Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

DEAR FATHER, FORGIVE ME YOUR SINS.

By: Kenneth M. Muise Jr.

Our Father, who Art in Heaven…

The smell of incense was strong.  It reminded him of cinnamon and cologne even now, as it had when he was an altar boy.

Hallowed be Thy name….

The snow was melting on his jacket, the water soaking into it.

Thy Kingdom come….

The silence in the church was almost constant,  the only sound the clicking of the electric heaters going on and off. He hadn’t seen the old priest yet.

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…

Tom usually saw the priest walking back and forth around the tabernacle.  He would straighten the white linen that the draped altar. He would rearrange the candles to the left then back to the right.  Or he would shuffle with books and papers at the pulpit.  Busy work, mostly, as he was now unable to say mass.

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…

The priest was old now and mostly useless.  He was hunched, he needed glasses all the time, and his once full hair was almost completely gone except for two white tufts at either ear.

And lead us not into temptation…

But Tom didn’t see a harmless old man.  He saw the priest for what he was twenty-five years ago; a sadistic evil fuck.

But deliver us from Evil.

The priest was a molester.

Amen.

And he was never found out.

Tom had continued to pray and have a relationship with God but he no longer believed in His church.