My sins my own

They belong to me, me”

Only days after white smoke announced the arrival of a new Pope, the jowly, dour-faced suddenly infallible Francis nearly fell face-first off of his throne when he greeted a group of Cardinals in the Vatican. He recovered his balance nicely but with less natural grace than did Jennifer Lawrence who had to maintain her poise after  she tumbled on the stairs at the Oscars. Does the Pope matter? That’s not a snide question. I remember vividly the powerful Pontiffs who ruled over the Papal States and commanded armies after the mighty Roman Empire fractured and fell, and no European monarch assumed authority without the Pope presiding over their coronation, but as nations began to gel and solidify over the centuries the Pope’s authority began to wane, and by the time Napoleon grabbed the laurel wreath away from a stunned Pius VII and crowned himself Emperor of the French at a lavish ceremony in Notre Dame Cathedral the Holy Father was left with but a shadow of his former glory. These days the Pope mostly grouses about contraception and insults homosexuals, but beyond the most devout or illiterate Catholic, I doubt anyone pays much attention to him beyond his enduring appeal as a gaudy tourist attraction. I slithered unnoticed into the grand old church and took a seat near the back. Ten or fifteen people scattered amongst the pews knelt in silent prayer as the Lenten season drew to a close and Holy Week approached. I doubt many of them prayed for the well-being and wisdom of the new Pope, but instead, surrounded by the gory Stations of the Cross and the tragic lives of the martyred saints rendered in glittering jewel-tone stained glass, they most likely came that night to brood over their own disappointing lives. Like a shadow I drifted around the Gothic church searching its alcoves dimly lit by flickering red votive candles, and I came to a stop before the vaguely sinister-looking confessional doors. Bread and wine transformed into the body and the blood of Christ, the washing away of sin…the Catholic church is steeped in ceremony and divine alchemy, and in the darkness of the confessional some of the Church’s most beguiling magic unfolds. I sat in the dark booth on the little wooden seat where the priest offers forgiveness to his sinful parishioners – the ritual cleansing of a soiled soul – but the only hocus-pocus in that cramped pitch-black closet-like room was the murky magic of the mind. The squeak of hinge and the soft click of a door that had been carefully opened then closed stopped me as I was about to make may way back out into the church. I waited a moment, listened in the darkness, then slid back the small wooden panel on the wall. From the dim light filtering through an ivory colored fabric screen I could see the blurred shape of a sinner seeking absolution. A voice, rattling and distressed from too many cigarettes and too many hard years, broke the silence, “Bless me Father for I have sinned. It’s been…oh, I guess Christmas time since my last confession…”

 

“I’ve had impure thoughts,” the old man informed me in a haltering stutter, embarrassed by the sound of his own admission. Taken aback by the gravity of his guilty conscience  I found myself momentarily speechless, and after a pause, I said with little concern for the solemnity of the setting, “Well, who hasn’t?” “It’s a sin, Father…” the elderly man almost whispered, but I settled back down on the small wooden chair and said, “You do realize the most popular internet search is for porn, don’t you?” The troubled parishioner cleared his throat then said, “Like those dirty pictures and such?” “Exactly!” I said leaning closer to the translucent screen separating us, “How sinful can it be when so many people are…listen, it’s almost as natural as breathing, and that’s not a sin, is it?” “I guess not Father, but…” the old man said sounding a bit defensive.  Before he had the opportunity to engage me in a theological argument I quickly asked, “Who was the object of your  impure thoughts?” “I don’t want you to think I’m cuckoo or anything…” the old man said then continued, “My wife likes that Bachelor show on TV. Every week I complain about it, but I sit right there next to her on the couch and we see it together…” “Oh, yes! I’ve watched it…but they never pick a very attractive bachelor, except for that guy who owned the bar in Texas…” I mused, and the tortured soul in the confessional quickly interrupted me, “I don’t know anything about that. I’m talking about…the other ones…” “Of course you are, the bachelorettes,” I said nodding my head. “Yes,” the old man agreed, getting me back onto the proper track, “They all live together in the big house…” “The villa,” I corrected then allowed him to proceed. “And they’re always wearing bathing suits, little ones, you know, bikinis or their underclothes or dresses with almost nothing on top,” he explained. “How good do you think the ratings would be if they wore mumus and sweats suits?” I asked, surprised that I found it necessary to articulate the question. Silence hung in the darkness, then the old man softly groaned and said, “It doesn’t seem fair…you know, one man and all of those beauties…” “Ahhh, now were getting somewhere,” I smiled behind the glowing fabric, “Every week you sit next to your frumpy old wife and…” “She was never much to look at, even back in the day,” the old man said with an abruptness that startled me, “Her sister was mighty fine, though.” “You should have tried your luck with her sister when you were young,” I said growing more casual and conversational in tone. “I did!” the old man said, “But she turned me down, and somehow I ended up with the other one.” “You settled,” I told him flatly.  “That’s one way of putting it,” he said sadly then tried to stop, make a hard turn and change directions, “Don’t get me wrong here, my marriage is a good one, I’m happy…all things considered.” “You settled,” I repeated my painfully astute point.

