Chapter 40
“It must be inconvenient to be made of flesh,” said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully…
Joseph peeled off his overcoat, surplice, soutane, and clothes.
He lit a fire in the hearth and crawled into his cold bed.
He knew he would have to celebrate Mass in six hours, but he could only lie there, staring at the enormous crack in the ceiling.
So he banked the fire, donned fresh clothes and his overcoat, and crossed the frozen Biblical garden.
Ice glazed the branches of each bush and tree, white gilding a dark core.
The holy water had frozen in the font, but the altar lamp greeted him: God was here.
When Joseph genuflected, the pang in his knees reminded him of his fall on Church Street.
His breath created a cloud in the sanctuary like an odorless incense.
He returned the pyx to the Tabernacle and kissed the cold altar.
Finally, he lowered himself onto the floor until he was prostrate before God and above Bishop England’s tomb.
Help me to feel for Tessa only what you felt for your sister, he begged the holiest man he’d ever known.
Surely Bishop England was already a saint in Heaven, where he could easily catch the ear of their Lord.
Joseph wanted only to be a good Priest. How could God refuse such a prayer?
Seven years ago, on this very spot, Joseph had accepted the burden of the Priesthood.
His vow of celibacy was implicit and not explicit, but he’d understood the price of Ordination.
At least, he’d thought he understood. “Be careful to mortify your members concerning all vices and lusts,” Bishop England had commanded, and Joseph had promised to obey.
Flattened against this frigid floor, his members felt sufficiently mortified.
They might even freeze and fall off, if he remained here long enough.
He might contract pneumonia, and all his problems would be solved.
His lungs convulsed in a bitter laugh before he returned to his prayers: Help Tessa to feel nothing more for me than she feels for Liam. Help her to desire her husband instead.
Less than six years ago, on this same spot, Joseph had blessed Tessa’s marriage to Edward. “Plighted to one husband, may she fly from forbidden intimacies,” Joseph had intoned. “May Holy Matrimony become for her a yoke of peace and love…”
God had not been listening.
Of course He had been listening. God had never promised them happiness in this life—He had promised the opposite. They must discover His will and fulfill it. Only then would they find true peace, true love.
God’s will was that Joseph and Tessa part.
They were each other’s proximate occasion of sin.
Nearness endangered both their souls. If Tessa had died tonight, she would have been damned, because of Joseph.
But with distance between them, she would forget about him.
Eventually, she would repent of her sin.
Joseph must leave Charleston. He had been able to minister in his family’s own parish for seven years—not one Priest in a thousand was so fortunate. He would ask Father Baker to station him in North Carolina.
But the thought of exiling himself to that wilderness, with no company but his horse… Never again to sit at his parents’ table, hear Hélène’s laughter, watch his mother smile, or inhale Tessa’s perfume…
You are an alter Christus—another Christ, Joseph reminded himself. Did Christ yearn for His mother’s smile or the scent of a lover? He knew His purpose and did not depart from it. Remember what Christ suffered for the sins you are committing right now.
Joseph slid his folded arms from beneath his forehead till his nose flattened against the cold floor. He welcomed the discomfort. He stretched his arms to either side of him and imagined the Roman lash biting into his own back.
Remember Saint Paul’s words to the Galatians: “with Christ I am nailed to the cross… Not I, but Christ liveth in me…” Joseph Lazare ceased to exist seven years ago.
You are only Father Lazare now. Only God’s instrument, a vessel for the Holy Spirit.
Your body is nothing more than a despicable prison.
Joseph fisted his hands so tightly that his blunt fingernails dug into his palms. He imagined iron spikes being driven through his hands and his feet. He shuddered.
It is an honor and a privilege to suffer, to become more like Christ. If you are cold, if you are lonely, offer it up as a Penance.
Joseph didn’t need Tessa or his family. God was sufficient. Again Joseph prayed with Saint Ignatius: “Lord, grant me only Thy love and Thy grace—with these I am rich enough and desire nothing more.”
I desire nothing more…
I desire nothing…
I desire…
Hot tears mingled with the snot trickling from his nose. Perhaps he needn’t leave immediately. Tessa was recovering from a difficult childbirth. It would be months yet before either of them would be tempted to act on this desire.
But his wicked mind discarded the months in an instant.
His fantasy carried him perhaps a year into the future.
