The Temptations of St. Antonia

Image by Marek Piwnicki @marekpiwnicki

by Kay Hanifen

Confession time. Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It’s been two months since I attended church and I’ve begun to doubt. Doubt. Sometimes, it seems like doubt is the worst sin you could commit. The apostle Thomas doubted Jesus’s resurrection. He’d watched his friend be brutally murdered by a state threatened by his Rabbi’s teachings and has since been subject to ridicule for a millennium. Doubting Thomas, who had to stick his fingers into Christ’s wounds on his hands and side to know that the rumors were true.

            Father, my doubts have grown with every missed youth group. Is my faith so weak that high school threatens to shake its foundations? The youth group leaders, Mr. and Mrs. Constantine, tell me that atheists, homosexuals, and other creeds are a threat to our faith. That we should try to win them over to the side of righteousness by preaching the good news, but now I’ve met atheists, homosexuals, and people of different religions who are kinder than many of the Christians I know, who befriended me when I sat alone at lunch and made me feel like myself for the very first time.

            I see Sarah in my mind’s eye. Sarah with the pretty smile. Sarah with the infectious laugh. Sarah who is unapologetic about the fact that she likes girls. Every time she sits close, my heart skips a beat in a way it never did when I was around boys and the thought fills me with shame. They say that homosexuals are abominations, that their lifestyle sins against God. I’ve tried so hard to be good and pure, to honor You and my father and mother and be an obedient daughter. And yet I cannot get these homosexual thoughts out of my head.

When I confessed my urges to Mom and Dad, they suggested that I should talk to the Constantine’s about it. They were here to guide wayward and questioning teenagers after all. So here I am, lingering in the church basement, waiting to confess my sins as I watch my youth group to file out of our classroom. The room is big and bare, with a circle of folding chairs in the center and a plastic white table piled high with donuts and punch, the sweet enticements to wash down the bitterness of our sins. I could join my parents upstairs for the main sermon, but I prefer the youth group because we can actually discuss our faith. The rest of the group has been sent back for communion, but I linger in my seat with a half-eaten donut on my plate and welling nausea in my throat.

“Antonia, is everything okay?” Mrs. Constantine asks, “You’re supposed to be in communion.”

“I can’t,” I say, struggling against the tears in my eyes, “I’m not welcome there.”

Eyes full of concern, Mr. and Mrs. Constantine take their seats opposite me. “You’re always welcome at the Lord’s table. What’s going on?”

Like Moses striking water from a rock during the Israelites forty years in the desert, the confession pours from me in a steady stream. They listen intently, occasionally interrupting me to ask questions, which I try and fail to answer to their satisfaction.

Once I finish, Mr. Constantine says, “Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we can get you help. The bad news is that it’s going to be a lot of work. You must have faith in the process and in God. Are you willing to put in the effort?”

I nod, my throat too closed by tears to speak.

That night, I dream of a being difficult to comprehend. Its shape changes too rapidly for my eyes to settle on one image. Fiery turning wheels covered in eyes become a many faced, many winged creature, and then a crystalline humanoid shape. In a voice that reverberates through my whole system, it says, “Be not afraid.”

I am terrified.

I wake feeling shaky and nauseous. Mom and Dad let me stay home from school and I receive a message from Sarah asking where I am.

Sick, I reply.

Oof, I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll collect your makeup work for you, she says, and I have to fight the tears in my eyes. Yesterday, they told me to avoid Sarah at all costs. How could I complete the rest of my spiritual journey if I can’t even do that right?

The rest of the week goes by in a blur. When Sarah or any of my other friends ask me how I’m doing, I say I’m fine, just tired. And it’s true. I am exhausted because every night I dream of the same creature telling me to be not afraid. The voice echoes in my ears during quiet moments when I’m alone and whispers when I’m in public. I see the shape of the thing out of the corner of my eye, but like in my dreams, I am unable to focus on it.

I think it may be a demon here to claim my sinful soul. And maybe I deserve Hell because I can’t stay away from Sarah. My mind strays to thoughts of her smile, her warm hand in mine, and I hate how right it feels to imagine our lips pressed together. A part of me wants to give into that temptation and let the demon take my soul. Maybe then, I can find peace from the torment of my mind.

On Friday, I stand in front of my church flanked by my parents. I’m wearing only my white dress and shivering in the early autumn chill. The Constantine’s and Father Peter greet us at the door. Father Peter has a strange, nigh fanatical gleam in his eye, and I look away, fearing that I would gaze into madness if I looked for too long.

They lead me to the nave and have me kneel in front of the altar. The room is lit only by candles and filled with the overwhelming odor of incense. Father Peter begins with a prayer, begging God’s mercy and to deliver my soul from the wicked demons of homosexuality.

Dad and Mr. Constantine grab my arms as he splashes holy water in my face and presses his hands to my forehead. “By the power of Christ, I cast out your demons. Lord, free her from her sin, I beg.”

