(via billy miller - Google Search)
“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.”
He waited for a response but there was only silence. Uncomfortable silence.
He shifted on the hard wooden bench. It creaked loudly but he could still hear the sound of a throat clearing violently on the other end of the divide.
Father Donovan was still battling with his emphysema. He’d smoked for most of his adult life, and probably most of his teenage years. He did quit eventually but it was already too late.
“Go on, son.”
“It’s been…”
He paused again. How long had it been? He started to count on his fingers but knew immediately that he would soon run out and so he stopped. “… Jesus … too long since my last confession.”
“Language!”
“Right. Sorry.” He almost scoffed out loud but then caught himself. He wasn’t even sure why he’d come in the first place. He was starting to think the whole thing was pointless. As if whispering your secrets into the dark somehow absolved you of any wrongdoing.
He crossed himself. He was dangerously close to blasphemy now.
He took a deep breath and went on, even though he doubted telling the rest of the story would erase the woman’s sad and creased face from his mind. “I was in a position to help someone,” he admitted. “To really help them, and I refused.”
He waited for a sound, some small hint of some acknowledgment of what he’d just said but again, there was silence on the other end. He went on. “She was desperate and she came to me for help … and I don’t know … I guess I just couldn’t.”
“But why?”
“I didn’t think it would do any good … that I’d be any good. I figured it was better to not help at all than to try to help and only make the problem worse. I don’t know. Am I rationalizing?”
“But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”
1 John 3:17. It was one of Father Donovan’s favorite verses, but it gave him no comfort to hear it now. He was having trouble finding God’s love wherever it abided, certainly not within him.
These are Stone’s thoughts from the opening paragraphs of Cat Scratch Fever, the upcoming first novel in my new series.
http://desireemoodie.com/all-about-stone/
