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I went to Sunday Mass to see the inside of the church at the end of my street. I wanted to know how the sun penetrated through the bleeding glass heart of a white Jesus. Whether it bounced off the high, domed ceilings or if it chose someone in the pews like a prophecy and shone down on them. I wanted to know if it would shine on me. If I sat in that pew, knelt on the little red velvet-padded stool that folded down, sang off key to the hymns I didn’t remember well in the book shoved in the cubby of the pew in front of me filled with drawings from bored kids. If I didn’t know what I was doing there. I wanted to know if that red light would strike me like lightning from clear blue skies and reveal to me the answer to every question I’ve ever had. I wanted to know if it would finally have the effect on me that was promised throughout my life. But it hadn’t. I sat in the back, and the morning sun shone through the stained glass beautifully, but just like it would any other window in any other church. I knelt, I sang, and I waited for the prayers to be over so I could snag a brownie from the foldout tables in the back and leave.
As I was thinking of that brownie—its sweet, soccer-mom secrets wafting throughout the church—the priest had begun his sermon. He was fairly young, probably midthirties. He had short, dark-brown hair and a forgettable face with small eyes and a large nose. His smile, though, promised unending kindness and acceptance, dimpling deep in his round cheeks. He was new here. Every Sunday, as I was outside on my steps smoking, I’d hear the old ladies giggling to each other about him as they passed me after the service. They’d gush and gush down the street about how cute he was, how nice his voice was, how good his sermons were. Much better than the last, they’d say. He seemed nice enough to me, but nothing special. Nothing like the new reincarnation of Christ Himself you’d think those ladies were talking about. I studied him for a bit longer until I caught on to something he was saying.
Darkness is found in each of us, he said. Though we here seek God for light, often He cannot shine in every nook of ourselves. Thessalonians 5:5 says “For you are all children of light, children of the day.” We are not of the night or of the darkness. Yet who here does not feel even a sliver of darkness within themselves? Who has not given in to temptation? Who here has not fallen victim to rage?
I could more feel than see his eyes pause on me for a moment as he looked over the pews, skimming over the old ladies in pastel hats and young men in tan suits and little girls in white dresses like a Southern dream. At that moment it was as if he saw through me, as if he were the big X-ray machine at the doctor’s and I was the patient wearing one of those heavy lead vests to protect me from radiation. I felt stripped down to the pink bra and lacy black thong I was wearing beneath the closest I could come to Sunday Best. It was as if he knew every secret I kept and didn’t keep, every sin I thought of or went through with. Every life I’d idly watched go to ruin was offered up to him freely, including my own. Then again, I was sitting too far away to be sure if he’d noticed me at all. Perhaps it was just that old muscle memory of Catholic guilt.
Yes, he said, looking back to his Bible, we as humans can never know what it is to be devoid of darkness. John 3:19 reads “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” Perhaps now that you are here, in this holy place, amongst those who are on a journey of their own alongside you, some of that darkness has begun to shrink. And if it hasn’t, perhaps it will sooner than you know.
My darkness did not feel like it was shrinking and I was sure it wouldn’t in any near future. It constantly felt like it was throbbing in the very center of me, growing slightly with each thump of its pulse.
The priest went on with his sermon, telling us to follow God and learn to live with our darkness and understand it. I didn’t want to understand my darkness. If I didn’t understand how my kidneys worked, why would I want to understand how this part of me worked? It was some mysterious fact of my existence that seemed to have been there since birth, and I felt I had no right to question it. I was aware of it in the middle of the night sometimes, like remembering that you were breathing and then actively working to forget it again so you could go on as normal. I was aware of it when stuck in traffic and wishing I could slash tires, though knowing that would only make the situation worse. Or when the old lady with the box-blonde hair cut in front of me in line in CVS and wondering how the chlorine bleach in my hand would feel running down her wrinkled skin. Most times, though, it felt as if it was just sitting dormant in an odd corner, like the back of my knee or the webbing between my fingers, going without use for long periods of time but still quivering like it was snoring to remind me it was alive.
