The Confession

(Last Updated On: 2016-09-16)

I still had my cassock, and I still attended the seminary, when this most unusual situation occurred during one Sunday mass. Not long after I received my cassock, I felt a great need to listen to confessions even though I was fully aware that I needed to be an ordained priest to do that. It was hope and intrigue that filled my soul and made me enter one of the confessionals in secrecy while my fellow seminarians sang Come, Rejoice Before Your Maker at the altar. The voice of the cantor rose up over all the others’. I acted immediately and closed the door on myself. After a few, mundane confessions, a young lady came in and greeted me with a “Bless you, Father.”
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It is been a while since I last confessed,” she said, going through the drab ritual, but she held a long pause after that.
“Are you there?” I asked and leaned closer to the lattice that separated the two compartments.
“I’m here. I’m just trying to marshal my thoughts and sins,” she said in a reserved voice. Naturally, I waited for her to continue in the manner expected of a priest, shrouded in silence. She finally broke the silence.
“Blessed Father, my sins are quite serious. Very serious. They may even be unforgivable.”
“My child, the Lord is merciful, and he will forgive your sins if you turn to him with a pure heart and he can see your honest contrition.”
“I’ve done terrible things! I’ve sinned. I deserve to be damned a thousand fold for it. There’s no consolation and no forgiveness for this,” she said. She piqued my curiosity, and she hadn’t even given me a hint as to what she’d done. Neither did she seem to regret any of it.
“I thought it was frailty that lead me into a world of sin,” she confessed with determination. “It was frailty and perhaps the unbelievable attraction I felt for that man who found me in my hour of need. I forced myself to resist, but I failed utterly. I hunted my prey with an insatiable lust. I tore his clothes off in a fit of lascivious passion. I clawed his back and left marks all over his neck. I bit his nipples. All my repressed desires burst forth and drove me unconsciously. I couldn’t resist. A punch brought me back to reality; I received it for my intense clawing.
“We didn’t meet after that because he was afraid. But the lust just kept growing in me. Lacking a man, I made do with the woman I was living with. She made love to me while crying her eyes out and trembling. That’s when I realized what I really wanted. Her fear increased my already unfettered desire to climax. So the next time we met, which was inevitable, I beat and humiliated her. She couldn’t escape from where we lived, so I could browbeat her into submission. I put her in uncomfortable situations. I made her my slave, and I relentlessly tortured her soul and body alike. I felt more and more comfortable in my new role, so I bought handcuffs and cuffed her to the steel bunk. I got off on her suffering.” She stopped speaking and I could barely start. It took me a few moments to find my voice.
“Now, my child, there’s no doubt that Satan has you in his grasp. Evil has possessed your soul, and it’s controling your body. Penance will not be enough. Though I will be generous about that. I think you should see a doctor. You should find a psychologist at once. Hopefully, he’ll be able to get you back on track after a long time in therapy.”
“Father, please, absolve me. Shower me with penance. I want to be free,” she begged.
It goes without saying that I was generous in dealing out Our Fathers, Hail Marys, and a whole bunch of rosaries to be taken on a daily basis. She left after that. And since this whole ordeal had left me drained, I left right after her. I couldn’t find her anywhere. In fact, I didn’t see anyone around the confessionals at all. She simply disappeared. I walked a few paces through the door connecting the temple and the seminary. At this time, during mass, the corridor had always been empty for as long as I had been in the seminary because only we used it.
A figure darted by and disappeared down one of the hallways in a split second. As I stood there, I could hear the taps of shoes grow quiet. Soon the sound was completely lost among the cold, ancient walls of the seminary. To this day, I have no idea who could’ve been hiding in those all too familiar clothes. There was a good chance, though, that I had met her on a few occasions before, because the running figure was a nun.