Transubstantiation

Jake and Max walked into the church, an elongated procession between benches leading to the altar. Jake, a bit sanctimonious, an atheist from the Bronx, and Max a quiet Baptist, both marveling at the opulent altar, neither men knew the war that Luther had had with the church over such iconic splendor, neither men knew each other’s faith, they had just been assigned to this investigation, they both were against it from the start, “a squandering of police resources…” was how Jake put it when police chief Hamilton assigned him to the investigating task force. And perhaps because of that comment is why he assigned Jake to be lead investigator. Perhaps Hamilton, a practical bureaucrat, thought that the investigation would be better managed by someone that wasn’t into it, Hamilton too did not know that Jake was an atheist, more he was perhaps hoping that the investigation would find nothing for the media to plum or that might make the major feel uncomfortable.

The virgin with her hands palms up to the sky, marvel attractive, sedated gown with hues of blue and dominant magical pearl whites, her wrist and neck unadorned by bracelets or necklaces, sumptuous in their naturalness, Jake had to ask Max, humorless, “why God gave this woman a cunt.” Max seemed to naturally comprehend that certain questions have no validity and responded with mirthic plum, “Yeah right.”

The place ignored the lack of sanctity of the spoken, contemplative silent the virgin was accompanied in her eternally divine pose by angel Gabriel, Saint Thomas and a few other less well known luminaries. Around them spun a web of holy light that was breaking through stained glass of white, purple, red, yellow and green hues, causing the etched apparitions of doves, crosses and rays of hope to blare their liveliness, and it was that stained sequestered light, subdued so forcefully that it died in splendor just beyond the sculptures, barely reaching the benches where parishioners would kneel and stand and sit to worship, so strangely subdued that the light formed an arch of darkness over and through the benches, forming a tunneled path to the altar, where from above shun a ray of hope that dared only coward its sparkling before the crucifix, where crossed Jesus Christ, bleeding from every obstacle that adorned his limbs and head, made bloodletting into a final aesthetic epic of holy embrace.

Such a place could easily ignore the less endowed with the religious gifts, besides Jake and Max were not here to confess their sins, nor to applaud the majesty of the orational exercise, they were here to investigate the darker dwellings of human malice. They were not further qualified to investigate spiritual malice, they did not know how to read Latin, they were not aware that Jesus wasn’t really the King of the Jews, these were after all the days when one could be a Christian without reading the old or new testament, knowledge of the word was no longer a requirement for faith, and here is where Hamilton had oddly picked the wrong men for the job, because of their irreverence of the catholic church, rather than lay the thing down, any psychologist would tell you, they would be more likely to assume inquisitorial roles, not in awe of this church or of its priests, and blind to its velvet rich historical resilience, these men were more likely to lambaste the edifice and its subjects; rats quietly gnawing the roots of their own civilization.

Father Perry came through the well varnished door to the right of the altar, his hands joined together at his waist, where from a rosary dangled, the presence of prayer betrayed by a slight movement of his thin lips, which were covered by Spanish-Irish skin. He welcomed the detectives in calm demeanor and sensing that their leather jackets, tennis-shoes and blue-jeans were offending the lord, he motioned them into his study. It was a very subdued and humble study, stacks of books, a few crosses disparately ordained, and wall in need of a paint job, and a chalice that uttered habitual usage, sat on a well worn wooden table. The two detectives could not look more out of place, but then that did not matter to them, for cops are by nature out of place which is why they can be discomforting to others anywhere. Still from the way they both adjusted their jackets, by frowning their shoulders, it was obvious that their had been a skeletal level adjustment mandated by holy ambience.

“Father Perry, we come here perplexed, to be frank, there have been numerous accusations leveled against you, and we are here to listen to your side of the story, and hopefully to find nothing.” Jake had finished with the abrupt, “find nothing” there was nothing disarming about “nothing” and Father Perry who was formidably armed with a deep spiritual habit of expression, knew it. “Well if I can help then please let me be of service.” Words so well fashioned could only appease the officers, even as these words too were molesting to acknowledge an innocence that had not yet been found noble.