The donation basket was passed around and I could feel the looks of judgment on me like a sunburn as I passed it on without putting anything in. I just thought they should feel grateful I didn’t grab the twenty out of it like I’d been tempted to. That felt like it was my darkness’ goading, seeping into my fingertips. You’re going to hell anyway, it whispered throughout me, might as well.
Another half hour passed and I let the priest place the communion wafer on my tongue—which he did so with that kind smile and a gentle hand—and was disappointed it just tasted like wheat and Styrofoam. I sipped the wine, which was rather pleasant though it tasted cheap. Apparently, they don’t use their donation money for the blood of Christ. But it paired nicely with the sleepless hangover I was starting to feel the effects of.
I went back to my seat at the rear of the church. Soon after, the priest looked out at all of us, true believers and solace-seeking phonies alike, and said, The Lord be with you. We all replied, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and sincerity, And also with you.
Once the priest dismissed us and I waited what seemed like an appropriate amount of time to pretend to gather my things and soak in the morning light that shone through the stained glass, I made my way to the table stacked with various desserts and set my sight on the dwindling tray of brownies. I wanted my brownie, and then I wanted to go home and forget I ever came.
Nearly there, I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. The priest was standing in the archway that led to the lobby of the church, greeting those that wanted to compliment his sermon and those who merely wanted their presence in church to be acknowledged, as if it would grant them an advantage with Saint Peter as they reached those gates, like the priest had a personal line to heaven.
Hello, you’re new, he said, his hand still resting on my shoulder. New to the neighborhood or to the faith as a whole?
There was something in the way he smiled, the way his dimples caught in his cheeks and the way his eyes crinkled that made me feel as though he already knew my answer.
Neither, I said.
Ah, interesting. So, what brings you here? You seemed like you’d much rather be doing just about anything else.
His candor caught me a bit off guard. I felt caught like a little kid in school again. But there wasn’t any judgment in his voice or even in his face. He just seemed interested, maybe a bit amused.
It’s sort of a long winded and potentially ridiculous story I’m afraid, I said.
I have time, and, with fear of sounding conceited, a talent for having patience when faced with ridiculousness, he said.
I glanced once more at the tray of brownies, a group of kids salivating over them as they waited in line, and sighed.
Alright, I told the priest, and his smile widened. He gestured for me to follow him.
He led me through a doorway to the left of the chancel at the far side of the church and up a beautiful old set of wooden stairs. They creaked under every step we took. It’d be impossible to sneak through here, I thought like a scheming teenager.
Tea or coffee? he asked me as we entered a narrow room crammed with old wooden wardrobes, colorfully drawn fundraising posters leaking glitter precipitation onto the red wool rug below it. There was a large rectangular table in the middle with only three chairs around it covered in arts and crafts and various pieces of paper. Religious paintings and crucifixes littered the walls as the large arched window at the far side of the room illuminated everything as if it were a romantic photo in a design magazine rather than the mothball-scented storage room it was. It felt familiar. The way that he moved around the piles with ease, not bothering to apologize for the mess or even really acknowledge it at all. There was a warmth to it that I could feel within me somewhere, but I couldn’t place where it was coming from.
Coffee, I told him.
I didn’t particularly want to stay long enough to be offered a beverage, but I could sense I didn’t have much choice. If he talks as slow and carefully as he did in his sermon, I figured I might be here a while. Plus, I was still exhausted from the night before. A bit of free caffeine wouldn’t harm anything.
Ah, he said in a way that made me feel like I had inadvertently revealed some innermost part of myself. I’m a tea man myself. Have a seat, I’ll get it started.
I sat in the large chair to the right of the table, the one with the least number of multicolored cassocks draped over it, apart from the seat at the head of the table, figuring that to be the Priest’s seat. I almost felt like I had been asked by a favorite teacher to stay after class to discuss my latest exam grade. The room felt familiar, with its piles of meaningful clutter and the smell of coffee now percolating through the air. I could feel myself, begrudgingly, relax into the chair with each second that passed.
So, the priest said, if you aren’t new to the neighborhood or the faith, why haven’t you been to service here before? Don’t tell me you’re cheating on an old family church.
