The Rehearsal

Today’s Word: Genuflect

This word is the contribution of our co-administrator of the Word of the Day Challenge blog, Alice, from The59club.blog.

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It was a beautiful spring day — birds chirping, trees beginning to blossom and a warm magnolia breeze drifted through the air. Oblivious to the lovely day, Mary Catherine climbed the 20-something steps to the huge and heavy doors of Our Lady of Perpetual Limbo. It was Confession Day, and she recited the wrongs she had done over and over in her head. She didn’t want to leave anything out and get in trouble with God or whomever.

Once inside, she genuflected and dipped her finger in the holy water container on the wall and made the sign of the cross.

Mary Catherine was alone in the church. What luck! She wouldn’t have to wait. She headed to the confessional, opened the door and knelt down. She listened for the sound of the screen closing. When she heard it, she began: “Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been three years since I have been to confession.”

There was silence, which is sometimes normal, so she started rattling off her sins.

• I have been unfaithful to my husband several times; too many to count.
• I stole money from his wallet to buy groceries and kept a twenty for myself.
• I also stole from the grocery store.
• I took the Lord’s name in vain.
• I guess that’s about it.

More silence. She waited a few minutes for the priest to say something, but he didn’t.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

Still no answer.

What am I supposed to do now?

She got up and opened the door and quietly knocked on the priest’s door. Still no answer so she knocked harder. She looked around and still, she was alone in the church.

“Hello? Father, are you in there?”

She slowly opened the door only to find it empty.

What did he do? Close the screen rather than open it? Maybe he went to the restroom.

She waited another five minutes or so, but no one ever came.

As Mary Catherine walked back down the stairs more than a little annoyed.

All that time wasted making up a bunch of sins just to see what the penance would be. Now she’d never know if having all that fun would be worth it or not.