Sin(s)

By Ann Smith

Bless me Father

for I have sinned

And it was so much fun

I might do it again!

Father: Go on, my child, with your full confession.

Penitent: It's nothing so wild! Just a small obsession.

Father: It's the nature of a woman to be possessed of coy ploys.

Penitent: But this one I blame on the altar boys!

Eschatologically, Father,

You are in possession

Of remedial steps

To amend my obsession.

You needn't go so far

As to grant absolution.

Unrelenting temptation

Defies that solution.

I know you need details

But that's what's so hard,

Unsubstantiated facts

Have caused this canard!

What's that again, Father?

Oh please, Leave off with the liturgical cant

It can't make me more

Lusty, bold or recant.

It can't.

Back to the altar boys

and the inevitable folly

of the misdemeanor

that made me quite jolly.

(At this point

I have to confide

I have recently abstained

to mentally imbibe).

So, the sin is really

One of omission.

Only my Imagination's guilty

Of the commission.

And this is really the point

which I humbly resent

(You' excuse the mockery

while I vent)

My quotient of obeisance

Has been recently spent.

That put a few Hail Mary's on my tab.

I mean no disrespect.

Thank you, Father.

I needed that.

I will submit to

suffer public castigation

I doubt it will

Cause personal amelioration.

It was Holy Communion Sunday. I walked to church just for the exercise and the annual airing out. The sun was shining. The birds were singing. The ragweed is blooming. The sweet-Annis smell reminds me of spaghetti sauce, garlic bread dripping in butter, antipasto drowning in dressing, garden-fresh asparagus smothered in white sauce and topped with a dot or two of creamy butter, Spumoni on pound cake with a gross of fresh strawberries and lots of dollops of real whipped cream. A rumble in my stomach, descant to the gurgle, only reminds me that that's a hunger I won't satisfy soon. My personal philosophy regarding life is to eat lots, exercise more, and die in church . . . or in bed doing something interesting, hopefully not alone.

So wrapped up was I in the warmth of Spring, I hugged myself fiercely. Thankful, for once, that I'm nearly flat-chested and this can be easily accomplished without resorting to major contortions. I'm a dancer. Although some uncharitably might call me topless, I dance classically. You know, the ballet. Tutus, toe shoes, minor contortions, pirouette, Pleiade . . . (No, that's my other hobby, classical poetry) and cod pieces ( A subject I will discuss, in length, in a codicil to this piece.) And since my arms were there anyway, I gave myself a well-deserved pat on the back. Self-love is not like pandering to politic whims of the masses for their fleeting applause. Pride, vainglory, is one indulgence in which I can brag gluttony.

Spring is almost like being in love. I lose my appetite for everything except experiencing experiences. Not to brag, Father, but I could easily do a protracted stint of lent, with fewer vices to spare, at this time of year. I feel so heady with optimism. I am regenerated and innocent, like a spring lamb.

So, I gloried in the scents surrounding me. Like a honey bee, I nuzzled my freckled nose into the buds until the pollen stuck to my upper lip. I tasted it with the very tip of my tongue. I sneezed. Big time! (A sneeze that requires an unfolded hanky to mop up). I delight in the fragrance of lavender and rose mingled with the clean, steamy scent rising in misty clouds from the dew drops sprinkled on the asphalt as the onshore flow lifts its fuzzy-flannel blanketing and sun delicately licks up the moist earth.

I know, Father, it seems like I'm digressing, but I thought you wanted it from the beginning, and Spring is as good a place as any to start!

What I'm going to reveal next is not so much in the way of an excuse, but an explanation.

Scuffing my Vaseline-shined patent leather Mary Jane's in a slide-step-slide-step, I tripped up the stone steps leading into the vestibule of the very old, very musty St. Matthews Church of the Ascension and Resurrection. (By the way, does that moniker seem redundant to you? Yes, I thought so. On that point at least we can agree, Father. Redundant, like the excesses I stand recently accused of.)

I was in a rarefied state. I felt like singing, so I let loose , Father, till I saw you scowl. The tone deafness is congenital, so singing with abandon is something we Capelettis don't indulge in. Unless, we're siting up front with nobody directly in the pew in front of us. I'm a considerate Catholic girl, Father.

Church people can be hateful sometimes. They usually turn around and drill me with that pinched, sour-lemon glare. I can't abide hypocrisy, Father. You know I always tell the truth. You know, "Ruth, Ruth tells the truth. Lives in a telephone booth, is uncouth . . . ".

After the organ wheezed out the last stingy note, (Mrs. Cramer stringing it along for emphasis like she does when playing for the doubles-skate at the roller rink to let you know the gig is up and it's time to release your partner), I plopped down on the unforgiving pew's, unpadded surface. Why can't we have soft padded benches that pillow your bottom, Father? Abstinence from comforts keeps us attentive, you say. Abstinence seems to be the church's sitting position on everything! Well, there's not a more lively bunch of jumpin', gyratin' folks than those Holy Rollers down the street and they have a sanctuary full of gilded comforts. A church as old as ours certainly could have saved the few quid needed by now to purchase pew pads. It's pure miserliness on your part, Father. Take it from the poor box, I say. That was a Judas comment.

Anyway, I found myself down front, closest to the altar and furthermost from the sanctuary of the nave. The nave, through the double doors that annex the anteroom, which connects by double doors the vestibule, abutting the doorsill opening out to freedom . . . my usual quick escape routes. The front pews are the ones I rarely choose to warm because they are so close to the pulpit as to invite scrutiny from your exalted self and I don't need the attention right now.

