Part 1 (2/2)
”He spoke to me very kindly, encouraged me to fight against my bad inclinations, and, at first, gave me very kind and good advice. But when I thought he had finished speaking, and as I was preparing to leave the confessional-box, he put to me two new questions of such a polluting character that I fear neither the blood of Christ nor all the fires of h.e.l.l will ever be able to blot them out from my memory. Those questions have achieved my ruin; they have stuck to my mind as two deadly arrows; they are day and night before my imagination; they fill my very arteries and veins with a deadly poison.
”It is true that, at first, they filled me with horror and disgust; but, alas! I soon got so accustomed to them that they seemed to be incorporated with me, and as though becoming a second nature. Those thoughts have become a new source of innumerable criminal thoughts, desires, and actions.
”A month later, we were obliged, by the rules of our convent, to go to confess; but this time, I was so completely lost that I no longer blushed at the idea of confessing my shameful sins to a man; it was the very contrary. I had a real, diabolical pleasure in the thought that I should have a long conversation with my confessor on those matters, and that he would ask me more of his strange questions.
”In fact, when I had told him everything, without a blush, he began to interrogate me, and G.o.d knows what corrupting things fell from his lips into my poor criminal heart! Every one of his questions was thrilling my nerves, and filling me with the most shameful sensations. After an hour of this criminal _tete-a-tete_ with my old confessor (for it was nothing else but a criminal _tete-a-tete_), I perceived that he was as depraved as I was myself. With some half-covered words, he made me a criminal proposition, which I accepted with covered words also; and during more than a year, we have lived together in the most sinful intimacy. Though he was much older than I, I loved him in the most foolish way. When the course of my convent instruction was finished, my parents called me back to their home. I was really glad of that change of residence, for I was beginning to be tired of my criminal life. My hope was that, under the direction of a better confessor, I should reconcile myself to G.o.d and begin a Christian life.
”Unfortunately for me, my new confessor, who was very young, began also his interrogations. He soon fell in love with me, and I loved him in a most criminal way. I have done with him things which I hope you will never request me to reveal to you, for they are too monstrous to be repeated, even in the confessional, by a woman to a man.
”I do not say these things to take away the responsibility of my iniquities with this young confessor from my shoulders, for I think I have been more criminal than he was. It is my firm conviction that he was a good and holy priest before he knew me; but the questions he put to me, and the answers I had to give him, melted his heart--I know it--just as boiling lead would melt the ice on which it flows.
”I know this is not such a detailed confession as our holy Church requires me to make, but I have thought it necessary for me to give you this short history of the life of the greatest and the most miserable sinner who ever asked you to help her to come out from the tomb of her iniquities. This is the way I have lived these last few years. But last Sabbath, G.o.d, in His infinite mercy, looked down upon me. He inspired you to give us the Prodigal Son as a model of true conversion, and as the most marvelous proof of the infinite compa.s.sion of the dear Saviour for the sinner. I have wept day and night since that happy day, when I threw myself into the arms of my loving, merciful Father. Even now I can hardly speak, because my regret for my past iniquities, and my joy that I am allowed to bathe the feet of my Saviour with my tears, are so great that my voice is as choked.
”You understand that I have for ever given up my last confessor. I come to ask you the favour to receive me among your penitents. Oh! do not reject nor rebuke me, for the dear Saviour's sake! Be not afraid to have at your side such a monster of iniquity! But before going farther, I have two favours to ask from you. The first is, that you will never do anything to know my name; the second is, that you will never put me any of those questions by which so many penitents are lost and so many priests for ever destroyed. Twice I have been lost by those questions. We come to our confessors that they may throw upon our guilty souls the pure waters which flow from heaven to purify us; and, instead of that, with their unmentionable questions, they pour oil on the burning fires which arc already raging in our poor sinful hearts. Oh! dear father, let me become your penitent, that you may help me to go and weep with Magdalene at the Saviours feet! Do respect me, as He respected that true model of all the sinful but repenting women! Did Our Saviour put to her any question? did He extort from her the history of things which a sinful woman cannot say without forgetting the respect she owes to herself and to G.o.d? No! You told us, not long ago, that the only thing our Saviour did was to look at her tears and her love. Well, please do that, and you will save me!”
I was a very young priest, and never had any words so sublime come to my ears in the confessional-box. Her tears and her sobs, mingled with the so frank declaration of the most humiliating actions, had made upon me such a profound impression that I was, for some time, unable to speak. It had come to my mind also that I might be mistaken about her ident.i.ty, and that perhaps she was not the young lady that I had imagined. I could, then, easily grant her first request, which was to do nothing by which I could know her. The second part of her prayer was more embarra.s.sing; for the theologians are very positive in ordering the confessors to question their penitents, particularly those of the female s.e.x, in many circ.u.mstances.
I encouraged her, in the best way I could, to persevere in her good resolutions by invoking the blessed Virgin Mary and St. Philomene, who was then the _Sainte a la mode_, just as Marie Alacoque is to-day, among the blind slaves of Rome. I told her that I would pray and think over the subject of her second request; and I asked her to come back, in a week, for my answer.
