Capax Dei
BY HALEIGH GUNDY ’22
I.
The new church was built right up over the bones of the last one. The word was that they used the same foundation. It’s all white: blanched wooden boards on the ceiling matching the pews, white marble altar and stones. It looked like a minimalist Protestant built it. The stained glass is barely stained. The colors are so muted that even when there is sun, no color is cast onto the white, white, white interior. The panels are all in dull shades that fall short of pastel, except the black text with a single line from Revelation: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.”
The old church had just collapsed one day. The collapse could have been much worse than it was. It was not some beautifully destructive act of God. No one was inside. No supplicants were crushed as they prayed. It was nothing dramatic.
There was no art in the new one. That which had been in the old one had been destroyed. Or so I assume. I imagine the stations will be all in white stone now. For the moment, there are none. I liked the old ones — dark paint and wood with Roman numerals on Gothic frames. I remember staring at them as an altar girl serving on Good Friday. It distracted me from the ache in my arms as I held the metal candlestick during the hour-long procession around the church.
I always drove myself to tears on Good Friday. Jesus falling, the Blessed Mother watching. Watching as he was scourged, pitied, hated, killed. I once went into hysterics, hyperventilating and sobbing.
II.
I don’t genuflect when I enter the pew, though I do bless myself, rosary (pink pearl beads, gold chain and medallion) dangling from my fingers. I kneel on the floor, since they haven’t installed hassocks yet. God it’s cold.
I feel a sharp pain at the base of my kneecap and bite my tongue to keep from cursing. I never do, but it’s best to be safe. I look down. I have knelt on the crucifix.
I wrap the rosary beads around my fingers and squeeze until my fingers turn white and then red. The medallion rests on my palm, and I cover it. It has always looked off to me. The Virgin is slightly distorted: her eyes are too large, and she looks as though she is crying.
Today is Friday. Today is for the Sorrowful Mysteries.
I do eventually say the rosary, and I alternate prayers in Latin and English. I was taught the Ave Maria and the Pater Noster at home, not the Hail Mary and the Our Father. My school taught only the English. I like the Greek, too. Χαῖρε — Rejoice! — was what Gabriel said in his announcement to her in that tradition. Rejoice, you are with child. Rejoice, you are pregnant.
The priest is ready for me, and my knees ache upon standing. “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” I can see him through the white, slotted wood screen. I know he can see me as well. It doesn’t matter. This is a ritual, not a dialogue. It is personal and impersonal. God is the one to Whom I am confessing, and He must see me to forgive me.
I say the Act of Contrition. “His mercy endures forever.”
III.
There’s art the next time I come to the church. It must have been dug out of some basement, maybe the one in the rectory. Everything seems like parodies of Catholicism, what someone would imagine old church art would be. The angels in the two paintings bordering the entrance of the nave are cherubic, almost pagan. The stations are comically outdated. The placement of Saint Sebastian’s arrows is too intentional. There is now a statue of the Blessed Virgin in the grotto and a crucifix behind the altar. The crucifix is dark wood, painfully out of place. The emaciated Jesus is draped with a moth-eaten purple cloth, even though it is not Advent.
I suppose that was all that they had. I imagine the old dungeon of a church with these decorations, which I have not seen since I was a child. They looked different then. They commanded more respect. At the very least, they were not ridiculous. They changed them over to the ones that were crushed before I ever felt ecstasy in Catholicism. But they still felt powerful, even mystical, even then.
I pass the grotto with the Blessed Virgin, and I stop. I have not seen her since my youth, but I remember her. The paint is dulled now, particularly on her face and veil, but she is still beautiful. Pale (now paler) skin, gray eyes, hair hidden. Her dress is long and blue. Standard, stunning. Her neck is long and bare.
After reconciliation — I have been coming weekly now — I go back to study her face. Her grey wooden eyes stare at me. They seem daring. Or questioning. Why are you here? Arched eyebrows, almost haughty.
Her head is bowed, though. She is, at least, feigning humility. I do not back down. She is elevated upon her pedestal. I am looking up to her. I do look up to her. No matter her pose, no matter her expression, she is inscrutable.
God, what is she thinking?
I am frustrated. No. I am angry. I do not know why. She is Queen of the Heavens — what she thinks is no business of mine. She is Queen of the Heavens — she reigns over me. She is Queen of the Heavens — she should not make me feel like this.
I say my penance, doubling the Ave Marias.
IV.
B̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶m̶e̶,̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶I̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶i̶n̶n̶e̶d̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶f̶e̶s̶s̶i̶o̶n̶.̶
This is not reconciliation. This is not recountable. I cannot share this with a priest. I cannot structure it in this way.
Last night, I was consumed by lust. Any Catholic knows that lustful thoughts in themselves are not a sin. But I dwelled on them. And choosing to dwell on them is very much a sin. I did dwell upon them, and very much so. It was, for better or for worse, not directed towards anyone, God forbid. But my body was full of fire, full of something. I pushed my legs together, hard. Pointed my toes. Sat down at the piano and played scales. None of this worked. I drummed my fingers on the kitchen counter, crossing my legs tightly above the knees. I left the kitchen. I went into my bedroom and I laid on my stomach.