He saw Clare toddling through Tessa’s garden—bronze ringlets bobbing, her mother in miniature.
She was bringing him a camellia blossom.
Edward had vanished from the face of the Earth.
When Tessa’s daughter fell into Joseph’s arms, giggling, she called him not “Father” but “Papa.” Then Clare was slumbering in her crib, and he and Tessa were…
“Father?”
Joseph’s head snapped up, and he winced. His altar server was kneeling beside him, worry wrinkling his young face. Weak light seeped through the cathedral windows and set the boy’s red hair aglow like a halo.
Joseph must have fallen asleep on the floor.
His fists had loosened, but his arms were still splayed as though they were nailed to a cross.
Slowly, painfully, Joseph drew them beneath him.
Every muscle in his body ached, as if he were a corpse trying to come back to life.
“I’m sorry, Thomas.” Even his voice needed thawing. “Is it time for Mass?”
“N-Nearly, Father.”
With considerable difficulty, Joseph pushed and pulled himself to his feet, which felt like blocks of ice.
He could barely wiggle his toes. When his knees remembered his fall, they nearly buckled; he had to catch himself on a pew and Thomas’s shoulder.
What must the boy think of him? Joseph’s face must bear the impression of the floor, and a trail of snot had crusted beneath his nostrils.
Joseph dug in his overcoat for his handkerchief. His skin was chapped and half his knuckles had cracked open. He might have lost his anointed hands to the cold.
The memory of his dream brought heat to his face.
Joseph tried very hard not to dwell one more moment on what he’d imagined doing to Tessa, or what he’d imagined her doing to him.
He’d been awake when the fantasy began; he had consented.
And as Saint Finnian had written in his Penitential: “It is the same sin though it be in his head and not in his body…”
Joseph couldn’t celebrate Mass with mortal sins blackening his soul—sins he’d committed on the very floor of the cathedral, while lying on top of Bishop England and his sister. Joseph should run to St. Mary’s and find his confessor.
Then he heard murmuring at the back of the sanctuary.
Joseph looked to see the Sansonnet sisters arriving for Mass.
Bundled as they were against the cold, they noticed him immediately and began chattering.
Joseph grimaced and turned away. The Sansonnets feigned piety; but they cared more about other people’s sins than their own.
Joseph did his best not to limp, though he felt like a cripple. “Is there still ice outside?” he asked Thomas in a whisper.
“Everywhere, Father.”
Joseph knew he couldn’t reach St. Mary’s with any kind of speed. He couldn’t postpone the Mass either. His parishioners had duties of their own. Some of them were slaves who might be punished if they returned later than expected.
He would have to confess to Father Baker. “I need a few minutes,” Joseph told Thomas. “You can light the altar candles and lay out the vestments.”
“We’re still in Epiphany?” the boy asked. It was his first week assisting Joseph.
“Yes. White vestments until the end of the Octave—we won’t change back to green till the fourteenth.” Joseph gave the Sansonnet sisters a wide berth and reached the seminary as fast as he could.
The moment he stepped inside, he heard Father Baker coughing. Joseph’s heart sank. He should have known such cold would be deleterious to a system already weakened by malaria. Perhaps this illness was not as bad as it sounded?
When Joseph called through the door, Mrs. O’Brien bade him enter. The sight—and smell—of the miserable figure retching into a chamber pot gave Joseph his answer. Father Baker wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and smiled apologetically at the housekeeper as he held out the pot. His arms trembled.
Mrs. O’Brien clapped on the lid and told Joseph: “Can’t keep anything down, poor lad.”
Joseph tried to swallow his own distress. Father Baker already had a cross to bear; he didn’t need the weight of Joseph’s sins—let alone Joseph begging to leave Charleston. That would have to wait.
Joseph realized their housekeeper was speaking to him again: “As for your breakfast, Father Lazare, I was thinking—”
“Please, Mrs. O’Brien,” Joseph interrupted. He remembered Saint Finnian’s Penance for a cleric who’d committed adultery in his head. “If you’d prepare only a slice of dry toast and some hot water instead of coffee, I’d be very grateful—the same for dinner and supper.”
The housekeeper frowned at him.
“I’m— I’ll be fasting for the next forty days.”
“If that is your wish, Father.” Still the housekeeper left grumbling.