Father, we have received two anonymous calls at the station and had two official complaints that there is something unusual in the wafer (forcibly clearing his throat) Eucharist that is being served to your congregation. We have a search warrant due to the isolated nature of the complaints, it seems none of the parishioners knew each other nor do they appear to have a particular gripe towards you. Jake halted obtusely enough to apparently hear his penance due for his confession. Father Parry seemed holy unmolested by the attributes of what he was hearing, his heart rate maintained its poised rhythm, his pupils did not alter their diameters, breathing was normal; the officers were reading it as such.

“I am afraid I don’t know what you are saying, the Body of Christ is the Body of Christ and there isn’t anything more sacred in my church than that; what then could be the nature of the complaints that you have received and what is causing members of our congregation to make these charges?” The tone was defensively surprised, Max the Baptist thought so and he was suspicious of the catholic church but thought “better a Catholic than an atheist”, underneath he suspected that Jake was a Baptist of sorts, after all, they got along so well; Jake replied with respectful demeanor, “Father, we don’t want to make the charges public nor do we want them leaked to damage your parish without cause, so until we have substantial evidence we are not going to offend you by insinuation. To continue the investigation you must just allow us to confiscate the Eucharist for lab examination.” Father Perry’s breathing halted, stopped, denied itself lung capacity, Father Perry’s eyes darted back and forth in a frantic left to right pattern, as if trying to cut these two officers, with his eyes of disbelief. “Confiscate the Body of Christ! Confiscate the Body of Christ, you can’t do that, I would rather go to jail than watch you confiscate the body of Christ!” “Father, we are just going to do a chemical analysis we are not going to keep it, once we have that analysis it should all be cleared, and we can return the Eucharist to you.” Father Perry, moving his head to muster grim negativity, “The Pope will not allow this, and I would never ask him to allow it; I can’t even allow it even if The Pope was to permit such a sacrilegious act. The police confiscating the Body of Christ - this is not even dreamable, both of you out of my church now!”

Jake had had enough, took out the search warrant, shook it in front of Father Perry and commanded access to all the Eucharist contained within the church. Father Perry held his hands together, as if suffocating his Crucifix to command God’s attention, reeling to his knees sobs, “God forgive them for they not know what they do,” Jake and Max did not take kindly to this and aggressively moved to begin the search for the Eucharist. Having not thought that they would encounter moving religious résistance, they had failed to ask a catholic where the Eucharist was kept, only Father Perry feeling his church desecrated attempted to become a martyr for the Body of Christ, and launched the most futile attack of rage, against Max, only Jake, not being a believer, pulled out his revolver and pointed it at Father Perry, who then squeamishly sat on the floor, his tunic displacing itself towards earthly captivity, “Father why has thee forsaken me!” A choir boy, having just arrived for mass preparations, opened the door and got this unblemished picture of Father Perry in tears on the floor, with one cop pointing a gun at him and another lording it over him as if he had been the cause of all his fall. Choir Boy ran to get help; from his perspective and perhaps lacking religiosity for it, Father Perry was outgunned.

Jake lowered his weapon, “Shit Father see what you’ve gone and done now, now this is going to be headline news, Fuck!” Equally unsettled Max “Damn right this is not going to look pretty here, and there aren’t going to be any sympathies neither to your church or us, father, but we have orders, and we are going to carry them out, it is for the lord to judge us as he will, there must be justice, and we are here to make sure justice is served. Now where is the Eucharist father!” Fortunately a nun walked through the door, Father Parry wasn’t going to collaborate in the separation of the Body of Christ from his church, obviously she had been outside listening and was accompanied by a Lady that appeared to be the church secretary or some kind of assistant. The cops, not knowing that the nun was married to Christ, immediately ordered her to tell them the location of the Eucharist, she sooner took to her knees and began Latin orations, which might have been translated to “Lord you’re my husband and I will never divorce you nor abandon you nor lead you into pagan hands…” The lady next to her, having not married god from a religious point of view just wanted to get the sanctimonious cops away from the helpless sanctity before her, sternly, “follow me.” At the altar mount, they quickly found a sacred vessel with the sacrament.

