I huddled on the couch that night long ago, refusing to budge until my husband gently coaxed me into the car. There was a big penance service at church, and this was a chance to unburden sins that had weighed me down for years. At church, I saw a crowd of people in line for confession, and figured they probably had a sin or two to get off their chests, and here I was — someone who had last darkened the confessional doors decades ago.
Still, something propelled me to get in line, the same inner voice that had nudged me back to prayer after my long stint as a nihilist, the same one that had answered my tentative plea: “Help me to believe.”
I was well schooled in a bitter version of existentialism that saw life as meaningless and death as a descent into a bleak void of nonexistence. I had tried to carve out meaning through teaching, writing, marriage and friendships — but at some point, it all came down to the old song: “Is That All There Is?”
But why would I want to return to a religion where the cross seemed to be everywhere, the constant reminder — to me — of suffering we can’t escape? Couldn’t I find a cozier tradition that promised me happiness right now, right here?
In truth, though, I’d sampled religions that said it didn’t matter what you believed as long as you were a nice person — and you made up “nice” as you went along. But, really, if that was all God wanted from me — to be nice — what was the point?
So that night when my turn came, I had to overlook the people waiting behind me, and just focus on telling the priest — who I knew stood for Christ — about my transgressions.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I said through my tears as I huddled behind the privacy screen. When I told him how long I’d been away from church, he said he was happy God had given me the grace to return.
Then I recounted the dead-end relationships, the blasphemy, the betrayals of people I was called to love — including my own child in the womb, who was never born because of me.
I expected him to get angry, tell me I’d committed the unforgivable sin — and tell me to get out. Instead, he quietly asked, “What did Jesus say as he was dying on the cross?”
I was too upset to remember, so he said the words for me. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Then he explained that the people who crucified Jesus hadn’t understood who he really was. Just as I had not realized the full implications of my actions that dreadful day in the clinic.
Jesus’ words of forgiveness from the cross were meant for me, the priest said. And when he gave me absolution, I felt a dark veil falling from my heart.
Since that night long ago, I’ve learned that, yes, the cross does bespeak a terrible suffering but also an endless wellspring of love and forgiveness.
And every year as Good Friday approaches, I recall that moment when God’s mercy washed over me, his grace healed me — and my life had meaning again.
About the Author