The very same day, I went to my own confessor, the Rev. Mr. Baillargeon, then curate of Quebec, and afterwards Archbishop of Canada. I told him the singular and unusual request she had made that I should never put to her any of those questions suggested by the theologians, to insure the integrity of the confession. I did not conceal from him that I was much inclined to grant her that favour; for I repeated what I had already several times told him, that I was supremely disgusted with the infamous and polluting questions which the theologians forced us to put to our female penitents. I told him, frankly, that several young and old priests had already come to confess to me; and that, with the exception of two, they had all told me that they could not put those questions and hear the answers they elicited without falling into the most d.a.m.nable sins.
My confessor seemed to be much perplexed about what he could answer. He asked me to come the next day, that he might review his theological books in the interval. The next day, I took down in writing his answer, which I find in my old ma.n.u.scripts; and I give it here in all its sad crudity:--
”Such cases of the destruction of female virtue by the questions of the confessors is an unavoidable evil. It can not be helped; for such questions are absolutely necessary in the greatest part of the cases with which we have to deal. Men generally confess their sins with so much sincerity that there is seldom any need for questioning them, except when they are very ignorant. But St Liguori, as well as our personal observation, tells us that the greatest part of girls and women, through a false and criminal shame, very seldom confess the sins they commit against purity. It requires the utmost charity in the confessors to prevent those unfortunate slaves of their secret pa.s.sions from making sacrilegious confessions and communions.
With the greatest prudence and zeal, he must question them on those matters; beginning with the smallest sins, and going, little by little, as much as possible, by imperceptible degrees, to the most criminal actions.
As it seems evident that the penitent referred to in your questions of yesterday is unwilling to make a full and detailed confession of all her iniquities, you cannot promise to absolve her without a.s.suring yourself, by wise and prudent questions, that she has confessed everything.
”You must not be discouraged when, through the confessional or any other way, you learn the fall of priests into the common frailties of human nature with their penitents. Our Saviour knew very well that the occasions and the temptations we have to encounter, in the confessions of girls and women, are so numerous, and sometimes so irrepressible, that many would fall. But He has given them the Holy Virgin Mary, who constantly asks and obtains their pardon; He has given them the sacrament of penance, where they can receive their pardon as often as they ask for it. The vow of perfect chast.i.ty is a great honour and privilege; but we cannot conceal from ourselves that it puts on our shoulders a burden which many cannot carry for ever. St Liguori says that we must not rebuke the penitent priest who falls only once a month; and some other trustworthy theologians are still more charitable.”
This answer was far from satisfying me. It seemed to me composed of soft-soap principles. I went back with a heavy heart and an anxious mind; and G.o.d knows that I made many fervent prayers that this girl should never come again to give me her sad history. I was hardly twenty-six years old, full of youth and life. It seemed to me that the stings of a thousand wasps to my ears would not do me so much harm as the words of that dear, beautiful, accomplished, but lost girl.
I do not mean to say that the revelations which she made had, in any way, diminished my esteem and my respect for her. It was just the contrary. Her tears and her sobs, at my feet; her agonizing expressions of shame and regret; her n.o.ble words of protest against the disgusting and polluting interrogations of the confessors, had raised her very high in my mind. My sincere hope was that she would have a place in the kingdom of Christ with the Samaritan woman, Mary Magdalene, and all those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.
At the appointed day, I was in my confessional, listening to the confession of a young man, when, I saw Miss Mary entering the vestry, and coming directly to my confessional-box, where she knelt by me. Though she had, still more than at the first time, disguised herself behind a long, thick, black veil, I could not be mistaken; she was the very same amiable young lady in whose father's house I used to pa.s.s such pleasant and happy hours.
I had so often heard, with breathless attention, her melodious voice when she was giving us, accompanied by her piano, some of our beautiful Church hymns. Who could see her without almost wors.h.i.+pping her? The dignity of her steps, and her whole mien, when she advanced towards my confessional, entirely betrayed her and destroyed her incognito.
Oh! I would have given every drop of my blood, in that solemn hour, that I might have been free to deal with her just as she had so eloquently requested me to do--to let her weep and cry at the feet of Jesus to her heart's content! Oh! if I had been free to take her by the hand, and silently show her her dying Saviour, that she might have bathed His feet with her tears, and spread the oil of her love on His head, without my saying anything else but ”Go in peace: thy sins are forgiven!”
But there, in that confessional-box, I was not the servant of Christ, to follow His divine, saving words, and obey the dictates of my honest conscience. I was the slave of the Pope! I had to stifle the cry of my conscience, to ignore the inspirations of my G.o.d! There, my conscience had no right to speak; my intelligence was a dead thing! The theologians of the Pope, alone, had a right to be heard and obeyed! I was not there to save, but to destroy; for, under the pretext of purifying, the real mission of the confessor, often in spite of himself, is to scandalize and d.a.m.n the souls.
As soon as the young man, who was making his confession at my left hand, had finished, I, without noise, turned myself towards her, and said, through the little aperture, ”Are you ready to begin your confession?”
But she did not answer me. All that I could hear was, ”Oh, my Jesus, have mercy upon me! Dear Saviour, here I am with all my sins; do not reject me!
I come to wash my soul in Thy blood; wilt Thou rebuke me?”
<script>