With the vessel in hand Jake and Max returned to the study, where Father Perry and the Nun were consumed in holy prayer; they realized that there was nothing to do, Jake disconcertedly noted “It didn’t have to be this way Father”.

As soon as they got back to the station they reported to Captain Hamilton the proceedings, he immediately made furious accusations towards both officers, finishing with the apocalyptic words “If I am finished you two are going down with me! I mean it Jake!.” Captain Hamilton sort of blamed Jake for the incident, you don’t point a gun at a priest unless you got due right to kill him, and now this was for sure going to make the six o’clock news and front page headline all the papers nationally. But Captain Hamilton was a man that understood well that his only defense and that of his men, was that they were just doing their job. So he ordered Jake to accelerate the investigation so that it could be settled within a day or two and they could file charges or a final Case Closed report before the Major called them to his office.

Jake and Max got high priority at the lab, they were told that the Body of Christ would be immediately examined; the electron microscope was put to use, bits of the Body of Christ were put on a petri dish, and a catalyst was added that made it change colors. By the time it was over, the lab analyst found Jake and Max asleep in her office. They both woke up trying to feel good that they had been asleep, only Dorothy was not one to let reality get out of the way, “Sorry boys, the complaints are confirmed, there are foreign substances that, (she noted cynically,) were probably not the result of transubstantiation.” Jake and Max searched each other with confusion, “trans… what…?” “Transubstantiation gentlemen, it is the ritualistic conversion of the symbol object to the Body of Christ, it is believed that when the symbol object is religiously treated, it transforms into the body of Christ, even as the symbol itself remains that “accident” that it is in material life; by accident they usually mean that its inherent material composition is maintained even as it evolves to represent the Body of Christ. “I think, (Dorothy being cynical again,) I think it is how the Catholics explain that there is no change in the substance after its religious conversion.”

Jake had always envied Dorothy, her job was never on the line for any reason, she always came out with her systematic axiomatic scientific truths and because they were so academically promulgated no one ever questioned her results. So many times “Sorry Jake the bullet didn’t come from this barrel… …sorry Jake can’t help you here this blood is an inopportune sample…” and she always said it all with that motherly, chocolate-chip-cookie voice, with its comforting fatality. Jake knew what this meant, the complaints had come from four women, they said that they had tasted semen in the Eucharist, all women had attended the same Sunday mass, and none of the women appeared to be colluding with each other. Now the lab results were positive, Jake stayed silent, he had to go arrest a priest. But before he could come to grips with it, there was more news, “But gentlemen the sample contained two foreign substances, smegma, a substance that is discharged by the female during heightened sexual arousal, and sperm.” Jake mustered further explanation but was rebuffed, “Oh Jake it is not that complicated, you have a situation here, the Eucharist has been tainted, maybe by your nun and priest, the lab report will reach the conclusion that female and male fluids were found in the Body of Christ; make what you will of that, don’t make me do your job for you.”

Captain Hamilton’s reaction wasn’t cumbersome, get them tested and arrested. The two officers were photographed walking out of the church with Nun and Father Perry in handcuffs. The News was mostly fair to the cops, “they were just doing their jobs,” the lab results could not be questioned, the trauma suffered by the women that had noted the strange taste, made communion with god a transfigurable experience; but the papers were mostly fair, even the bishop was accepting of it; he noted, in a interview, that the church was not open to such abuses, and that the parishioners could feel at least saved from the sacrilegious act because contamination does not permit transubstantiation to occur. He did wish that the officers had been less aggressive within the house of the lord, but he did not condemn them for God will be their judge.

Jake and Max went to a bar that night got really drunk, and together comfortably admitted to each other that “some weird shit happens in this world.”

RC