His hands are all over me as they hold me down, anointing me with holy water and oil while screaming for the demons to leave me. Mom, Dad, and the Constantine’s shout their amens and Lord have mercies in response. The candles send dancing shadows around the church, but the light cannot touch me. I am in darkness, drowning in air and sound and struggling against the people holding me with the terror of a cornered animal. The incense makes my head pound, and my dinner threatens to make an appearance.

Mom grabs a bucket and holds it under me as I vomit. They let me drop to the floor, shivering and convulsing. “Get out of her, demons!” Father Peter screams, “You aren’t welcome to her mind or body. I cast you back to Hell.” His eyes are bright and fanatical, and his chest heaves almost as much as mine.

My breaths are quick and shuddering and I can’t get enough air. Am I about to die? Are these demons trying to kill me? Are my parents? I claw at my throat, terror stealing my words. I am going to die and go to Hell because I failed in my faith. It’s not strong enough and I can’t cast out the sin that has lurked inside me since I was born. I am bad at practicing my faith. I can’t proselytize the good word, can’t cast out my temptations, I am a disgrace, an embarrassment damned for all eternity because I—

Be not afraid, that familiar voice whispers in my ear. It reverberates through me, soothing my shivering convulsions. Let me in and your hand will do His work. And I know that voice just like I suddenly know that the being I’d seen in my dreams is not a demon but an angel of the Lord sent to what? Punish me? Cure me? Protect me?

“Yes,” I breathe, “yes, Lord, I am yours.”

Trying to describe the sensation that came over me is like trying to drink the entire ocean or inhale the entire atmosphere. I remember this feeling of warmth and comfort like drinking hot chocolate after spending the day in the snow. That warmth spreads outwards, until a light emanates from me so bright that it illuminates the whole room. Through no effort of my own, I rise to my feet and then keep rising, my toes no longer touching the ground. A piercing pain spreads from my hands, feet, and side, but my body does not react. I simply spread out my hands, letting the blood of my stigmata drip down. They fall to their knees, tears streaming down their faces. Father Peter is the first to speak, exclaiming, “Oh God, have mercy on her soul. She is a child who knows not what she’s done.”

“I am not here for her,” said the angel through my voice, “I am here for you.”

“What? We’re doing His will,” Mr. Constantine exclaimed.

“His will,” we spat in one voice, “You’ve not listened at all, have you? ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’ What do you know of His will?”

“We’re sorry,” Mom exclaims, “please forgive us. Have mercy.”

“You couch your cruelty in God’s will, acting as though He wants his creations to oppress and abuse one another. How many people on the streets have you turned your nose at, believing that they need to get a job? How many friendships have you damaged, and people have you hurt in the name of spreading the good news? How many of His children have you abandoned because of who they love or the way they understand their gender? How many times have you stomped on His creation when He wants you to nurture it with love and compassion?”

Father Peter tries to run, sprinting down the aisle. And suddenly, he isn’t there anymore. A pillar of salt stands in his place, and it gives me pause. The story of Lot’s wife never sat right with me. A fleeing woman is turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying and looking back at the home she’d made for herself and her family. And Job, with his trials and tribulations thrown at him as a result of little more than a bet. That seed of doubt quickly grows into a fruit bearing tree.

The forbidden fruit was understanding good and evil. Before tasting it, Adam and Eve were innocent of all sin. But if they didn’t know right from wrong, why would they recognize their disobedience as sinful? Maybe it wasn’t about the disobedience but the fact that they lied about it. Lying is the original sin. The lies we tell ourselves and the ones we tell others. We say we’re good Christians meant to save the heathen rest of the world from itself, but that’s just a lie we’ve told each other, right?

I’d be lying to myself and the world if I didn’t live the way God made me and He made me gay. He made me full of love, and not just romantic love for women. I love my friends, I love Sarah, and in spite of the pain they inflicted upon me, I love my parents. They think they’re doing what’s best for me, even though they’re wrong.

But it was too late, and I had let the wrath of God in my heart. The angel turned the Constantine’s into salt and then turned its gaze to my parents.

No! I screamed, railing against my possession. Please! Mercy!

After the way they treated you?

God believes in forgiveness, doesn’t He? If they repent for the way they’ve behaved, will you let them go and end your acts of God’s wrath?

Only if they’re truly sorry. If they can change, then perhaps drastic measures won’t have to be taken.

I feel myself take the wheel once more, but the angel is still in the passenger seat. I fall limply to the ground; my white dress stained red with my stigmata. Mom and Dad hold me close and whisper apologies in my ears. I grant them forgiveness, but the pain of the night lingers along with the angel in the back of my mind. It waits for a mistake, a sin that angers me enough that it can take the wheel of my soul and once again unleash the wrath of God.

Kay Hanifen is a graduate of Emerson College with a BFA in Creative Writing. Her articles have appeared in Ghouls Magazine, Screen Rant, The Borgen Project, and Leatherneck magazine; and her short stories have appeared in Strangely Funny VIII, Crunchy With Ketchup, Midnight From Beyond the Stars, Dark Shadows: The Gay Nineties, Fearful Fun, and Enchanted Entrapments. When she's not geeking out about superheroes or monsters, you can usually find her with her two black cats or on Twitter @TheUnicornComi1.