For this week’s Translation Tuesday, we present a short story by Chilean writer Sara Munizaga, translated from Spanish by the author herself. In it, a Catholic priest reflects on the frustrations of his vocation, recounting numerous examples of so-called believers whose behavior belies their professed faith. His suppressed anger conflicts with his desire to embody God’s all-encompassing forgiveness. This all comes to a head when he is asked to officiate the wedding of Jessica, a former object of infatuation who, in his telling, led him on and then cruelly rejected him. Munizaga’s story is a cynical and clever exploration of religion, gender relations, and above all, the self-deceptions that control our lives.
This vocation makes you indolent: deaths, births, and people in general cease to matter, because nothing is more demoralizing to the soul than speaking of God’s love to those who are not listening. We know they come here, to the church, as a last resort—without hope and without any genuine desire to hear the Lord’s message.
They convert to religion at the last minute, under pressure, for on their deathbeds they have no salvation plan other than the one I can give them. I feel their trembling hands clutch at my cassock, trying to keep the fate of a hell they so carelessly secured for themselves from swallowing them whole. Now they fear facing the devil when death is imminent, but when they were healthy they felt immortal and could not be bothered to live virtuously or serve others.
For that reason I spare no one in my funeral sermons. It is the only time I obtain an audience held captive by grief, and I lecture them with tedious catechism texts as a punishment for their superficial and agnostic lives. I am unmoved by the widow’s inconsolable weeping or the mourners’ emotional speeches. I know they are hypocrisy; and I will not worship any god but the God of truth, my Lord Jesus Christ. It is so simple to understand: one need only look at the life of Doña Patricia. Five children, twenty-five grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and every day she arrived alone at the noon mass, accompanied only by a nurse hired by the family—who preferred to pay a stranger to take charge of the woman who gave them everything. The Christmas before last, Doña Patricia confessed to me that she had kept all her relatives’ gifts, still wrapped, there at the nursing home where she lived; her family never came to see her, and she was left alone during the holidays. And yet, a year later, at her funeral, the church was overflowing—not a single seat left empty. Then she achieved the full attendance she would have desired. I wanted to have the nerve to throw those still-wrapped gifts at their faces from the very altar, but that is not the Lord’s way. He is almighty and teaches us to find forgiveness. A greater crisis will come to that family that will rouse them from the selfish stupor in which they conduct their lives.
The sacraments’ deeper meaning has been profaned, and marriage is the one that has suffered the most dramatic degeneration. For the betrothed, the ceremony is a mere formality that allows them to justify a disproportionate, hedonistic party. People come to me with no conviction whatsoever about the rite they are about to experience; I don’t believe they even grasp the true meaning of love. They request my presence as if I were a cosmetic figure lending legitimacy to their capricious union. It infuriates me that they profess their wedding vows with the shamelessness of those who already know they are breaking them. What fidelity can these promiscuous youths promise, moved only by pleasure? Before they even seal this commitment, they are willing to fail their partners if the occasion presents itself, and they throw themselves into a nest of lies to cover up their selfish actions. “In sickness and in health” sounds like deceit in the mouths of these brand-new newlyweds who know that, at the first difficulty, they will break their promise without a second thought. It is senseless, a useless drain on my daily energy. What does the Lord want of me to test my patience this way?
My greatest challenge was Jessica’s wedding—the most profane bride ever to set foot in my church. I was in my first years of priesthood and never imagined she would have the gall to ask me to officiate her ceremony. In those days I was more easily manipulated; I lacked the resolve to refuse, even before the nauseating idea of seeing her dressed in white before my altar. That was the greatest trial the Lord has entrusted to me: to fulfill my vocation above my personal, worldly pain. That woman had played with the illusions of my youth; she caught me inexperienced and defenseless.
I recall the involuntary trembling of my body when I saw her approach, a tremor that to this day returns whenever she catches me off guard. In my college years she completely ruled my will; her desires became a mission I could not renounce. I needed the satisfaction of providing her with everything she wanted. I felt fortunate to be able to give her my lunch, to finish her assignments, and to carry her heavy backpack of books through the halls. I was completely clouded by her charms, because the reward of her smile was my only motivation in those years.
I needed several painful disappointments to wake from my trance and see her as she truly was. My love letters, torn up in the trash, are the most vivid postcard of my frustrated courtship and of the true nature of her icy heart. I was so vulnerable before Jessica that, from then on, my heart forged an impenetrable armor so as never again to be swept away by another hurricane like her.
