Criminal Intent

A

I still have my faith. And while I don’t think retaining that is any great act of courage, it is a comfort to me. I can sleep nights, sometimes, with the knowledge that regardless of what horrors I am forced to undergo-it is for a reason. I do believe that. I must believe that. Because if it were not so-life at this point would simply not be worth living. And I want to go on living. I want to believe. And so I shall.

The homily was finished, the anthem had been sung, and the new interim priest, Father Doner, had chanted and sung through the Sanctus and the Lord’s Prayer and the Agnus Dei. Soon it would be time for the choir to rise and take communion; they were always among the first to go, so they could be back in the choir loft singing while the congregation took theirs.

Ben wished his choir robe had pockets, but it didn’t. They wore big bulky Anglican-looking things, white shifts on a dark, full-length, bulky, hot and heavy gown-with no pockets. Who designed these, anyway? Probably some monk five hundred years ago, and people have irrationally been copying it ever since, even though it’s bulky, hot, heavy… et cetera. And had no pockets.

He had tried to concentrate on the homily, but his mind was elsewhere. In the courtroom, replaying his every move, wondering if he could’ve done something differently. Better. In the jailhouse, trying to bring comfort to the man who had brought so much to him, knowing that he had failed him. And at the juvenile detention center, burrowing into the minds of two young girls, trying to understand what to him was simply unknowable. It was too much for his puny brain. It was, as Father Beale would say, greater than him.

Is that why people turned to God? Ben wondered. When all was said and done, was it just the desire to make sense of it all, or to believe that someone, somewhere could make sense of it? He couldn’t say, but if that was it, he could sympathize.

But could he believe? That was the sticking point. He had seen too much, had known too intimately all the bad, the crooked, the grimy, the depraved, the flat-out evil that lurked in the world. He had seen the worst of everyone-even a beloved priest. And yet, it seemed clear to Ben now that Father Beale’s flaws did not make him a fraud-they made him a man. And humanity, with all its imperfections, was still capable of achieving greatness. And occasionally did.

The time had come. All around him, the rest of the choir rose to its feet, and before he really understood when or why, Ben rose also. He followed them as they filed down the nave and knelt with them at the altar rail.

“The body of Christ,” Father Doner said as he passed Ben the wafer. And Ben took it and ate it.

Did he believe? It was too hard a question to answer. But I want to believe, he thought, as he brought the silver chalice to his lips and sipped the wine. I want to believe. And for now, that’s enough.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Unfortunately, Father Beale’s fate in this novel is all too real. Actual I