Structure Of Prayer

Structure Of Prayer
Diego Maenza

”Christianity, from a priest and a nun, two stories crossed by the secret, by the suffering of not recognizing themselves in their ”sins”, in denying a reality that is telling them, more and more strongly, that they are weak before the acceptance of their wrong decisions. The characters are just mere figures placed in the plot to delve into a constant and disturbing message: someone is always on top of someone else; someone who sentences with ideas conditioned to their benefit”. ALEXIS CUZME, writer ” Structure of prayer is developed in an environment of religiosity and erudition, because in relation to the famous painting The Garden of Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch, the protagonist – who is a priest – interprets his own behavior and that of other human beings, from the beginning to the end of time”. VERÓNICA FALCONÍ, writer A priest tormented by his instincts. Is this a pointless fight against the devil or a test of the heavens? A pregnant novice. Is it a transgression of the rules or a miracle in times of skepticism? A parade of exalted characters who defend the foundations of doctrine, and others, from miserable existences, whose lives call into question the foundations that support theology. Narrated from different points of view and approached through formal and thematic daring, Structure of Prayer immerses us in dense dramas where the spiritual decomposition of each of the protagonists will shorten the space for redemption, which not all will reach. The theological virtues and the mysteries of faith merge to give rise to the extensive Way of the Cross that circulates throughout these pages through the seven capital sins that are presented in the form of a bestiary, with each demon as a symbol of excess: Asmodeus, lust; Belfegor, laziness; Beelzebub, gluttony; Amon, anger; Leviathan, revenge; Mammon, greed; and, Lucifer, pride. Despite the crudeness of its lines, this novel is a spiritual book.

Diego Maenza

Structure of Prayer

STRUCTURE OF PRAYER

DIEGO MAENZA

Translated by Omar Alberto Alarcón

© Tektime, 2020

© Diego Maenza, 2018

© Omar Alberto Alarcón, from translation, 2020

Original title in Spanish: “Estructura de la plegaria”

STRUCTURE OF PRAYER

PART ONE

ON BEHALF OF THE FATHER

SUNDAY

Light and darkness

Pater noster, qui es in caelis…

Darkness is the blindness of thoughts, it is the thunder of silence. Darkness is a plague that turns into dizziness, a caress of nothingness, a cold that pierces the bones, a bitterness that swallows with tears. Darkness is a condemnation to the fears of the past, an uncertainty to the calamities of the future, a nebula that compacts the senses. The darkness. And suddenly, my children, you can contemplate the world. I emerge to the vigil as if excreted from the abyss of the womb. I feel reborn though aware of the deception of my senses. I perceive my morning smell of liver stench adhering to my muzzles, impregnated in the pillow cloth or simply integrated into the atmosphere of the room. Meanwhile, the world remains there. I stand up and the glare coming through the window blinds me and forces me to cover my face. I have woken up from an uneasy sleep that my soul has endured not without shocks. I observe almost in amazement, as if it were the first time, the dryness of the walls of the room, the sadness that distills from its old cracks, the grey photos held in contrast in the colourful frames, the painting of a world enclosed in a glass bubble that may be a protection so that some external danger does not hurt the surface again, or it may remain as a containment so that the evils embedded in that devastated land do not germinate, so that no curious Pandora will ever uncover its stench again. In the background, behind the world, I observe once again the image of God. Closing my eyes, I pray. Beloved Father, deliver me from all sin, for yours is the kingdom of earth and heaven and your designs are pure and unquestionable, cleanse my soul from temptation and bless my day.

I get up and feel the bitterness of the wine established in my entrails, somewhere in my tissues. I slide into the bathroom where the mirror shows the sediments that stain my eyes and that I push away with my fingertips, making the process cause me a shudder. I shake my face with soap and water. The toothpaste rinses my mouth, which gives off the morning stench that I am used to. I excrete with pleasure and notice on the front of my underwear the accumulated splashes that give away the viscosity of the morning and almost daily substance of rare radiance. Oh, Lord, how beautiful and cruel dreams are. Inside a dream is the only space where I can show myself as I am.

*

The newspaper shows him the same news every time. But he is struck by a headline on the center page that shows the latest statements of the Holy Father. He reads the content printed in small letters and examines the full-color photo that has been placed next to the review. Adorned with a cape and leaning out, as is tradition, over the main balcony of the Saint's Basilica, he announced the eve of the major week. Father Misael, we say his name now, prays and prepares for mass.