He had a cheeky smirk on his face, similar to his grin, but his dimples were less saucers and more smile lines that mimicked his humor. When he sat down, it wasn’t in the empty chair at the head of the table. He sat in the one right across from me, leaning back on the large pile of clothing draped over it.
I’m not sure if you want the answer to that, Father, I said. Or maybe I just don’t want you to have it. You might rescind your coffee offer and I’d be very disappointed; it smells delicious.
You don’t believe in God, he said.
There was no judgment in his voice as I expected there to be. No condemnation, no criticism, just as if he were reading off the showtimes at the local theater. It shocked me, his indifference to a poser infiltrating his sanctuary, thieving wine and baked goods and offers of coffee from kind priests.
How’d you know? I asked him.
I saw you roll your eyes during “Blessed Are They,” which is usually a big hit. Plus, you signed the cross upside down. You started with the son.
I winced. I thought nobody saw that, I told him. I tried to correct it but I kept forgetting which way was right when I thought about it too much.
That’s alright. It was actually quite funny. Made my Sunday a bit more interesting than usual.
Father, are you confessing that you find Mass dull?
Of course, he said with that same sly smirk. Don’t you? Sunday service is the least interesting part of being a Catholic.
The coffee finished brewing and he brought over the whole pot with two stained teacups and a bowl of sugar.
No milk I’m afraid, he said. Apparently, the Pope doesn’t believe in refrigeration.
I take mine black anyway, I said.
Excellent. He poured each of us a cup, spooning about three scoops of sugar into his. We sat there silently for a moment, sipping the coffee, glancing over the cups and daring the other to break the tension first like it was a high-stakes game.
I won.
So, if you don’t believe in God, why are you here?
Do you mean philosophically or physically? We could go into semantics. You strike me as a Plato man, classic though a bit overly tame. Most people tend to go with Descartes, but I’m more of a Nietzsche gal myself. Freud is just off the table.
He huffed a laugh through his smiling teeth at me.
No, he said, I want to know why you woke up early on a warm Sunday morning and dragged yourself to a Roman Catholic church to hear some inexperienced priest ramble on about a God you don’t believe in. I know it wasn’t for the wine, it’s not that good. Cheap.
Oh, it wasn’t so bad, I said.
He just stared at me, waiting, tapping his index finger on his cup. I gave a silent sigh and said, I wanted to see if I had changed since the last time, or maybe if it had.
When was the last time you attended?
About seven years ago. I had just turned fifteen.
Were you dragged there by your parents? I can’t imagine a fifteen-year-old going to Mass of their own accord.
A bit of both, I think, I said.
I smiled a bit into my own cup, unable to deny how impartible his own grin was.
My parents are Catholic, I said, have been their whole lives. Though they were always more so Catholics of discretion. Not really into the whole exhibitionist idea. We always sat in the back, put a dollar or two in the basket, shook hands with everyone around us. But we’d leave as soon as we were dismissed. We only said grace on holidays or with the grandparents. If I had friends sleep over, we never made them come to Mass with us. They don’t believe in divorce or abortion, but they never judge anyone else for it. So, it never felt challenging going to Mass. It was just what we did, our weekly routine.
So why did you stop going?
Well, you knew right away that I didn’t believe, right? I think that’s because I never really believed. I was a Catholic, sure, but I didn’t believe. When I was in first grade, I thought Jesus was just an imaginary friend but for adults. Someone you could talk to if you felt sad or lonely or bored, but not actually real. I assumed that’s what everyone else thought too. I remember thinking He was like a wizard, and grownups don’t believe in wizards. They definitely didn’t believe in Harry Potter or Gandalf. Then I found out they did believe everything they talked about in Mass, and I thought they were all crazy.
He huffed that same little laugh through his teeth again and it reminded me where I was, who I was with. I couldn’t say what made me tell him these things. This all just felt so easy to tell him. I’d already worked this out to myself years ago but never really voiced it all at once. To my friends, my straying from Catholicism was some anti-establishmentary act of rebellion. Sticking it to the biggest man I could think of. To my parents, it was teenage angst I never grew out of.
