Poem: Papal Mass Confessions
by Father Frank R. Desiderio, CSP
November 17, 2015

The plastic marble lobby of Madison Square Garden
on the other side of the metal detectors
the line of those seeking to be shriven
doesn’t diminish for four hours.
Tubular steel rails define the aisles
of the ticket windows, now make-shift
confessionals; two folding chairs
with blue stuffed seats facing each other.
The crowd a constant stream, eddies of friends,
security guards directing them up the ramp
with Frank Sinatra on the muzak
and bomb dogs barking.
Each penitent places the chair for personal space
some as intimate as a bed,
others keep their distance with a crossed leg
some as animated as a parade,
others blank faced waiting for direction
to get out the sludge in their souls.
“It’s been a week” or “42 years
since my last confession,
you’ll have to help.”
“… divorce,”
her pain from the ground up.
“… cheated,”
and he’s going to do it again.
“… hate”
a guilty whisper.
Acts of contrition in English and Spanish,
Vietnamese and Polish, rote or spontaneous
or read from the paper I give them.
My eyes wander the crowd, distracted by
a little black summer dress and spiked heel,
racy for Mass
a college kid in a designer suit
too straight laced for this pope,
t-shirts and flags and homemade banners.
Cameras the size of canons and selfphones
snapping pictures of people being shriven.
Through this murk of venial weakness
runs an amber vein of grace.

Frank Desiderio, CSP
September 25, 2015