*

I can't isolate that image. It's in me and it doesn't leave me. How much I suffer before the altar in the moments of this memory. How I bear that torment at the moment of spouting the worn-out slogans of each mass that the parishioners receive as new words. How much I resist seconds before God's blood and body purify me. And all because of that image. It is reticulated in me and dominates me, it is a curse arising from the underworld that bends my spirit, and I can only have recourse to the safeguard of the Almighty who illuminates my path.

*

Sitting at the table, putting aside one of the vegetable dishes, I consider that I have prepared an excessive lunch. I contemplate with undeserved attention the cleanliness of the furniture, of the floor, of the now dust-free shelf, of the imitation imperial porcelain that sparkles with an unusual brilliance and shows the naked cherubs with their pale spectral faces. Thomas, disciplined, blows from below, making an imitation of a greeting with his tail. The boy sips the orange juice that spills in drops from the corner of his mouth and smiles at his clumsiness. I only eat the salad and half a glass of the fruit juice and put aside the fish that I don't want, as I have put aside the rest of the food. My right eye has again secreted eye booger that I remove with modesty and a little annoyance, since the boy has directed a face of astonishment to me while commenting on some passages of the Bible. Thomas follows me into the kitchen with a martial step, imploring with his panting some satisfaction that will mitigate the emptiness of his stomach and prevent him from running his spit.

*

I'm going upstairs to the bedroom. I try to rest. It's no use. I return to the dream that weighs on me like a sysiphic rock that when I wake up I think has been discarded. The darkness. And suddenly the recurring image is shown, repeating itself over and over again as if I had my eyes inside a kaleidoscope whose refractions will take me at every moment to the only image without distortion. I pray to God that I may be spared this torment and that my spirit may rest from these shocks. Cyclopean ears split by the edge of a knife. It is the image and I know where it comes from. From my memories of the painting in my room, there is no doubt about it. From the permanent and never-tiring evening study that I often make when contemplating the painting every time I allow its doors to open. It is a bastard imitation, and almost ruined, of the great painter's famous triptych, which I paid for with my life's savings. We must admit that it is a futile object in comparison with the original, especially in art, despite being a faithful copy, of equal proportions. I contemplate the world. I allow the doors of the nuanced work to open on the oak board and I look at another parallel world: that of paradise, the garden and hell. I marvel as I do every evening. The painter's art is so flawless that I shudder even through a bad interpreter. I frequent the fresco in the evenings, exploring the gears of its constitution, trying to decipher the alchemy that brought about the now devastated paradise, the art of demiurge that forged hell, and pretending to know, because only by knowing are we in a position to reject, the path of perdition that leads to this Calvary.

*

I leave the dream with the aching body, with the slumber that blushes my flesh and incites me to sin. I have the feeling that I am no longer the same, that I want to escape into some kind of exile without worrying about carrying on my forehead the stigma that gives me away to men. To flee from God's gaze, so that his eyes no longer rest on me, and thus be able to satisfy my delusions. The sacrilegious thought comes to me every day. I pray that the devil will depart from me and I feel that God is reanimating me in faith, that he is taking Luzbel away from my flesh which is beginning to grow cold. And I pray, I cannot do anything else but beg the heavens to be able to escape the trap of my body, to appease the perfidies that I plot in my felony, to flee from the inclinations towards which my senses are tempted. I resort to some introversion that saves me, at least for the moment. I pray and prepare for mass.

*

The boy crosses in front of my door and stops for a moment, bending down, putting some damage in his slippers. His white pajamas make his flesh transparent and give his figure the appearance of a voluptuous ephebe. But in his face there is innocence, chastity. The artificial light makes her cheeks reverberate with a pale pink that flashes in the half-light of the entrance. He is completely unaware of his powers of seduction, of the dangerous attraction he produces in his wake. He stands up, looks into my room and in his eternal shyness tries to say goodbye to me with a bow that seems distant and annoying. With a gesture I encourage him to come closer. I give him a blessing and mark the imaginary sign of the cross over his eyes. I descend my hand almost transformed into a fist at the height of his mouth, seeing his lips caressing my fingers, contemplating his face close to me and succeeding in making a tremor invade me, since by the aspect of his features he resembles the face of an archangel. I take him by the shoulders and on this occasion I make the sign of the cross with four kisses that I implant on his forehead. I have no choice but to let him go and go to prayer.

