Chapter 15 #2
More than once, a girl had leaned close and confided, “We would have been lost without you!” His pride—and another part of him—would swell at such feminine attention.
Before Joseph could stop himself, he would imagine how that flushed cheek might feel beneath his fingertips, even what a few opened buttons might reveal.
He could not control these thoughts any more than he could keep his voice from becoming baritone, like his father’s.
Whenever he could, Joseph visited the Scala Sancta to do Penance.
The antithesis of the Spanish Steps, the Holy Stairs had been brought from Jerusalem by Saint Helena.
His head bowed in shame while he climbed the twenty-eight marble stairs on his knees, Joseph would remember his Hélène.
He must imagine that each of those lovely pilgrims was his sister.
Joseph would meditate on Christ’s Passion, how He had ascended these very steps on the way to His terrible death for Joseph’s sins. Christ had been a man once too; he had had a—
He had also been tempted, but He remained pure. When Joseph’s knees started aching, he would remind himself what he purchased with this pain: nine years’ indulgence for every step he climbed.
He spent only a few minutes in the company of those pilgrims. He would have many more occasions to sin against female parishioners.
He’d been an arrogant fool to believe he could achieve purity.
Not with this black blood coursing through his veins, the very color of sin.
In one of Saint Teresa’s visions, when a demon appeared to her, he resembled “a horrible little negro.”
At seminary, they received the Sacrament of Penance face to face; he could not hide in the anonymity of a booth.
Now Joseph’s confessional was often a garden.
During the summers, to escape the heat in Rome, the students stayed at the Propaganda’s villa.
His confessor, an elderly Tuscan named Father Verchese, had managed the grounds there for almost forty years.
But with every passing day, the Priest’s arthritis made it more difficult for him to do the manual labor.
So Joseph became the old man’s hands, as he would soon become God’s.
His confessor warned him to take utmost care and wear proper gloves.
“To lose the use of my hands after a lifetime of service, that is one thing,” Father Verchese explained.
“But if you were to damage your hands, my son, you could never be ordained. Those hands will perform Sacraments. They must be without blemish.”
Joseph promised he would remember. But sometimes, when he was alone, he willfully disobeyed. He could not resist the temptation to remove the hot, restricting gloves and trace his fingertips up some tender shoot, across the satin petals of a blossom, or even through the richness of the earth.
At home, Henry had done the hard work in both their kitchen and ornamental gardens.
Now, Joseph found he enjoyed teasing life from the soil.
Even the way the labor drained him was a blessing.
In time, perhaps he could work out his salvation and exhaust his lust by hauling water and carting manure.
He could be a gardener in a monastery too—where he would be safe from women altogether, and they from him.
As he watched Joseph turning the soil, his confessor reminded him: “You attend the College of the Propaganda—for the Propagation of the Faith. Four years ago, when you accepted a place here, you agreed to become a missionary, not a monk.”
Joseph frowned at the disturbed earth. “Sometimes they grant dispensations, don’t they?” In a monastery, he could even change his name.
“My son, you must ask yourself: ‘Why do I want to join an order?’ A monastery may be a fine hiding place, but cowardice is a sin. A desire to disappear into Christ is laudable. A desire simply to disappear is not.”
Joseph remained on his knees, listening to the trickle of the fountain behind them. “I can do a great deal of good in a cloister, with my prayers.”
“You can do more good in the mission field, and you know it.” Father Verchese tapped his shoulder.
Though it was difficult with his gloves, Joseph accepted the mustard seeds from his confessor’s gnarled hand. He accepted the truth more slowly, as he sprinkled the seeds. One of his other professors concluded every class with the cry: “Souls are waiting!” Souls who would truly be lost without him.
“Didn’t you promise your Bishop you would return?”
Immediately Joseph felt the stab of guilt, and he nodded.
He was here only because of His Lordship.
Joseph could not betray him. But Bishop England did not have to battle black blood.
Joseph stood, grasped his hoe, and hacked too hard at the soil to cover the seeds.
“I’m not strong enough to live in the world, Father.
I don’t want these impure thoughts. I beg God to take them away, but—”
“Do you doubt Our Lord?”
