Priest: A Love Story
: Chapter 21

The autumn night pressed against the outside of the car as we drove home, and I kept my eyes on Poppy’s profile, which was lit by the lights on the dash and silhouetted against the velvet night outside.

What had happened in the club…it had been dirty and cathartic and galvanizing, although I couldn’t articulate to myself exactly why. The answer hovered just out of reach, shimmered beyond a veil that I could only graze with the fingertips of my thoughts, and as we passed out of the city and into the countryside, I stopped trying and just let myself take in the majesty that was my Esther, my queen.

I wanted her to be my bride.

I wanted her to be my bride.

The thought came with the clarity of cold steel, certain and true and no longer something I felt in the moment of sex and God, but something I felt sober and calm. I loved Poppy. I wanted to marry her.

And then the veil finally fluttered down and I understood. I understood what God had been trying to tell me these past two months. I understood why the Church was called the Bride of Christ, I understood why Song of Songs was in the Bible, I understood why Revelation likened the salvation of the world to a wedding feast.

Why had I ever felt like the choice was between Poppy and God? It had never been that way, it had never been one or the other, because God dwelled in sex and marriage just as much as He dwelled in celibacy and service, and there could be just as much holiness in a life as a husband and a father as there was in a life as a priest. Was Aaron not married? King David? Saint Peter?

Why had I convinced myself that the only way a man could be useful to God was in the clergy?

Poppy was humming along with the radio now, a sound barely audible over the dull roar of the Fiat on the highway, and I closed my eyes and listened to the sound as I prayed.

Is this Your will for me? Am I giving in to lust? Or am I finally realizing Your plan for my life?

I kept my mind quiet and my body still, waiting for the guilt to rush in or for the booming voice from Heaven to tell me I was damned. But there was nothing but silence. Not the empty silence I’d felt before all this, like God had abandoned me, but a peaceful silence, free of guilt and shame, the quiet that one had when one was truly with God. It was the feeling I’d had in front of the tabernacle, in the sanctuary with Poppy, on the altar as I’d finally claimed her for my own.

And as we were in her bed later, my face between her thighs, it was 29th chapter of Jeremiah that finally surfaced as the answer to my prayers.

Take wives and have sons and daughters…for surely I have plans for you, plans for your happiness and not for your harm, to give you a future full of hope…

I didn’t tell Poppy about my epiphany. Instead, after making her come time after time, I left for my own bed, wanting to sleep alone with this new knowledge, this new certainty.

And when I woke up early that morning to prepare for Mass, that certainty was still there, glowing clear and weightless in my chest, and I made my decision.

This Mass would be the last Mass I ever said.

“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell…and if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than have two eyes and to be thrown into hell…”

I looked up at my congregation standing before me, at the sanctuary that was full because of me, because of three years of unceasing toil and labor. I looked back down to the lectionary and continued reading the Gospel selection for today.

“Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you re-season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.” I took a breath. “The Gospel of the Lord.”

“Praise be to you, Lord Jesus Christ,” the congregation recited and then sat down. I caught sight of Poppy sitting near the back, wearing a fitted dress of mint green linen, bisected by a wide leather belt. The sun came through the windows perfectly to frame her, as if God were reminding me of my decision, of why I was doing this.

I let myself stare for one beat longer, at my lamb in those shimmering, tessellated beams of light, and then I leaned forward to kiss the text I had just read, murmuring the quiet prayer I was supposed to pray at this point and then another silent one asking for courage.

I closed the lectionary gently, revealing my phone with my homily notes. I’d reluctantly written the kind of homily you’d expect with this gospel reading, about the nature of sacrificing ourselves to avoid sin, about the importance of self-denial and discipline. About keeping ourselves holy for the work of the Lord.

Hypocrisy had haunted me as I’d typed every word, hypocrisy and shame, and as I stared at the notes now, I could barely remember the agony that man had been in, torn between two choices that were ultimately false. The way forward was now clear. All I had to do was take the first step.

I flipped my phone over so that the screen faced down and raised my eyes to the people who trusted me, who cared for me, the people who made up the living body of Christ.

“I spent the week writing a homily about this passage. And then when I woke up this morning, I decided to throw the whole thing in the trash.” I paused. “Figuratively speaking, I mean. Since it’s on my phone, and even I’m not holy enough to give up my iPhone.”

The people chuckled, and the sound filled me with courage.

“This passage has been used by many clergy as a platform for condemnation, the ultimate declaration by Jesus that we are to abandon any and all temptations lest we lose our chance of salvation. And my old homily was not far away from this idea. That self-denial and the constant shunning of temptation is the path to heaven, our way to the small and narrow gate.”

I glanced down at my hands resting on top of the lectern, at the lectionary in front of me.

“But then I realized that the danger of preaching this was that you might walk out of this building today with an image of God as a small and narrow god—a god as small and narrow as that gate. I realized that you could walk out of here and believe—really and truly believe—that if you fail once, if you slip and act like the messy, flawed human that you are, that God doesn’t want you.”

The congregation was silent. I was treading outside of normal Catholic territory here and they knew it, but I wasn’t afraid. In fact, I felt more at peace than I ever had delivering a homily.

“The Jesus of Mark’s Gospel is a strange god. He is terse, enigmatic, inscrutable. His teachings are stark and relentlessly demanding. He talks about things we would consider either miraculous or insane—speaking in tongues, handling snakes, drinking poisons. And yet, he is also the same god we encounter in Matthew 22, who tells us that the greatest commandments—the only rules we need to abide by—are loving God with all of our hearts and all of our souls and all of our minds, and loving our neighbors as ourselves.

“So which Jesus is right? What rubric should we use when we’re confronted by challenge and change? Do we focus on pruning out all evil, or do we focus on growing love?”

I stepped out behind the lectern, needing to move as I talked, as I thought my way through what I wanted to say.

“I think the answer is that we follow this call from Mark to live righteously, but the caveat being that we have to redefine righteousness for ourselves. What is a righteous life? It is a life where you love God and love your neighbor. Jesus tells us how to love in the Gospel of St. John—there is no greater love than to lay your life for your friends. And Jesus showed us that love when He laid down His own life. For us. His friends.”

I looked up and met Poppy’s eyes, and I couldn’t help the small smile that tugged on my mouth. She was so beautiful, even now when her forehead was wrinkled and she was biting her lip in what looked like worry.

“God is bigger than our sins. God wants you as you are—stumbling, sinning, confused. All He asks of us is love—love for Him, love for others, and love for ourselves. He asks us to lay down our lives—not to live like ascetics, devoid of any pleasure or joy, but to give Him our lives so that he may increase our joy and increase our love.”

I stared out at their upturned faces, reading their faces, which ranged from pensive to inspired to downright doubtful.

That was okay—I was going to model this sermon for them. This afternoon, I was going to call Bishop Bove and lay down my own life. I would resign from the clergy. And then I would replace Poppy and I would ask her to marry me.

I would live my life awash with love, just as God had intended.

“This won’t come easy to us Catholics. In a way, it’s easier to dwell on sin and guilt than it is to dwell on love and forgiveness—especially love and forgiveness for yourself. But that’s what’s been promised to us, and I for one, will not refuse God’s promise of a full, love-filled life. Will you?”

I stepped back behind the lectern, exhaling with relief. I’d said what I needed to say.

And now it was time to lay down my life.