January 26, 1802

No sun has touched my eyelids today and perhaps this is for the best, as the orange glow emanating through the papery skin of my eyelids reminds me too much of fire these past days. As always, I fear Hell––though my faith tells me there is nothing to fear because there is no chance, no possibility of ever entering those infernal gates, I still am afraid, rationally, irrationally––and perhaps I feel threatened by circumstance. The snow has piled up considerably, no longer melting when it blesses the ground. In Issoire, I would have loved this whiteness, the purity of the world; I try to, here, but I find it more grey than white. My father would have told me to look with further Godliness; my mother would have called it a metaphor. My best judgement isn’t sure to whom it shall affix itself.

I, of course, have had another conversation; this was yesterday, when it was early in the morning and I was trying to contend with the lanterns outside my door (I was arguing with them in my mind, as if the wrought iron were sentient, thinking; the burning oil inside an eye, the eye of Satan, my eyes, now; I’m still disturbed that I could even believe such an inane thing), Ruth called to me and announced an early visitor to the church’s doors. I rounded the powder-covered cobblestone to greet a young boy, not yet a man by appearances, wringing his hands and offering a shy, but polite smile. As I unlocked the bolt, he murmured to me, explaining he had just left his hometown to escape somewhere larger and to forgive him, Father, for not having made his appearance on a Sunday, yet. I did forgive, naturally, and ushered him inside, as it was cold and the youth had not but the thinnest of overcoats in last decade’s fashion to keep him. I sat him at the front and we gazed up at the familiar-to-me stained glass display; he seemed mesmerized for a while, even if the lack of sun made it less grandiose than usual. 

He was timid. It took a while for him to speak to me, staring periodically up at the glass and down at his hands, busying themselves by tracing his knuckles and cuticles. I kept my hands still, though gazing at his restlessness made me want to bounce my knee sympathetically; I figured it would not help him feel at ease and welcome to speak to me––though the longer I sat there, I wondered if I had made faulty assumption in thinking he wished to speak to me at all. As I placed my hands beside me to rise from the pews and give him his solitude, he inhaled, readying to speak.

He sought forgiveness for his emotions: worry, he said, excessive rumination and anxieties that paralyze him. He told of moments where he couldn’t do what God wanted him to do because he was too worried, staying inside the sanctuary of his house before escaping to help a beggar on the street, before hastening to aid his father at his shop when his work partner had fallen ill, before coming to the church on Sunday. Then, I saw the boy’s eyes squeeze shut and he hesitated, pausing, just enough for me to look over his face (I saw nothing but the anxiety he spoke of and the shining of his eyelashes, something gold); eventually, he spoke anew. Something new.

He was angry, he said. Under his disquiet lies a gently smouldering anger (I thought of my lanterns, now) towards people for hurting him. Towards his father, then, he said; and here I could understand, this was more of what I deal with, as I have lent an ear to many a boy speaking ill towards his father. This boy speaks with gentle vocabulary, that he forgave his father for the things he had done, for kicking him from the house with barely two coins to rub together and no direction, no relatives, no advice. But still, he says, strained: still, when he remembers his father, he feels the anger return.

He went silent, here, and I took it as my turn to speak. I offered a minimal repentance for this boy, perhaps my most lenient in recent memory, as I see so much of his breed and knew time would ease the coals of his resentment. I waited, curiouser as he seemed to not listen––or, perhaps, not to accept it. I wondered if he expected more in the name of punishment, as if he could attach himself to it like a leech extracting purpose from the church. But he didn’t.

I asked for his name. Élias, he said. I asked Élias to communicate everything he was feeling, as it was still an hour before anyone else would be joining us and he was safe to do so. After a sigh of breath, he admitted, softly, that the relief and the presence of God he expected to feel in his bosom isn’t there; in fact, he said, so quiet and speaking to the tips of his shoes, he hardly felt like it was worth asking for forgiveness. I told him all beings under God are worthy of it, but he began shaking his head before I finished; no, he said, and explained he knows he deserves forgiveness and can repent and be admitted to Heaven, but that his worry and anger weren’t deserving of such. Father, said he, my own father asked me for years to come to you, to anyone; he even once brought in a man to my bedside while I was ill with fever, hoping the temporary lull in fervor would make me more lenient towards my admission of sloth. Until now, by some sudden grace of whim, I have not uttered such words; now I have, and now I wonder: these are merely my emotions, my soul-given emotions. Must I pray to be absolved?

Here I blinked, thinking for a moment longer than perhaps I should have. All I could tell him (still thinking of the lanterns) was that anxiety was no mere emotion, but an affliction implanted by Satan to paralyze us and prevent us from exercising God’s will; we must pray and devote ourselves to be rid of such a curse. He seemed to accept this for a moment, but the confusion returned to his visage along with a curious pallor to his features. He tells me, again, that these emotions are his own. What if they were? I was taken aback, not expecting such a lamb to retaliate my words like a ram, soonafter noticing the way that anger had been briefly stoked. Then, as if nothing was for himself, he paused and backed off with a straightening of his spine, golden-shining tears threatening his lashes. The pure mixture and coexistence of all these emotions still bring me pain to recall, as I saw a young man struggling in vain to contend with Satan’s pull on his countenance. It must have been exhausting in his mind.

I told Élias, then, calmly, to renounce the agonies in his heart. It is better to let go of your responsibility for them. It is not your fault you feel this way. He seemed, if only for my sake, comforted by this. I gave no further repentance and watched as he hesitated, then raised from the pew. He thanked me in that same small voice he used outside the doors and turned to leave, not without cleansing himself with the holy water on the way out. 

I wondered all of yesterday and this morning if he will truly repent. It would be a shame if, when in Heaven, I do not become reconnected with the poor boy trying to find his way in Clermont-Ferrand; I would be ashamed if I saw him sans home, begging on the street; I would be further ashamed if he gave into Satan and became angry, cynical, jaded, or hermitage out of his own fear. And then, if then, I would not be able to reach him again; he would be hidden from me no matter my prayers to reveal him and I could not offer help, where in any other situation I could find him, bring him in, train him to be a priest and save his soul. But if the worry carries him to solitude, what then? I can only hope he accepts his repentance and commits, as otherwise

I am the worrying one now, am I not?

Élias, with your tears of gold. Have I absorbed your affliction?