Page 105 of Saint
He looks at me, the shadows of the sanctuary making his eyes seem even darker. “I’m not, Aiden. I was expecting you.”
“You were?”
He nods and then turns, gesturing to a pew in the front row. We both sit, and I say, fumbling a little, “I wanted to talk to you about something, but I’ve made myself wait a while before I did it, which is a new thing for me. I’m trying to be patient with things now instead of flinging myself headlong into them.”
“I understand. And I’m happy to listen.”
I take a breath. “I’ve been struggling this year with opposites. With exclusions. I know it will make me sound greedy, but I don’t understand why loving someone has to exclude me from a liturgical life. I’ve petitioned to be an oblate at Mount Sergius, but that essentially means I’ll just be visiting there occasionally, and imitating monastic life as best I can here. It’s a good start and I’m grateful that I’ll still be connected to my former home, but I want more.”
Father Jordan nods, like of course I do. Of course it’s natural to want more.
It makes me feel less greedy. And whiny.
Encouraged, I say, “I remember in Provence you said that you were trying to rediscover the tapestry that used to exist. That you wanted to make more room between vowed and unvowed, more ways to God. I’m not—look. I’m not like you or Tyler or Zenny. I’ve never felt like I’m the kind of person who can make new things. All I’ve been good at as a Catholic is doing the things someone settled on several centuries ago. But I think...I think I’m supposed to do this. At the very least, I feel driven to do this. Because I don’t understand what’s lost in my devotion if I’m also having sex. Sex makes my prayerbetter, not worse. And I understand that there will always be value in celibacy for some, but there’s not for me. I don’t see why that should exclude me from everything else.” I look over at him. “I want to be a part of helping you figure it out.”
“Okay,” he says simply.
“I can be?”
“Yes.”
“Will it be welcome to queer people?”
“Yes.”
“Will it cause problems with the Church?”
“Almost certainly,” is the reply, but the priest doesn’t seem anxious as he says it, only thoughtful. “But I think you’ll find many saints caused problems with the Church. Saints who the same Church venerates now.”
“I’m not a saint though,” I say.
He regards me. “Are you not?”
But before I can laugh at him or think of a response that’s not scoffing or sarcastic, his eyes flick to the window, gauging the light. I feel it too, that internal sense of time, a result of years and years of praying at certain hours of the day. It’s almost time for Mass.
He stands up and pulls his cell phone out of his pocket as he does. “Would you like to exchange numbers before I start preparing for Mass?”
“Oh yes,” I say, standing too and getting my phone out. “What’s your number? I’ll text you.”
He reads me his number and I punch it in, type out ahi, this is aiden,and then hit send.
“There,” I say, looking for the place on the text message screen to input a name for Father Jordan’s number. “Now you have mine...”
But my voice trails off as I realize that the text I just sent is not the only text in our history. There’s a text above it, sent years ago. Five years ago, in fact.
Sent at 3:28 a.m.
“Father Jordan,” I say slowly, looking up from my phone to find Father Jordan already walking down the aisle toward the sacristy. “I’ve gotten a text message from this number before. Years ago.”
Father Jordan stops and looks over at me. “What a coincidence,” he says mildly.
And then he resumes his walk to the sacristy, leaving me there alone in the sanctuary with my phone in my hand, the screen still open to show the text message that saved my life.
I lift my eyes to the hills.
55
Sean shamelessly leveragesall his friends and acquaintances and former coworkers to come to his nonprofit benefit thing, and when I arrive an hour or so after it’s started, the space is teeming with people too rich for their own good.