“Bless me Father for I have sinned…greed, the sin of greed, Father,” the woman’s weary voice drifted like a melancholy ghost through the gauzy curtain. I adjusted myself on the hard little chair and leaned against the wall hoping to find that elusive position of comfort in the stifling little box of the confessional as the next sinner told me her tale of woe. “I lost three before my daughter Kate was born, and to be honest, every time it happened I felt relieved, you know…relieved. Maybe I wasn’t ready. I always had so many plans, so much I wanted to do, but then when Katie came along I was, well, I knew she was a gift from God. She became my whole life,” the woman began as a prelude to the admission of her wicked behavior. “Katie’s been married for, oh, gosh, almost fifteen years now. It seems like forever,” she said, “My son-in-law, he was a psychology major – whatever the hell that is – hasn’t worked a day since I’ve known him.” “He’s a deadbeat,” I said trying to quicken the pace of her confession. “You got that right!” the woman said, her voice taking on a new vibrancy.  I sighed and stated the obvious, “Let me venture a guess, you tried to warn her before she said ‘I do’.”  “You bet I did!” she almost shouted, “But did any body listen to me?” I heard an agitated rustling from the other side of the screen then she went on, “They had to have a house, they just fell in love with this house that they had to have….you know who had to pony up for the down payment? Me, that’s who, and now they can’t afford the payments.” “Times are tough,” I said, but through the murky fabric I could see her head shake angrily, “Bull! I’ve made it through plenty of tough times…” She drew in several deep breaths, and a calm stillness settled in for a moment before her story resumed. “My husband passed away last summer, the end of June,” she said quietly, “I felt lost without him, you know, abandoned, but my girlfriends, Cynthia and Pat, said I should move on with my life, get out more, so we’re all going on a cruise together.”  Having lost interest in the woman’s stream-of-consciousness personal purge, I decided to melt away into the darkness and escape the claustrophobic confines of the confessional, but the woman suddenly laid her head against the fabric screen and began to sob, and so my attention sharpened to a keener edge. “Katie says they’ll lose the house if I don’t give them a hand, she says I should cancel my cruise so I can help them out, but I don’t want to help them out…I mean cancel my trip…” her words flowed as freely as her tears, and any opportunity for me to offer a stinging appraisal of her wretched daughter and worthless son-in-law was lost in the torrent of grief. “I told Katie it was too late for me to get a refund, but she looked up the cruise line on her computer and found out that I can still get my money back,” she rasped in a hoarse whisper. “Excuse me ma’am,” I interrupted politely, “I thought you were confessing the sin of greed, but clearly you’re also a liar.” “What?…but….but…” she stammered once the shock of recognition had attached itself to my words. “But nothing,” I scolded, “If you lied to Katie why should I believe anything you say?” The woman made a strange noise that I can only describe as the unpleasant union of humiliation, horror and offense. “I’m sorry, I can’t offer you forgiveness at this time,” I said in a manner that was more businesslike than benevolent. The woman gasped indignantly, and without absolution, still tainted with the stain of sin, she slammed the confessional door on her way out.

Bless me Father…for I am unhappy…I am frightened…lonely…for I have wasted my life…for I am nearing the end, and I wish I could start over from the beginning and do everything differently. I spent an hour in that goddamn confessional listening to their pain and disappointment, their failures and fears, and for the first time in my 7000 year existence I felt the ponderous weight of eternity crushing me in the terrible tiny black room. An hour became an unbearable forever, and after a teenage boy sullenly confessed to harboring amorous feelings for his best friend’s girl, I had without question reached my limit of the maudlin misery, the self-indulgent grief and conceited hand-wringing over a-whole-lot-of-nuthin’ pouring unabated from the parade of penitents.. “Where were the true villains – the murders and rapists, the thieves, grifters, terrorists and miscreants?” I wondered as I evaporated from the sanctum of contrition and made my way back out into the church. No one had knelt and bowed their head in the dark  to beseech the man behind the curtain for exculpation, they wanted someone to listen, to hear the shabby little stories about their dull little lives… “Bless me Father, bless me anyone…I’m here, I matter, I’m important even though I’ve been naughty.” Once liberated from the oppressive responsibility of forgiving transgressions I felt blessedly free – free to go forth and sin myself with zeal and joy. As I made my leave I heard a muffled voice come from the darkness behind one of the closed confessional doors… “Bless me Father for I have sinned….hello?…hello?…is anyone there?”