I disgust myself.
I have never done this to the thought of a man.
But I did not think of anyone. I did not think of anyone.
V.
I am back at the church again the week after. After confession, I go back to the statue. I keep staring. I keep staring at her exposed chest. I want to see it heaving.
She is not with child, and her waist is thin. Perhaps she has not yet become pregnant. She is as young as I am. Barely an adult. She is only a virgin, not yet Blessed. The carved wooden cloth draping over her breasts, hips, and stomach is far too revealing. That’s what I believe, at least. But I cannot move my eyes from her body, her veiled head, her sad eyes.
I hear the priest open the door to the confessional. I had not expected him to come out so soon. I jump away, startled. I am suddenly guilty, looking at the floor, looking at anything but the statue. The priest does not address me.
I look back to the Virgin, and her dress is no longer sensual or provocative, but simple and modest. She is still beautiful. I run my hand over her shoulder, but quickly pull it back. I wished she were warm. I wished she were soft. She was neither.
VI.
Last night, I dreamt I went to Catholic school again. The ceiling panels are stained, the linoleum floors scuffed. There is a janitor’s bucket on the floor collecting brackish water. The walls are a dull brown, besides crawling ivy painted by a child’s hand.
My hair tells me I am fourteen. It is long, straight. At that time, I pushed it back with a black headband. I am in full uniform — a black skirt just past my knees, white shirt buttoned up to my chin, green sweater vest. Black socks and shoes. I am a plain girl. Barely a girl, sexless. Dressed like this I am utterly colorless, my pale face is washed out, my eyes flat and dull.
I proceed with my class into the church. Through a hole in the roof, cold rain drips onto my calf as I kneel. It is so cold it is nearly painful, and a tingle runs through the whole of my leg. It soon loses feeling, but I am daydreaming. A dream within a dream.
I am thinking of the Virgin. Her chest is heaving, and her mouth is softer than the wood should be, as is her skin. Her hair is no longer veiled, and I run it across my lips. I gently pull it back. I see her neck, I feel it.
I stand up from the hassock, exit the pew, genuflect. I exit the church and walk towards the bathrooms. Lock the stall, push my back against the door, push my skirt above my knees.
VII.
I wake up and my face is hot. I lift my head and find I have left a sweat mark on my pillow. I have no thoughts — I have too many thoughts. This is not one of those dreams that vanishes at the moment of awakening. I remember every moment of it: each act, each touch, each sensation.
It was a dream. It was a dream. It was nothing. It was a dream.
I clench my hands into fists as I think. I have never had sex. I have never really considered it. I have been attracted to men. I list their names in my head like a litany. Dreams can mean anything, and often they mean nothing. I have read the psychoanalysts and found them generalizing and reductive. We do not all repress desires, and I do not envy the phallus.
VIII.
I really don’t masturbate. Genuinely. Even the word makes me uncomfortable. My attractions are always chaste, and I swear to you that scene which I recounted earlier was an anomaly. In the eyes of the church, it is self-injurious. I don’t know if I believe that, but I honestly do not feel passionately enough about sex to want to imagine it. My body does not seem made for sex. There is something wrong with it. To be with a man… To be intimate… I cannot say why exactly. I find my body repulsive. The idea of a man sexualizing my body is alien, impossible, bad. I do not want to be penetrated. I fear the pain, yes. But it also seems violating.
Sex does not appeal to me. I think that is why I have never explored it.
This is all confusing me to write. I feel that it is true, from the deepest part of me. Sex is not a part of my life. But. I will be honest. I will not lie. I am coming to remember this dream as something that truly happened. There is no point in obscuring sin. It will always return. And when it returns, it brings other memories with it. The same thing occurring in an alcove at home, praying the rosary. In bed, singing the Ave Maria softly to myself. Running out of the church during the Salve Regina.
There must have been some ending to all of this, if I have not thought of it until now. Perhaps I confessed, and that took away my willingness to sin again. But it didn’t work well enough, if I am recalling it this viscerally. Not by any fault of my confessor, but of something within me.
Why is it so difficult for me to know that this is wrong? To feel that my body is not a sexual thing and yet desire this so deeply? Is this sex or only disorder? I cannot get myself to care. I allow myself to return to my memories, pressing the medallion deep into my palm.
This does not feel self-injurious. It does feel frightening, but it does not feel wrong. It does not feel bad.
IX.
I do not know exactly how to explain the ways in which my life has changed. All of the details are not clear. I have begun to see a woman.
I had some sort of preternatural understanding that I would have an encounter that day. I intended to go to confession, but found myself drawn to a park nearby instead. There is a well-tended garden in front of the trail. I like to go and admire the red lilies.
