Total Recall

Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one …

There was a woman who claimed to talk with God — not to Him, but with Him. The tale was well-told around town, in which there was also a priest.

The priest one day after Mass asked to speak with the woman and when they’d settled into chairs he said, ‘I’m told you speak with God.’

‘Yes, Father,’ said the woman. ‘We’re told to do so by the Holy Church.’

‘Yes,’ said the priest. ‘And He also speaks with you?’

‘Yes, Father,’ she said. ‘We’re told of times like that, too.’

‘I’d like you to do something for me,’ said the priest.

‘Certainly, Father.’

‘The next time you talk with God, and He talks with you, I want you to ask him a question for me, then give me a call — no matter what time.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘What wd you like me to ask Him?’

‘Ask Him what sins I confessed that week.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Sins,’ said the man. ‘Ask Him what I confessed. Then call and tell me what he said.’

‘Alright, Father.’

Several weeks passed and to be entirely truthful about it the priest began to think less about what he’d asked until it wasn’t generally at the fore of his thoughts.

Then early one morning the phone rang.

Early.

‘Hzzh,’ he said into the phone.

‘Father, it’s me,’ said a voice.

The priest sat up in bed.

‘Yes of course,’ he said.

‘Talked with God, again.’

‘Certainly; what’d he say?’

‘I asked him what you said.’

‘Yes, yes — of course. And … ?’

‘About what sins you confessed.’

‘And?’

‘He doesn’t remember.’

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent

Coyotes and Christians

I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,

Read More »

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

Read More »

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.]   One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Read More »

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Read More »

Random

Ensamples

Among the worst things about The Slap is how it has fed self-righteousness in all but the two participants, and they already had it or it wldn’t have happened. But there is Solzhenitsyn, again, with the line between good and evil that cuts through every human heart, and there is Dostoevsky, always, reminding us via

Read More »

Not Free

During the Cold War there was a list of countries and their level of freedom. It still exists but we pay less attention to it.  I recall three categories — very free, free, not free — and I remember ratings were based on politics, economics, and so on. So too in man. We are very free, free,

Read More »

Animal Planet

We’re watching Planet of the Apes. No, not the Charlton Heston one — this one. Only it’s supposed to be this one, from last year. So we’re on the middle one, the “first remake” (excluding the 17 sequels to the Charlton Heston one) and it’s by Tim Burton, with all that that entails, from Helena

Read More »

Lookit! Lookit! Lookit!

Don’t see my sin, Lord. Look at Jesus on the cross, Father … then look at me. Look at Jesus Christ risen, Father … then look at me. Look at Jesus ascended, Father … then look at me. Amen.

Read More »

Related

Why Not Two Cupcakes?

Something we know well and another I know little. Remember … re-member … before we begin Dallas Willard on knowing — namely … named-ly … not intellectual apprehension but interactive relationship. Each and both come from the same aim: good and right and lovely when well and harmful on all counts when not, as is

Read More »

When We Lie

If mere humans may have things abominable to them, mine is lying. I hate it in nearly all forms: commercial advertising and political propaganda, of course, as well as even when people doing good things feel compelled to pretend they are flawless: that the rotten thing they just did is required by that good thing

Read More »

Never Ending Story

For the record, such as this is, Breaking Bad won’t end. As the series has continued we’ve become accustomed to Walt doing what he wants. And he certainly doesn’t think a thing’s over until he says it is. The previous episode, ostensibly the second-to-last-ever one, ended with him heading out to take care of business,

Read More »

Un Success Full

Thomas Merton was asked once to contribute to a book on success — specifically a statement of how he’d achieved it in his own life. I replied indignantly that I was not able to consider myself a success in any terms that had meaning to me. If it happened that I had once written a

Read More »