Page 46 of Sin With Me

Chapter11

Cameron

The afternoonof tree climbing ended with Matt’s body in one piece. His mother would have died if anything had happened to the boy. I couldn’t count how many times I pictured him falling off that tree, breaking every branch on his way down until he hit the ground. Ascending that spruce had mentally drained me. Feeling a need to stretch my muscles, I asked Father John whether he wanted to take a walk though the woods. The kids were in their cabins, reflecting, which meant that we had an hour or so of freetime.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Father?”

“Of course.”

“How did you do it? How did you fight thoughts about women? How did you fulfill your celibacy promise?”

Because honestly, I never thought keeping my hands to myself would be this difficult.

“Through prayer.”

“That’s it? Prayer is my answer?”

“Prayer should be the answer to most of your questions. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t make mistakes. I try to think of those moments as little tests. Sometimes we fail, but more times than not, we pass. With time, you will learn to find that ultimate fulfillment through prayer as well. It may not be today or tomorrow, but it will happen.”

“So, thinking about a woman is not necessarily wrong?”

He laughed as if I’d told him ajoke.

“You’re not the first and not the last priest to have sinful thoughts about a woman. God created you as a man first, before you made the choice to serve Him, and to serve Him well means time and patience. It doesn’t mean a mistake-free life. It means learning from your mistakes to serve Him even better.”

“Yes, but how do I stop this need I feel inside me? It’s like she’s compellingme.”

“Believe me, son. I understand what it feels like to let go of a woman. But if we can fight evil through prayer, you can fight your desires though prayer as well. Remember, it’s no one’s choice but yours.”

I stopped and waited for him to turn and face me. I wasn’t sure that he was grasping the weight of the situation. If I let her do what I knew she wanted to do to me, and told her the feeling was reciprocated, I could place her in danger. She could fall pray to the Cortez brothers, because if they found me, anyone connected would also be in danger.

“Father, I want her to sin with me. I want her to want me the way I want her. It pleases me when I see her weakness, but at the same time, it angers me. I don’t want to be the reason her faith is tested.”

“This girl, is she a devout Catholic?”

“Yes, sheis.”

“Those are the worst.” He chuckled and resumed our slowwalk.

What? Did he actually think this conversation was funny? Because I didn’t.

“Catholic women are our biggest temptation.” He raised his finger as if he were thinking back to a specific time in the past. “Like I said before, you’re not the first and not the last. The question is, what do you do about it when prayer doesn’t seem like it’s enough?”

Yes, that’s what I want toknow!

It was better to be direct, wasn’t it? It was better to ask him the question that had been on my mind since Kate told me about the photograph in his office. I’d seen it myself, and the look on their faces was one of love. Not only that, but I was beginning to realize that the possibility of Kate’s mother being closer to Father John was great.

“What did you do, Father?”

He stopped and then closed his eyes for a moment. Father John took a deep breath in before releasing it and resuming his walk. I followed hislead.

“You have a keen listening ear, Cameron. What did I do? What didn’t I do?” he snickered.

Oh, boy!

“Joanna was a beautiful woman. Her parents died in a house fire outside of town, but she remained very close to God. Her strength intrigued me. She had the ability to push me closer to God and closer to herself at the same time. For a while there, I believed that God had sent her to me and only me. I wanted her to sin with me just so that I could take a little trip to hell only to feel the high of God’s forgiveness on my way back to heaven, even when I knew that forgiveness could take the rest of my lifetime. Now that’s a true temptress.”

I could have sworn that Father John was reciting a passage from someone else’s life. It couldn’t be his. His life seemed so frail and tepid, but the lines on his forehead and wrinkles underneath his eyes were evidence of experience I had yet to reach.

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