I was alone there, until suddenly I was not. I was consumed by and drawn towards the flowers like a romantic. Then there was a woman.
She was also at the flower bed, though she was turned away from me. Her dress was white, and her head was bowed as though she were crying. She turned to look at me, and I saw that she was not. She bit her lip and never looked away from me. My cheeks were hot. My eyes widened. I noticed she wore a scapular over her breasts, over her white dress.
She was nature itself. She was soft and immaculate and pure-looking and stunning in her simple way.
While we are still in the gardenː she will press my hand to her waist. She will press my hand to her breasts. She will take my hair in her hands and hold it to her face and tell me how sweet it smells. Hers will smell like lilies and roses. Or perhaps it was daffodils.
She will make my body ache, make me full of hunger and frustration and anger and pain.
She will be with me again later. She does not tell me, but I know.
X.
Here are the details I will share: her dress unbuttoned down the front. Her skin was softer than I imagined skin could be. She made me feel inexperienced and I was ashamed. She made me feel more tension than I thought my body could hold. I thought that I never wanted her to stop touching me. I thought that I should never be touched again. Her sheets were light blue. Her covers were darker and embroidered with miniscule blue stars.
A sensation I will never forget: her scapular gently dragging across my stomach and chest.
I do not remember how many times I let her touch me like that.
Her hands were always cold. She liked to press them to my neck, my breasts, my cheeks. She would laugh when I flinched and tell me how warm I was. She liked to rest her head on my chest, too. She would lay it right down over my heart and draw circles with her fingers on my bare skin. I could feel them for hours after. I could feel all of her. Her legs, just brushing my own. Her hair, falling over my shoulders, making me twitch when she moved. Her cheek resting against my ribcage, her breath over my breasts. I would shiver and she would give her soft high laugh again. And she would spread her cold, white fingers over me, making her circles again and again until I shook.
Several times she made me cry.
I couldn’t say whether she hurt me or not. That which is of the body is not that which is of the spirit. But something in me was in pain. Part of me wanted her to make it worse. I kept seeing her, kept letting her touch me. I ached to touch her in the way she touched me. I wanted to make her feel the ecstatic way she made me feel. I cannot say why. Part of me wanted to hurt her, too, to make her feel what I felt in every single way. The second time I saw her I vomited in the bathroom.
XI.
My words are vague because I am confused. I dream of her hair around my neck. I dream of her hair running over my lips. When I wake up, I can still smell the lilies. I cannot stop smelling them. I cannot distinguish what we have done in my dreams and what we have done in life.
I wear my own scapular now, even though I had stopped doing so long ago. I dream of the Virgin.
I do not know what I want. I want to be licked, fingered. I want to go to confession and not be repulsed by myself and not only confess the vague acts that are lust and self-injury. I want to stop seeing horror on the face behind the slotted wood. I want to drive a knife into my chest. I do not know what I want.
I have become debauched. I know this is true. I have fucked the Virgin Mary. Stolen her name, stolen her being.
I light candles when I pray. I now only say the Actus Contritionis. I lower each hand over a candle as I say meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor. I detest my sins, I detest all sin. I am a sinner, I detest myself. I have burns in the middle of my hands.
XII.
The last time I see her is at the church. I asked her to accompany me. She was too willing. It terrified me. She was wearing the same white dress she did when we met. It matched the walls, the stone, the pews. She mocked me with her purity.
I wasn’t particularly fond of the new church myself. But I was wounded by her lack of a response. It was far more disappointing than I anticipated. Of course she would not like the artwork. It was only in my memory that it connected us two. I raised a hand, feebly, when we passed the statue’s grotto. She was not impressed, not by me, not by the church, not by the Virgin. I trailed her as she walked the stations of the cross. She touched each one. They were gentle touches, but I still flinched.
On the fourth station she pushed me against the wall and bit my lip.
We reach the statue, and this time I bite my own lip nearly as hard as she did. She looks at me for a long time. She, too, is inscrutable.
XIII.
I watch us in the mirror of the church bathroom. My lip is bleeding lightly. Blood trails down my chin and onto my neck. It drips into her hair.
She now turns her attention to my hands. Puts her mouth to the burn marks. Drags her teeth along them. I wince, and my eyes tear up. She does not move her mouth, but moves her eyes up to search mine.
I am animalistic. I am a sinner. I am ferocious.
I pull her hair back. Her eyes widen. I push her. Her head hits the wall.
XIV.
I led her up to the altar. Escorted her. It was like a wedding.
She is physically on the altar now. I sigh with relief, with fear, with pleasure. I could have her now. I barely know what that means. But I will make her cry. Weep tears of blood, if she is Mary.
She is passive, weak. I do not feel nauseous. I do not feel adrenaline. I press my thumbs into her eyes.
This is all that I will say: her blood is slick on my hands. The altar is a place of slaughter. She is capax Dei. I mark her with flame, with the stigmata. The vesperal cloth is red. The church is white. I would bring it down again.
