Confession

After she returned from Lithuania in August 2007 with the recurrence of her breast cancer, Vaiva surprised me by asking me to take her to St. Colman's Catholic Church in Middlefield to go to confession. We had been alternating between that church and Notre Dame in Durham. The semi-Lithuanian Catholic parish in Hartford was too long a trek, and Vaiva didn't really want to be making public appearances during her hoped-for recovery.

As between St. Colman's and Notre Dame, we preferred St. Colman's by a good margin. The congregations are comparable, but the Notre Dame church is so tiny that it often feels crowded. The music tends toward the traditional at St. Colman's, which I favor. But the deciding factor was excellent homilies by Fr. Gregory Mullaney. He was the temporary administrator of the parish, while they waited to have a pastor assigned to them. He struck the right balance between tradition and modernity, humor and seriousness, learned discourse and everyday common sense. He is smart. Vaiva and I would discuss or debate his homilies on the trip home.

Still, I was surprised that she wanted to go to confession, as we never had done so at St. Casimir's in New Haven. In fact, this 2007 occasion is the only time I'm aware of Vaiva going to confession, though she told me that she went in Lithuania as well. It seems rather ironic, as I've never known anyone as utterly free from sin as Vaiva was.

But that's not the real point of the sacrament of penance anyway, is it.

I waited for her in the church, I did not go in make a confession of my own. Thirty years since my last confession, I wasn't ready to try it again. Vaiva reported that Fr. Greg said that we needed to join a parish, we should decide on St. Colman's or Notre Dame and make a commitment. I responded that if St. Colman's can tolerate a temporary adminstrator, they can handle two temporary parishioners. After our experience of having St. Casimir's in New Haven shuttered, with essentially no consideration or consultation with its Lithuanian parishioners, there is next to no chance that I will ever declare an allegiance to a parish again.

Although she didn't give me more details, Vaiva seemed generally happy with the experience, though she did not ask to return.

I might also mention that the architecture of the confessional has changed, The priest still sits in his tiny box, and the door on the left leads to the traditional tiny dark room with a kneeler, separated from the priest by a curtained window. But the door on the right, the door everyone uses now, leads to a chair, and a face-to-face ordinary meeting with the priest. Vaiva liked that also.

I have continued to attend St. Colman's since returning from burying Vaiva in Vilnius. They have a reproduction of Divine Mercy (Wikipedia entry here) which Vaiva and I saw the original of in Vilnius. I go because we went to St. Colman's together. Occasionally there is a moment of interest, approaching inspiration. But it would be an exaggeration to say that I've derived much comfort from my Sunday morning visits.

Then, at the beginning of June, Fr. Greg announced that he had be reassigned, to Storrs, and that St. Colman's would at last get a permanent pastor (after a two-year wait).

I sent Fr. Greg a letter before the June picnic, and I've plagiarized from that letter shamelessly in this blog post. I wrote to him about how much Vaiva and I enjoyed his sermons, explained that she died last December, mentioned that I am heading toward a crisis of faith over her death, regretted his new assignment, and wished him great success in it.

As his last day is June 30, yesterday I screwed my courage to the sticking-place. I decided to go make my own confession. "Oh my God, I am heartily sorry, for having offended thee . . ." Thank goodness for the internet, I was able to look up that prayer and re-memorize it, so as to avoid embarrassing myself.

It was an unconventional confession. Fr. Greg immediately realized that I had sent him the letter, so I didn't need to give him the background. My sin is that I feel God has abandoned me. Fr. Greg was surprisingly sympathetic, pointing out that Jesus felt exactly the same, crying out on the cross. He did a very good job in a short time providing religious counsel. He didn't lecture or offer platitudes. He was as good as I'd hoped.

Not that it's a magic bullet. I'm still estranged. When I went to Mass today, I still prayed for an early death, as I have since January.

But I'm glad I went, even so. I've been crying a lot more today, louder and more sustained. Maybe it's related to the confession, maybe it's just because the boys are away in Vermont and I don't need to have a brave face.

When I was a teenager, I was troubled by the question, "Why do you believe in God?" I could not find anyone who could give me a satisfactory answer. I took a special public summer school program for "talented" students called "Man the Hero, Man and his Gods," hoping for illumination. I didn't find it, though I did find other smart teenagers who were searching just as I was.

Many, many years later, I did find the answer to that question. It was in a film called Awakenings that Vaiva and I went to, with Robin Williams playing a fictionalized Dr. Oliver Sacks (it's based on a true story). We both recognized the answer. Several dozen patients are in a catatonic state, they can't move or speak (though they are awake), the result of an encephalitis epidemic years before. Another doctor explains to Dr. Sacks that the patients are unaware of their surroundings, that they are for practical purposes unconscious. "But, since they can't speak to us, how do we know that?" asks Dr. Sacks.

The first doctor responds, "The alternative would be unthinkable."

That's the current basis of my faith.