I tried to explain it to my parents, once, when I was still pretty young. I just remember they got so mad at me, and they never got mad. They said I couldn’t say things like that about God, that it was blasphemous. So I didn’t bring it up again because it scared me as a kid seeing my usually docile parents like that. I didn’t know why this priest was pulling these things out of me. You weren’t supposed to tell a priest you had been an atheist since birth. This man was married to his religion and I was sitting there explaining how I thought his marriage was a sham. But somehow I knew he would understand, would believe me when I explained it to him.
But you still went all those years, he said after a short pause. If you’d known since elementary school, that was nearly a decade of attending a service you didn’t believe in. Why’d you really stop going?
I thought back to being fifteen. To being angry at everything and not knowing why. If it was the normal pubescent angst, if it was the way my family didn’t like to talk to each other, if it was losing all of my friends because I could hardly get out of bed most days.
Well, I said, by then I’d discovered I was committedly homosexual; I was afraid I’d burst into flames if I risked going one more time.
I told myself I said this because it was funny, because I was funny. I convinced myself that I said this because I get a thrill when I can make people laugh. Instead, I think I told him this because I’d hoped it would shock him. It certainly shocked everyone else I had to tell.
Since his sermon, I couldn’t help but feel he could see every part of me even before I could. It felt familiar in a way I wasn’t sure I liked. I wanted to say something that would wipe the smile off his face, that’d make him kick me out of his church and cleanse himself with holy water for even breathing the same air as me. Catholics hated anything with the word sex in it and I wanted him to hate me. But instead, his smile just softened and he took another sip of his sickly sweetened coffee.
That’s not why, he said.
He was so calm and sure. I felt that darkness grow from where it had been sitting in my fingertips and rush straight to my eyes and my mouth.
Why can’t it be? I asked. You know how this religion sees me. I’m a walking sin. I’m the stain on their pure white cassock. Why should I have stayed when they didn’t want me to? Who are you, Father, to tell me that’s not why I left?
I looked over this man, with his gold-embroidered robes and his absurdly white teeth, not a wrinkle or stain anywhere. I felt that pulsating blackness exhilaratingly exploring the parts it hadn’t seen in a long time. It was like the warm welcoming of a hot glass of Ovaltine with a shot of bourbon in it.
It can be an excuse, he said. It can be a very valid excuse. But it’s not yours.
His calmness hadn’t waned. He sat there gently tapping his cup, unfazed by my mindless berating. I thought in that moment that I wanted to punch that ridiculous smile off his face, but I could probably beat him half to death and he’d never get rid of it.
This thought shocked me out of boiling over the brim. This priest had done nothing but show me kindness, and I wanted nothing but pain and destruction.
I looked to him again. Something about that picture of him, sitting in the chair covered in cassocks and the late morning light shining on him, stilled the snake weaving its way through me. I finally took him in all at once. He was unerringly human: receding hairline, hints of a five o’clock shadow beginning to show, kind but commonplace brown eyes the same shade as his hair. But he didn’t feel fully human. Not in some divine, fantastical way, but in the ways that he wasn’t obviously filled with contempt for the world he was forced to occupy like the rest of us. I had never met this man, didn’t even know his name nor he mine, but he knew me. From a glance over a crowd, he knew who I was. More importantly, from an offer of coffee and conversation he knew who I wasn’t.
Tell me why you actually stopped attending Mass, he said, not a demand but not a request either. What happened at fifteen that made you stop?
My mouth began to work before the rest of me could tell it not to. I wondered if that was where the snake ran, not often getting the chance to make it all the way to my lips and seizing its opportunity.
My aunt died, I said. I didn’t know why I said it, or hardly even that I had said it all until it was said. I don’t think I’d even known it was true. I had every intention of lying my way through this conversation, but it seemed I was incapable of it.
I waited for him to laugh at me, to scold me for ruminating on the past so much and letting it rule my life. I waited for him to tell me that there were worse things to happen to people even though I knew this already and said it to myself every second of every day before anyone else even got the chance to. But then his smile went from the gleaming show of teeth to a closed-lipped sign of empathy. He didn’t gloat about his success in finally slicing me open, though perhaps he wanted to. I would have.