“O-Of course not.” Joseph stopped hoeing.
“He is refining you, my son. We all endure that refinement, and it makes us strong. When you are ready, at your Ordination, He will reward you with His grace—like a suit of armor. Remember what Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians: ‘God will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able; but will make also with temptation a way to escape.’”
“How do I escape from my own mind, my own body?”
“You must stop thinking of them as your mind and your body. They are God’s; you are returning them to Him. You must make yourself empty so that He can fill you.”
Like Saint Teresa. And remember that prayer of Saint Ignatius, Joseph berated himself as he watered the mustard seeds. Surrender yourself wholly. Not “mostly.” He was trying…
“Purity is a habit, my son. You must practice it.”
“But how do I begin? Everything I’ve tried has failed.”
“You are an intelligent young man, Joseph. Perhaps at this stage, a little reason will help.” Father Verchese picked up a pair of shears from the nearby bench.
His hands shook, but he used one of the blades like a saw to remove a bloom from a climbing rose.
His confessor laid the blossom in Joseph’s gloved palm: freshly opened, damp with dew, and an exquisite shade of pink. “Beautiful, yes?”
Joseph nodded. He couldn’t take his eyes away. His filthy glove seemed an unjust resting place for such a treasure.
“Today, it is beautiful. But tomorrow, its beauty will fade. Admire it—chastely—on the vine, but remind yourself that such beauty does not last.” Father Verchese chuckled. “And remember the thorns! Myself, I do not envy husbands.”
Joseph smiled back, but without conviction. Because in this moment, the rose was beautiful.
“Celibacy is a sacrifice; but every man makes sacrifices, whether he chooses the Priesthood or an earthly family. The question is not: ‘What do we give up?’ but: ‘What do we gain?’ There is more freedom and joy in the Priesthood than laymen can comprehend. To be able to perform God’s work wholeheartedly, without distractions or divisions in our affections; to step within the Holy of Holies and experience the divine as only a handful of His creation can; to transform ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the God Who existed before time… ”
Joseph remembered the longing he felt when he assisted at Mass, and he nodded. But he had not let go of the rose.
His confessor settled on the bench. “When I was in seminary, I had a friend who struggled until his final year.”
Joseph sat beside him.
“Let us call my friend Lot. As we progressed in our studies, as our Ordination to the Subdiaconate approached, Lot grew increasingly restless, increasingly curious: what was it really like to know a woman? Finally he…stumbled, shall we say. And afterwards, Lot confided to me not only his profound regret but also his disappointment. The forbidden fruit proved far less delicious than he had imagined.”
Joseph frowned. That possibility had never occurred to him.
Father Verchese wagged his finger at Joseph. “Woman fell short of his expectations. But God will always surpass them.”
“Your friend still became a Priest?”
His confessor nodded. “Lot confessed and did Penance. Now, he is a fine pastor.”
Joseph stared down at the rose in his palm. He wondered what had happened to the woman who’d shared Lot’s sin. “What about…would you recommend mortification of the flesh?”
Father Verchese considered. “It has proven effective for numerous saints. When they were tempted, both Saint Benedict and Saint Francis stripped to the skin and threw themselves into thorn bushes.”
Joseph grimaced.
“One of the Desert Fathers found that even while fasting in the wilderness, he was haunted by obscene visions of one particular woman. Eventually word reached him that the woman had died, but even this did not quell his lust; he still dreamt of her. Finally, the Father travelled to the place where she had been buried months before. He unearthed her coffin, opened it, and dragged his robe through the putrescence that had been the woman’s body.
After that, whenever he lusted after her, he could bring the robe to his face, inhale the stench, and remember what had become of the flesh he’d so desired. ”
Joseph closed his eyes against the image, but he should have pinched his nostrils: somehow the stench of that robe reached him even here. Or it might have been the manure he’d spread that morning. When Father Verchese patted his knee, Joseph started as if his confessor were a corpse—or a woman.
“Perhaps the mere thought of their fortitude will strengthen yours, my son,” Father Verchese chuckled as he stood.
Joseph swallowed and nodded. He admired the rose one last time. Already it was wilting. He leaned down to lay the bloom on the earth beside his bench. “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.”