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Constantine raised his eyebrows. “Are you saying that she has not accepted God’s absolution?” he said incredulously.
“The Church’s, not God’s. Please… at least offer Theodosia the chance to earn back her faith,” A
Constantine blinked and stared at her. “I’ll see her,” he conceded. “But she won’t agree.”
Eighty-one
CONSTANTINE HAD BEEN CERTAIN AT THE TIME HE GAVE absolution to Theodosia that he was the instrument of her salvation and that she would be eternally grateful to him for that.
Now he felt the deep, gnawing pain inside him that Anastasius was right. He recalled Theodosia’s desperate humiliation after her husband left her. She had been grateful for Constantine’s support, his assurance, his constant promise to her of God’s guidance and blessing.
Lately when they met she was courteous, but her eyes were blank.
She received him, and he felt his belly tighten with apprehension.
“Bishop Constantine,” she said courteously, coming forward to greet him. “How are you?” She looked magnificent in an emerald green embroidered tunic and a dalmatica crusted with gold, gold ornaments in her dark hair. Somehow the hues, rich as they were, leached the color out of her skin.
“Well enough,” he replied. “Considering that we live in such threatening times.”
“We do,” she agreed, turning her eyes away as if regarding some danger beyond the gorgeous painted walls of the room. “May I offer you refreshment? Perhaps some almonds, or dates?”
“Thank you.” Having food would make his task easier. It would be too discourteous to ask him to leave while he was eating. “I have not had time to speak with you in the last month or two. You look disturbed. Is there anything with which I can help you?”
“I am well, I assure you,” she said.
He had given much thought as to how he could broach the subject of penitence with any delicacy at all. “You have not been to confession lately, Theodosia. You are a fine woman, you have been as long as I have known you, but we all fall short at times, even if it is no more than a lack of complete trust in God, and His Church. That is a sin, you know… one it is hard not to commit. We all have doubts, anxieties, fear of the unknown.”
“What is it you expect me to confess?” she asked, and he heard the bitterness in her voice. Anastasius was right. Constantine looked around the room. “Where is the icon?” he asked. Theodosia would know which one he meant; there was only one icon that had passed between them, his gift to mark her absolution and return to the Church.
“In my private apartments,” she replied.
“Does it help your faith to look at her and remember her sublime trust in God’s will?” he asked. “‘Be it unto me according to thy word,’” he quoted Mary’s answer when Gabriel had told her she would be the Mother of Christ.
The silence was harsh between them. “Confession and penitence can heal all mortal sin,” he said gently. “That is the Atonement of Christ.”
She faced him. “Believe what you wish to, Bishop, if it comforts you. I no longer have that certainty. Perhaps one day I may regain it, but there is nothing you can do for me.”
He was a
“If you accepted a penance,” he said firmly, “such as parting from Leonicus for a space, and devoting yourself to caring for the sick, then-”
“I do not need a penance, Bishop,” she cut off his words. “You have already absolved me from any error I may have committed. If my faith is less than it should be, that is my loss. Now please leave, before Leonicus returns. I do not wish him to think that I have been confiding in you.”
“Do you need human love so much that you would forfeit divine love to keep even the semblance of it?” he asked with a terrible pity.
“I can love a human being, Bishop,” Theodosia said fiercely. “I ca
He bowed to the inevitable. “You will change your mind one day, Theodosia. The Church will be here, and willing to forgive.”
“Please leave,” she said softly. “You don’t love God any more than I do. You love your office, your robes, your authority, your safety from having to think for yourself or from facing the fact that you are alone, and you mean nothing-just like the rest of us.”
Constantine stared at her, shuddering in her despair as if it were cold water lapping around his feet, ice cold as it crept up to his knees, his thighs, the mutilation where his organs should have been. Was it true of him also, that it was the Church he loved, not God? The order, the authority, the illusion of power, and not the passionate, exquisite, everlasting love of God?
He refused to think of it, thrusting it out of his mind. He turned on his heel and strode out.
“I offered it to her,” he told Anastasius later. “But she would not accept any penance at all. But I had to try.” He looked at Anastasius, searching for the respect that should have been in his eyes, the acknowledgment of patience and honor. He saw only contempt, as if he were making excuses. It appalled him how much that hurt.
“Your arrogance is blasphemous!” Constantine cried out in sudden, overwhelming outrage. “You have no humility. You are quick to suggest penance for Theodosia, but your own sins go unconfessed. Come back to me when you can do so on your knees!”
White-faced, Anastasius walked away, leaving the bishop glaring at his back, still wanting to say more but lost for words hard enough, sharp enough, to wound the heart.
The pain of A
She could lean only on her own understanding of God, seeking that flame in the night, the warmth that wrapped around the heart when she was alone on her knees.
Perhaps that was as it had to be. When there was no one beside you, you looked upward. It is the darkness that tests the light. She must accept being alone, not looking for the support or the forgiveness of others, but working in her mind and her soul until she found it for herself.