Was this the first death you experienced? he asked me.
No, but it was the hardest.
How so?
We were close, I said. Or maybe we weren’t and that’s worse because I felt like we should be. I only saw her a few times a year, at best. She lived across the country. She had renounced her faith when she went off to college, and a lot of the family didn’t take that well, so she hated coming back. They could fake benevolence at Easter and Christmas, but there were always snide remarks. About her job, about her lack of a husband or kids, about her living so far away. But she saw me.
I was always awkward and shy and never felt like I belonged or was wanted at family dinners. I was good for setting the table and being a good sport about being the butt of the cheap jokes because I was acne-faced and quiet and a picky eater surrounded by loud Italians. I didn’t bring friends or boyfriends around like my cousins did. But she saw through that somehow. She always brought me a present, and no one else one. One Christmas she bought me the box set of Gilligan’s Island and we spent the whole weekend watching it. It felt good to be the favorite for once.
It’s not like I had a horrible childhood. My parents always fed me and bought me the things I needed, and they sent me to a nice school, but it always felt like they didn’t like me. They loved me, sure, but I think she was the only one that actually liked me.
Everything about her was pouring out of me onto the table. I held my coffee between my hands and spun the cup back and forth. The priest kept his eyes trained on me, his expression not moving an inch, so I went on.
When I was ten, I said, she got cancer. Lymphoma, I think. I don’t know. I wasn’t really old enough to remember big words or big ideas like that. I don’t think I wanted to anyway. She moved back into my grandparent’s house because it got too hard for her to take care of herself and we also had a really good cancer treatment center there. I just remember being excited that she was going to be around more. We’d get to spend more time together and that’s all I cared about. God, how fucking selfish was that? But she was too sick to fulfill my little fantasy. The treatments and medication made her exhausted. I remember sitting outside the bathroom one day hearing her throw up all her dinner. I don’t know why I did that. It was a violation of her privacy, and it made me miserable.
She deteriorated slowly. It wasn’t like the Hallmark movies where everything happens all at once but the patient still gets their heartfelt goodbyes in the end. She was stage two when they found out. Nothing really worked. Or it did but then it would stop working shortly after. I felt guilty. Everyone who came by said that she was in their prayers. I didn’t pray. Not for her or anyone else, and I thought maybe that’s why nothing was working. I spent the next five years begging and pleading for the God my whole family worshiped to make her better. I even tried begging St. Anthony to bring back my lost cause, to give me just this one and then I wouldn’t care if he ever kept track of any of my lost things again, that he could focus on other’s and forget me forever. He didn’t. So, I decided once and for all that He either didn’t exist or He just ignored me and took one of the best people I would ever know, and that was even worse. I couldn’t bring myself to go back to church. I tried once, a few weeks after the funeral, but I couldn’t help but see her still face in the coffin every time I looked to the front of the church. I threw up all my grief in the bathroom and left in the middle of service. I never went back after that. Not until today. I sure did miss the book club’s triple fudge brownies they’d bring every week though.
The priest slid me a box of tissues that was hidden behind the glitter glue. I had started crying at some point during my confessional and he was kind enough to let me finish before acknowledging it.
So why did you come back today? he asked. His voice was soft, but it wasn’t filled with pity like most people’s are after you spill your deepest shames. It was full of understanding, of acceptance, of relief that I had finally told the truth and he didn’t have to keep prodding.
I wish I believed, I said. I’ve wished my whole life that I had some higher being that I could offload my worries and responsibilities onto. Yesterday was the anniversary of her death. I spent it at the cemetery. I was always so mad they buried her here. Her friends didn’t even get to go to her funeral. Most of them didn’t even know she’d died; no one had told them. I always wondered if she felt as alone at the end as I do now. I tried calling my parents about it, but they said they were too busy with their weekly bridge game. I spent the rest of the night with a bottle of Southern Comfort. I’d give anything to really believe, as long as it meant I’d see her again when I die. But I don’t. I never did, so I don’t know why I thought that would change today. But I always wanted to know what it was like. I want to look to the sky and feel that comfort that the devout feel, but instead, I see nothing. On a good day I’ll look to the sky and see whatever beauty it was that Vermeer saw in the clouds or whatever the Greeks saw in the constellations, but nothing more. And I hate that because how could anyone look at the sky and not be amazed? I’m a disgrace to the magnificence of the world.