How many of my classmates believed our love was reciprocated by Jessica, and then suffered in silence after her rejection! Her supernatural ability to make me feel unique clouded my judgment to the point that I failed to see she was doing the same with the rest of the class. I thought, at the time, that her seductive powers were the most precise embodiment of the devil trying to tear me from my nascent priestly path. Even so, I must thank this woman, for her sudden indifference hastened my decision to become a priest; today I would not be here preaching if I had preserved any shard of hope for our relationship.
I was distracted during that ceremony; I could not stop thinking about who that man was who had managed to ensnare Jessica with a wedding band. What made him so special that he convinced her to renounce her slippery freedom and her lascivious personality? I had no choice but to silence my incessant thoughts with the theory of an arrangement between them. Perhaps the groom was a wealthy millionaire, or Jessica was already pregnant by who knows what other man and this shrewd negotiator offered stability to save what remained of her honor. I commended myself to the Lord so that my mind would return to service and not continue to drift on the turbulent, dangerous waters of my former feelings for Jessica.
That wedding homily was my masterpiece. Though improvised, it felt infused with divine inspiration. I placed God in my heart and the words sprang forth like sharp knives toward the ears of those present. My sensible phrases surely made more than one sinner reflect who had come to my church unawares, not knowing they would depart transformed by the words of the Most Holy. After the truths expressed in my oratory, it was unthinkable that the couple should dare to disrespect each other, because they had already been warned that, should they do so, they would face the wrath of God.
It seems the hardness of my words resonated with Jessica—or so it appeared—for she kept her head bowed throughout my sermon. When she raised it, I noticed an excess shine in her eyes: I thought perhaps tears of genuine repentance were forming there. To see her exposed and defenseless made me feel pity for her; to see her humble made me think that perhaps she was no longer the perfidious young woman who destroyed my youth—maybe she had amended her life and meant to begin this new matrimonial path with a renewed, sincere attitude. I remembered then that Scripture contains countless examples of repentance: Saint Matthew and Saint Augustine received a second chance. Why could Jessica not have followed in their steps?
For a moment I understood why the Lord had wanted me to officiate this ceremony. God’s intention was that I forgive her from the heart and receive her with humility as one more of the faithful of my parish. God laid before me the most glorious crusade of my existence: it would be my opportunity to follow the example of our Lord Jesus Christ and convert a sinner to the path of righteousness. Reconciling Jessica with the faith was perhaps the task God had entrusted to me in this life, the reason I had been preparing for years in silence, reflection, and solitude. In those moments a unique energy settled upon me. As I laid my hands over the bread and wine in the consecration, the grace of the Holy Spirit revealed to me, in an epiphany, the meaning of my former suffering. Through the sacrament of the Eucharist I could free Jessica from the bonds of sin; the choir’s melodious sound was particularly inspired that Saturday. For an instant I felt like a soldier of the Lord: armed with His wisdom, confronting the demonic energies that had ruled Jessica and led her away from the good path.
My steps from the altar toward the couple were slow and solemn. I carried the ciborium with the consecrated hosts and fixed my gaze on Jessica’s brown eyes, but in her I did not find a face of recollection—rather, the same lascivious look with which, in my youth, she could reduce me to my minimum expression. The shameless way she bit her lower lip dispelled my genuine impulse to rescue her from the flames of hell. She pretended to be in prayer throughout the ceremony, but what else could I expect if the thing she knows best is how to pretend?
In those moments of bewilderment I questioned God and His intentions. The Lord was aware of my constant and secret suffering; He had been the only witness to the scourge that the memory of Jessica represented in my daily life. Why did He permit that, once again, I should continue to be the object of so many humiliations?
With her shameless attitude Jessica had mocked me yet again and desecrated the sacrament as well. The derisive curl of her smile was evident, but I alone faced her from the altar, unable to react to that offense, for the expectant eyes of all present were upon me. She withdrew yet again from my life unpunished and unrepentant. With the provocative sway of her hips she moved down the aisle, victorious. Her minimal effort had once more shattered my confidence and made me question my faith, in full view of everyone—and yet, in reality, unnoticed by all.
Translated from the Spanish by Sara Munizaga
Sara Munizaga is a Chilean writer whose work delves into the moral and emotional tensions that arise within family and faith. Drawing on her background in the study and analysis of human behavior, her fiction remains deeply rooted in reality, marked by a restrained tone and a profound concern with silence, guilt, and ethical ambiguity. She lives in Santiago, Chile.
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