*

Young Manuel has placed his trust in the words of Father Misael. Every evening, he invites him to pray the major prayer with him. He instructed him in the mystical art of prayer, the spiritual interiorization that, the priest claims, will purge his soul, leaving him absolved of all sin to become a purified child of God. And Manuel manifests his unconditional surrender. The reverend has imposed the dogma on him. He has shown him that faith is the most important thing to be saved and that one must trust in the designs, always inscrutable, of the Lord. And the boy believes him. Sometimes, when he kneels in front of the bed, the father stands right behind him and squeezes his hands next to the boy's. It's a reinforced prayer, he whispers in his ear. In this way God will hear us better, you as a son and me as a father, he mumbles to him each time, almost inaudibly, manifesting the secret that he does not want him to auscultate the small carved image of the macerated man of the cross that hangs over the head of the bed. On cold nights Manuel finds the company of that double prayer pleasant, but on hot days it seems unbearable, he cannot tolerate the firm, sticky body attached to his buttocks, the longing, warm breath expelled by his father in prayer, and the words of farewell when the doughy kiss on the back of his neck is sealed. But now, kneeling, resting his elbows on the mattress, the boy is praying before the effigy of the prophet and the father has not arrived.

*

I'm not getting up tonight. God has strengthened my faith. God is my shepherd, my guide, my light and my path. Hear my prayer and let it be strong, do not let it fall into the darkness of sin, O beloved God, O beloved Father.

*

What a horrible dream, for God's sake. Save me, Lord. Watch over me and protect me, Father. Watch over me, Lord. What a horrible dream. Help me, Lord, I implore you. I will not sink back into the satisfactions of sin. I swear it. Because I can't stand this darkness. My eyes can't stand this darkness. I walk, I grope my bed, less warm without my body. I feel the wardrobe, hard as the blackness that suffocates me. I can't find the way out that will take me to the light, Lord, lead me to that escape. Don't let my foot stumble again. I feel a wall as cold as my hands, frozen in the cold. Guide me, Lord. In vain I continue to cry out. This house is so sad and so lonely and so big that Father Misael can't hear me. Nevertheless, you Lord, beloved Father, who hears the cries of all your children, guide my legs, welcome them into your light, bring me out of this darkness and I promise to be faithful to the end of my days. I promise to offer up my faith every morning. I promise to do the penances of your divine command. I trust in you, Lord, beloved Father. Your word will be a lamp to my foot and a light to my path. I know, Lord, I trust in you completely. Lead me into the light. Lead me to your light.

*

The door opens and the boy, barefoot, calls to his father's room. He has had to cross the long purgatory of the corridor that separates the rooms as if it were the endless threshold between hell and paradise.

*

And she comes to me with her teeth shaking and chattering, icy, ghostly.

I had a horrible dream, Father. I dreamt of a puppet in the teeth of a huge beast. The freak was to be feared. It had enormous red eyes and it looked at me while it held me in its mouth because that puppet was no other than me. How it looked at me. It snorted like a bull and its slime was very liquid and fell down sticky, disgusting. Everything was dark. But his eyes, oh God, his horrible eyes.

"Come in, beloved son," I say. And I welcome him into my bed, and I smile within me at his childish fear of the dark.

*

Come in, young man. Enter, triumphant in your Jerusalem, where you are acclaimed.

*

One more night Father Misael will not be able to fall asleep, while leaning out of the window, with the boy asleep on his bed, he wishes only for a glass of wine, not the sacred chalice that metamorphoses into the blood of the Lord but the one that palliate the contained nerves and the repressed desire to be another. Below the city sleeps. In the distance it sees no window with light and realizes that his sleeplessness is infinite, that it cannot be compared to anyone else's. It is a solitude without end or interval. He recognizes the fact that he has no one like him. The world would not understand. It will not understand. God, in His infinite wisdom and with His omnipresent gaze, would not understand. It will not understand.

MONDAY

Prayer and blasphemy

…sanctificetur nomen tuum