I was feeling charitable enough to ponder the homily today without surrendering to the temptation to check my watch and sigh. I deliberately blow air up my bangs up for entertainment because you never take the cue, Father, that it's lunch time and we are all starvin'. You do go on, Father. Makes a person wonder when they can get a thought in edgewise. Irrregardless, that's a word that's not a word that you use quite frequently, I might point out. In for a penny, in for a pound.

What I am going to reveal next is not so much in the way of an excuse as it is an explanation.

I was snared in the web of serious contemplation. And I must be hypoglycemic because I was hypnotically hallucinating huge platters of Spaghetti, 5,000 (a biblical number) loaves of garlic bread, a mountain of melting balls of Spumoni, a couple of generous glasses of Chianti . . . Which is why I missed the que at the altar for communions' first call. I know people up front, file in first, so ignorance is not my excuse.

I don't suppose that before I admit to anything you might be lenient due to the fact that I came to you without being summoned, in my pious person, without benefit of anonymity the cloaked confessional provides. Did you know the confessional smells like a hundred years or so of dust, sweat, and beeswax laid on thick, like the guilty air so that it almost chokes you? No. I didn't think so.

Anyway, I'm nearly delirious with hunger. It's nearly three o'clock in the p.m., Father, and I doubt there's much left in the way of dessert. Carltongue always eats the last of the strawberries cuz' he dunks a horde of 'em in his Chianti. Carl is quite clever with his tongue. He can scoop up the floaters, nifty-like. Not as clever as Susan Marshall, who can stick six (a biblical number) peas up her nose with her tongue. That's really clever!

Carltongue uses the strawberries as a ruse to disguise the fact that he drinks copious amounts of the Chianti on Sundays. Everyone is always mesmerized by the fizzing strawberries! Go figure. I am always amazed by the fact he can negotiate the table without disgracing himself on his way to the sofa to sleep off dinner.

So, what I am about to reveal now is not so much an explanation as a confession, Father.

When the last asthmatic note of the doxology thinly pealed off the organ, I found myself on my knees, alone, in mass. T he masses having filed out and said their goodbyes a good ten minutes ago. It must have been 2:45 in the p.m. by then. I'm a good catholic girl, Father, and I didn't want to miss communion so I leapt up, like a ballerina, and made a mad dash for Gerald, who was clearing away the wine and bread from the sacraments table.

I meant to just take the elements, normal like, but he, mean tempered bully that he is, refused my pleas. And I did ask politely, Father. He was standing there towering over me like Goliath, frowning, stoic, all stock-still stupidity. Gerald seemed an immovable force to a delicate girl like me. His big, fat lips curled into a bigger rolled-up, silent NO. I could see obstinacy etched in every line across his Neanderthal forehead, seething and sweating disdain and just daring disobedience.

He held the bread plate in one hand and the goblet of wine in the other in a white knuckled, tight-fisted, tenacious grip. What was I to do, I ask you? I did something very ballerina-like and confessedly, not very ladylike. I kneed him in the groin. At which point Gerald howled, surrendered the sacraments, cupped his crowned jewels with those selfish hands, and hit the cold, stone floor like a tree felled in the first bloom of Spring. You know, like when they are all green saplings and it takes a long time to cure!

I did save the sacraments from being scattered all over the beautifully starched, still pristine, white linen cloth there behind us. The wine would have made an awful stain, like when Carltongue yaks up supper all over Mama's Turkish carpet when he's had too many strawberries.

I am sorry for helping myself to the sacraments, Father, I know it's a sin. But, I knew by this time, (and if you recall, it was almost two-twenty two in the p.m.) you'd changed out of your vestments anyway. As an altar boy, Carltongue, is nothing if not compulsively speedy and religiously neat about stashing the alb and chasuble when dinner is awaiting him.

I'm full of contrition and empty of my just desserts, Father. And the burdens of excessive guilt and morsels of remorse weigh heavy as garlic bread slathered in a pound of butter on my conscience. I'd be obliged if you could find it in your kind, Italian soul, to let me work off my offenses at a latter date. Oh, and that reminds me, I've heard you put in for a transfer to the Vatican after the rapture. It'll be interesting for you to discover who's going to run the show. You are a post-tribulation, pre-milelinnialist, right?

I beg an indulgence, an excuse to be excused or I'll need The Rites, Father. Truly. I'm not being dramatic when I tell you, you just might see a premature prophetic fulfillment of my personal philosophy of life. If I have the choice, I'd rather die in bed. I'm a good catholic girl, Father, and I counting on a little more practice in my young life so I don't have to die alone. That's not very interesting. Bless me , Father, for I have sinned.

"What a strange monster is man,

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I say to you, that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out."

Therefore, when you meet together (for fellowship between family and friends) it is not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God, and shame those who have nothing to bring [to the potluck]? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you.

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, which the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, "This is the new covenant in My blood; Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. ' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup, you proclaim the Lords's death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily [not thinking about the body of Christ and assuming that it means nothing], he shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. [You have his blood on your hands]

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. [God knows your heart. So at least be honest with yourself in his presence.] If you choose no to, it is the reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number have even died.

But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so we may not be condemned along with the rest of the world. So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wail for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you may not come together and eat and drink condemnation unto yourselves.