99 Stories of God

26. Satisfaction

There was a preacher at her parish whom she simply loathed. He did not preach every Sunday, but on the Sundays he did not he was the celebrant, which was even worse. He droned, he stumbled, he maundered. The grace inherent in the words he uttered became as cold, gray cinders.

He mauled the Fraction, he trivialized the Great Thanksgiving, he mangled the Absolution and was forever losing his place in the Comforting Words.

When she died she didn’t want him anywhere near her. Absolutely not in the same room, not even in the same building. With dismay, she thought of him approaching her with his worn sacrament case as she was drawing her last breath.

Out! she was determined to say. Out! if he presumed to ease her fears in his bumbling fashion.

She really thought of this quite often, certainly each Sunday when he was either preacher or celebrant.