When I found out you had been raised Catholic too, I felt a strange glee rise in my chest. Strange because I did not enjoy being raised Catholic, and strange because the Church would never bless us together. I sustained years of emotional abuse in Catholic school, resulting in a rat’s nest of religious trauma. And yet, knowing that you too had toiled in Masses that never seemed to end on odd Sundays throughout the year, that maybe you groaned at each genuflection and your stomach had growled for the Body of Christ because breakfast had been early and lunch was still far away, it made me feel even more at ease with you. We are the same, I thought to myself.
You said that you pray on every flight you board, but discreetly. You don’t want anyone else to see. It is just a minuscule motion to the Heavens, a silent request for divine protection. I don’t pray anymore—at least not to the God I was baptized for. Cards and constellations have replaced my rosary beads and kiddie Bible. Words to an unnamed Goddess have spoken over my previous acts of contrition. But prayer is prayer, I suppose. And knowing that you pray too… it makes me happy.
On Sunday mornings, we often wake up together at a time that Mass would be just beginning. Our Sunday best is often naked skin. Sometimes an XXL t-shirt, sometimes just socks. There are no stained glass windows, just the milky morning light that strains to reach us through my blinds. There are no liturgies, no readings from the Gospel, but there are stories we exchange and laugh over, stories that feel like sacred texts to me. There is no prayer in this church, just the whispering of affections. There is no Eucharist, just your Body pressed to mine, certainly holier than a wafer of bread.
Ava O’Malley is a rising senior at DePaul double majoring in journalism and Spanish. She has been writing all her life, and has a special affection for poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Other works of her writing can be found @moonrisign on Instagram.