I nod, recovering quickly. “Oh yes! Very much. It’s an incredible place.”
The priest’s serene smile widens, and his head bobs once. “Very good.” His voice is soft and lightly accented, and he has a placid quality that surrounds him like a calming cloud. I feel immediately at ease and wonder if all men of the cloth have such a soothing presence about them. “Are you here to give confession?” He raises a hand to indicate one of the many free-standing confessionals dotting the wall to my left.
“Oh, no. I’m not Catholic.”
Blue eyes steadily search my face. The way he watches me would’ve made me squirm had it been anyone else, but today, with this man, I sit perfectly still and hold his gaze.
For some reason, I don’t feel guilty or out of place. I don’t feel ashamed or condemned. I don’t feel wrong or unworthy. Somehow, I just feel…comforted by the way it seems he can see right through me, see right into me and not judge me for what I’m hiding.
“You might not be Catholic, but you are in need just the same.”
It’s an observation not a question. A statement of fact. Like he knows.
Like he knows.
“How—” I was going to ask how he knew, but I don’t. I don’t need to. Something deep within me feels the answer.
Something within me knows.
“Come. Let us seek the privacy of the confessional,” he says, once more indicating the wooden booths behind us.
“Can we do that since I’m not a Catholic?”
“You don’t have to be Catholic to confess your sins; you only have to be a sinner, as we all are. Or troubled and in need of guidance, as we all can be from time to time.”
I don’t question what makes me rise from my seat and turn to walk through the row toward the first confessional. I merely give in to the overwhelming need within me, the need to share my burden with another person.
Maybe there really is a God.
And maybe He really does listen to the soul.
I stop in front of the box. Despite its friendly label that declares it appropriate for those who spoke English, I’m still intimidated. The large wooden structure is stained a rich mahogany and, as with every other centimeter of the church, no detail has been spared. It’s beautiful in an artistic as well as in a meaningful way.
I turn to ask the priest what I’m supposed to do next, but he’s gone. I look around, wondering if I missed him going in another direction, but within a minute, I hear a muffled voice from somewhere inside the booth bid me to, “Come. Kneel.”
I approach the opening. The interior is dark and smells of timber and varnish mingled with a subtle tang I can’t quite describe. I imagine it is decades of misery and forgiveness carried on hot breath and held carefully within the grain of the wood. They linger here,like remembered promises.
After my eyes adjust, I can see where I’m supposed to kneel and where my elbows are supposed to go, placing me in the pose of someone praying. Once I’m in position, I clasp my hands and drop my forehead onto my interlocked fingers. “What do I do?” I murmur.
“Tell me what’s on your heart,” the priest’s disembodied voice answers.
“Do I tell you that I’ve sinned?”
“Have you?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“We have all sinned. We do so daily. That’s why confession is so important. We need forgiveness. We need it from our God, and we need it for ourselves.”
To this, I say nothing. I don’t know what to say.
But I feel.
I feel his words, and the truth of them, in a place I can’t identify.
When I fall silent, the priest guides me further into the ritual, his tone comforting and conversational. “What brings you here? To Rome?”
I clear my throat and slowly begin to tell him my story, carefully opening that closet door so that the skis won’t fall out.
“My husband brought me to Europe for three months. Sort of a once-in-a-lifetime trip.”
“And what about this trip has you so troubled?” he asks, perceptive in ways I don’t understand.
“We…I…” I consider how much I should tell this stranger, uncertain whether there is such a thing as “too much” in confession. But before I’ve done more than ponder my predicament, the closet door bursts open, and the skis—and every other hidden thing—come tumbling out in a rush of words that fall at his feet.