doubts were added to the mix—doubts not only as to his own priestly powers but also concerning all things supernatural and divine. But for that very reason he could pray, with the father of the child possessed by the demon, “Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.” If one has known (or has been) such a child and seen its convulsions, seen it foaming at the mouth, seen it in its fits of self-destruction, then one must believe in that demon, at the very least.
Could he, as well, believe that Christ could and would drive out the demon?
That was where he needed help, the help even of this tainted sacramental wine.
He ought not to be celebrating Mass in a state of sin, and the very act of consecration added to his inventory of misdeeds. But to have avoided performance of priestly duties would be tantamount to a public confession. He was entangled in his daily routine as in a net. It was like the dream he’d had last night, when he had fainted from the pain of the tattooing: He’d thrashed on the floor, trapped in his priestly vestments like a fish in a net.
Bowing his head and closing his eyes, he could see it again. So clearly.
The fat little man he’d struck and shrieked at in a language he’d never heard before but at once understood.The chill of the stone floor against his cheek at the moment of his complete collapse, like a cold cloth pressed to one’s forehead during a bout of fever. The stiff fabrics of the vestments as he tried to pull them off—especially the coarse wool of the pallium. The orphrey work embroidered on the chasuble, at once so painstaking and so crude, the toil of fingers still fumbling at the first tasks of civilization.
He was no archaeologist, but undoubtedly he’d acquired enough visual cues and memories in his years in Rome, during the afternoons and weekends of touring all the antiquities within a fifty-mile radius of the Holy City with his Michelin Guide in hand, that now his unconscious could create, in his dreams, simulations of the medieval past that seemed entirely authentic. In any case, he had brought back no photographs of what he’d dreamt. Only the dreamer knows what his dreams look like, and his memory of them, when he wakes, is evidence of nothing. People have flying dreams, but that doesn’t mean that they are able to fly.
Yet it seemed so real. It seemed as if he had actually been there (wherever and whenever that might be) in the flesh. The flesh was, indeed, what the dream—or vision?—had chiefly been about: the bleeding flesh pierced by the enamel pin, the gout of blood staining the white wool of the pallium, the flesh beneath the priestly robes being tortured by the tattooist’s needle.
Undoubtedly, it had been some kind of psychological mechanism for escaping the pain of the tattooing, a retreat not only through space but through time, to another continent and another century, yet all the while preserving his priestly identity.
And not just preserving but enhancing it. For he’d felt more perfectly a priest in those instants on the stone floor of that dreamt sacristy than even at the moment of his ordination in A.D. 1969. If he knew how to, he would return to the dreamt era, step beyond the sacristy door, and see how large a medieval world his unconscious could construct. Just that little glimpse, despite the horror attending it, had seemed… Beautiful was not the right word. He did not have the word that would express it. He had only the desire to return.
All the while he entertained these fancies he continued the prescribed rituals of the Mass, and now the inevitable moment had come when he must offer the Host to the communicants. Only two of the six people who’d come to the 7:30 Mass had approached the altar, old Mrs. Smede and Gerhardt Ober. Mrs.
Smede received the sacrament from his hand with a furtive smile and averted eyes, as though she shared his sense that the Communion wafer had been sullied by his sins but yet, like him, she could
Could he, as well, believe that Christ could and would drive out the demon?
That was where he needed help, the help even of this tainted sacramental wine.
He ought not to be celebrating Mass in a state of sin, and the very act of consecration added to his inventory of misdeeds. But to have avoided performance of priestly duties would be tantamount to a public confession. He was entangled in his daily routine as in a net. It was like the dream he’d had last night, when he had fainted from the pain of the tattooing: He’d thrashed on the floor, trapped in his priestly vestments like a fish in a net.
Bowing his head and closing his eyes, he could see it again. So clearly.
The fat little man he’d struck and shrieked at in a language he’d never heard before but at once understood.The chill of the stone floor against his cheek at the moment of his complete collapse, like a cold cloth pressed to one’s forehead during a bout of fever. The stiff fabrics of the vestments as he tried to pull them off—especially the coarse wool of the pallium. The orphrey work embroidered on the chasuble, at once so painstaking and so crude, the toil of fingers still fumbling at the first tasks of civilization.
He was no archaeologist, but undoubtedly he’d acquired enough visual cues and memories in his years in Rome, during the afternoons and weekends of touring all the antiquities within a fifty-mile radius of the Holy City with his Michelin Guide in hand, that now his unconscious could create, in his dreams, simulations of the medieval past that seemed entirely authentic. In any case, he had brought back no photographs of what he’d dreamt. Only the dreamer knows what his dreams look like, and his memory of them, when he wakes, is evidence of nothing. People have flying dreams, but that doesn’t mean that they are able to fly.
Yet it seemed so real. It seemed as if he had actually been there (wherever and whenever that might be) in the flesh. The flesh was, indeed, what the dream—or vision?—had chiefly been about: the bleeding flesh pierced by the enamel pin, the gout of blood staining the white wool of the pallium, the flesh beneath the priestly robes being tortured by the tattooist’s needle.
Undoubtedly, it had been some kind of psychological mechanism for escaping the pain of the tattooing, a retreat not only through space but through time, to another continent and another century, yet all the while preserving his priestly identity.
And not just preserving but enhancing it. For he’d felt more perfectly a priest in those instants on the stone floor of that dreamt sacristy than even at the moment of his ordination in A.D. 1969. If he knew how to, he would return to the dreamt era, step beyond the sacristy door, and see how large a medieval world his unconscious could construct. Just that little glimpse, despite the horror attending it, had seemed… Beautiful was not the right word. He did not have the word that would express it. He had only the desire to return.
All the while he entertained these fancies he continued the prescribed rituals of the Mass, and now the inevitable moment had come when he must offer the Host to the communicants. Only two of the six people who’d come to the 7:30 Mass had approached the altar, old Mrs. Smede and Gerhardt Ober. Mrs.
Smede received the sacrament from his hand with a furtive smile and averted eyes, as though she shared his sense that the Communion wafer had been sullied by his sins but yet, like him, she could
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