The ceiling in the church captures my attention. Brown-wood rafters, like soldiers in formation, salute the God of Trees and Forests. My father kneels next to me. I feel his nudge and glance at his face His eyes, gray as fieldstone, dart toward the prayer book in my hand. I shrug and return to puzzling over words like Corpus meum. My thoughts, however, remain focused on wood and timber: the firewood stacked on the porch at home, the worn floor of the corn crib, the massive beam in the stable where I slopped calves that morning. The ding of the sanctus bell pulls my gaze towards the altar where, inside a wooden niche, the Savior’s head droops beneath a gibbet of rough-hewn planks. Thorns, long and purple as those of locust trees, pierce his scalp. I wince. The bell rings again. The priest lifts the Host above his head and, for a brief moment, the Sacrament hovers beneath the arc of Christ’s protruding ribs. Above this grotto of flesh, the Lord’s concave chest. My brother, tall and tired, slouches next to the aisle. He coughs. For a moment, I see the two of us bracing our legs on a hay wagon. Shirtless, chests heaving, we stack bales beneath the summer sun. The bell rings yet again. Calix sanguinis mei. I glance at my father’s hands folded in prayer, hands that pull calves from the wombs of milk-fevered cows. I see him wiping blood off his arm, then scooping saliva from the newborn’s mouth to help it breathe.. In a world as raw and holy as this, how could I not become a priest?
This article was originally published in Sostenuto, an on-line literary journal.