You’re not a disgrace, he said, looking into me deeply. I myself never cared for stars. I think they’re a tad overrated.
I let go a short, wet laugh, just a single syllable soaked in tears and snot.
Why did you want me to tell you all this? You’re not going to try to convince me of God’s existence, are you?
Oh God, no. I don’t have that kind of time. The fall fundraising fair is coming up soon. I can’t focus on any committedly homosexual non-believers. He gave me the smirk from earlier and I grinned back at him, shaking my head. I actually didn’t really care whether or not you told me any of this, he said, with a trace of humor in his voice.
Excuse me? I scoffed. Well then what was the point of this?
He chuckled back at me and said, I could tell you wanted to tell it. It wasn’t necessarily for me to hear, though I’d gladly listen anytime. It is in my job description, you know. I brought you up here because I could tell you’d never do it yourself. And sitting in the confessional seemed a bit overkill.
I stared at him. My body felt at once fully rigid and completely lax. I couldn’t tell if my mouth was hanging open comically or if I just sat there normally. I wanted to argue with him, maybe chastise him for tricking me, for playing his game. I couldn’t though. He was right. I needed to tell myself why I was there or else I’d probably come back week after week without knowing why.
Well, you are free to go if you’d like.
That’s it? I asked him, incredulously. No sage advice? No bonus sermon or lecture or dousing in holy water?
No. I do have some things to get to, as I’m sure you do as well. If you were a real Catholic I could give you a few Hail Marys to satiate you, but I don’t think it’d do much for you. You’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like though. No one ever locks the doors, and there may still be some brownies left downstairs. They weren’t made by our book club, but they may still hit the spot. He got up, smiled at me, and left the room.
I heard him go down those squeaky steps and kept listening until I heard a door close somewhere. I didn’t know what to do, any more than I had when I stepped through that door. I felt at first that I should storm out of there, march home, and forget this ever happened. I still didn’t believe in anything after my excursion back to the Catholic church. I didn’t get any of my answers I’d hoped for, no bleeding light shone on me sitting alone at that beaten up table amongst the cassocks and the old crayon-drawn posters and the Saints and Jesuses looking down at me from their spot on the wall.
I finally got up and made my way downstairs. When I got to the tables in the lobby there were a handful of crumbs and the less desirable deserts left, including two brownies. I was a bit surprised, thinking back to the way those kids looked ready to devour the entire plate of them. The priest was right, they were no triple fudge book club brownies, but I ate one anyway.
I felt empty then. It wasn’t the cold emptiness I was used to though. It was as if all the mold and rot had been gently scrubbed out of me. It felt like I could see inside now if I’d wanted to, no longer filled to the brim and pitch black.
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AUTHOR BIO:
Stella Juliana Bonifazi is a queer photographer and emerging author. She is currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing and an MA in English at Arcadia University. She is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is now living in Philadelphia. She attended the Kansas City Art Institute and received a BFA in creative writing and a BFA in photography. Her work has been featured in issues 15 and 16 of Sprung Formal and the April 2024 issue of Nowhere Girl Collective.
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WHY WE CHOSE TO PUBLISH “St. Anthony’s Parish”:
There’s a special resonance in this well-told piece by author Stella Bonifazi. Two things stand out in it because they don’t stand out. That may sound like a contradiction, but this piece is so well crafted that many readers would not notice that the main character’s name is never mentioned, and that the author does not use quotation marks around her dialogue. What makes the latter remarkable is that the piece is so skillfully done that there’s no confusion about who is talking or when someone is talking.
But those writing points aside, what grabbed us about this story is the flow of emotion through it, and the priest (also unnamed) is the perfect foil for the main character. Everything is shown through her. It’s a marvelous and relatable piece of writing with strong resonance for the reader.