“Whatever is troubling you, Miss Conley, you can tell me. In fact, I could use the practice as a confessor.”
She turned away from him, so he saw the camellia again, so he hardly heard her words: “It will be difficult, I imagine, to know the true foulness of your companions.”
“Sin is only the beginning. When I become a Priest, I can offer penitents Absolution. I can make their souls clean again and show them the way forward. Our God is a God of justice, yes; but He is also a God of love and forgiveness.”
Over her shoulder, he saw Miss Conley’s profile for only a moment before she left him. “You will be a wonderful Priest, Mr. Lazare.”
People had been telling him that half his life. For the first time, Joseph thought he believed it. Hadn’t he just passed his final test?
His mind knew what was important, but his body did not. Before the next dawn, Joseph awoke to the proof—to the pollution that had not plagued him since his Ordination to Subdeacon. Now it was infinitely fouler. The holiest man in America slept across the hall, a man who believed Joseph worthy of the Priesthood. And always before, when Joseph remembered his dream, his partner in impurity had been a faceless abstraction. He curled up in shame, as if he could will the stuff back into his body. He’d thought he’d outgrown this. He’d been wrong.
Before he crawled from his soiled bed, he whispered the prayerfor purity to his patron. He’d never meant the words more than he did now:
“Guardian of virgins, holy father Joseph, to whose custody Christ Jesus, Innocence itself, and Mary, Virgin of virgins, were committed, look mercifully upon my infirmity. I beseech thee, that I may be preserved from all defilement…”
He took the ferry to Sullivan’s Island, ran till he was alone, and swam till he was exhausted. The chilly ocean numbed his stubborn flesh, and he felt almost clean again. When his side started cramping, he dragged himself up the beach and retched onto the sand.
Why these sudden, paralyzing misgivings? People said grooms became uneasy on the eve of their weddings, no matter how much they loved their brides. That was all this was. It would pass.
CHAPTER 20
At the altar each day we behold them,
And the hands of a king on his throne
Are not equal to them in their greatness;
Their dignity stands all alone;
And when we are tempted and wander,
To pathways of shame and of sin,
It’s the hand of a priest that absolves us?—
Not once, but again and again…
— “The Beautiful Hands of a Priest,”
from a Catholic prayer card
On the day of his Ordination, Joseph was particularly careful about how he tied his cincture and how he held his candle. Bishop England had timed the ceremony to coincide with the Twelfth South Carolina Convention of clergy and laymen, so as many people as possible could witness Joseph’s transformation. As he progressed through the incense up the aisle of the cathedral, he caught the eyes of his family and of Miss Conley. She had come. She offered him a small smile, and he could see she was holding the Ordination pamphlet.
His Lordship’s homily concerned the wonder of the Priesthood, but also its difficulty. At the end, he prayed for Joseph: “May the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the mother of Priests, and Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse, intercede for you always.”
For the first time of many, Joseph knelt before his Bishop, who stood in his full vestments and mitre. “As far as I can perceive, the conduct of this Deacon is pleasing to God… If any person has anything to allege against him, let him come forward and speak.” His Lordship paused to allow an objection.
Joseph bowed his head lower, held his breath, and waited. Would someone expose him as colored? Would Miss Conley reveal the lust she had seen in his eyes?
There was only silence in the cathedral. Joseph reminded himself that most of the audience did not know Latin. Even if they were trying to follow along in the translation, they might not have understood the placement of this pause.
Satisfied, Bishop England resumed the rite. “Imitate that which you handle,” he admonished Joseph, “so that in celebrating the Mystery of the Lord’s death, you are careful to mortify your members concerning all vices and lusts. Let your doctrine be a spiritual medicine for the people of God. Let the fragrance of your life be the delight of the Church…”
Joseph lowered himself to the floor of the cathedral until he was prostrate, his forehead resting on his folded arms. He lay in the very spot where, a decade before, he’d begged God to accept him, and Bishop England had assured him He would. They chanted the long litany of the saints, which included Saint Joseph but not Saint Teresa.
At last Joseph rose to his knees again. First Bishop England and then each of the other Priests laid their hands upon Joseph’s bowed head. He was sure he could feel the power tingling through them into him: this unbroken apostolic succession, transmitted across eighteen centuries all the way from Saint Peter—from Christ Himself. “We beseech Thee, O God, infuse the blessing of the Holy Ghost and the virtue of Priestly grace upon this Thy servant…”
His Lordship positioned the stole across Joseph’s breast. “Mayhe preserve pure and undefiled his ministry…may he arise in inviolable charity a perfect man…”
