This photo of red maple leaves was my Christmas present to Father Mike in 1984, the year he first propositioned me.

 Incest is a terrible crime that severely traumatizes the victim for years if not for life.  The essential element is breach of trust.  A trusted person, whether parent, older sibling, member of the extended family, surrogate parent, religious authority figure, or therapist uses his or her superior role to force inappropriate sexual behavior on an infant, child or client.  The messages the victim receives are "your body belongs to me not you" and "you have no right to your feelings" and "might makes right".  Usually secrecy, coercion, and fear play important roles in the incestuous relationship.  Victims are threatened, "If you tell, something terrible will happen to you, to me, or to other family members."  A few incest victims murder.  Some attempt or succeed at suicide.  Most spend years in denial, depression, or both.  Often by the time the victim is able to remember the incest, the perpetrator is dead.  If the perpetrator is still alive, confrontation is seldom advisable;  the response may be denial or further victimization.  Almost never is the victim's reality validated or forgiveness sought.  Restitution is extremely rare.  It is, therefore, with great pleasure that I am able to share with you this  true story of incest which has a happy ending!

 During the spring of 1984, I went to Father Mike several times for counseling.  He had shared with me he was an alcoholic.  I was working on issues from my alcoholic childhood.  One evening as we sat in his office, he said to me, "I would really like to go to bed with you, but I think it would destroy  us both".  I was shocked!  I had  trusted him to be a safe adult with whom I could share the woundedness of my childhood.  At the emotional age of three, I was uninterested in a sexual relationship!  He had said he would hug me in the Confessional and in his office, but not in public;  he had told me not to tell his brother Priests that he hugged me, as if there were something shameful about hugging someone!  I was hurt and confused.  I knew what he had said to me was inappropriate.  I was codependent enough to fall into the trap of believing that I should "protect his anonymity" by not telling anyone.

 I did discuss what he had said with a friend who was a professional counselor and an inactive Priest.  He confirmed that Father Mike's words had been most inappropriate.  I went to Father Mike and confronted him.  All I remember of that meeting was his silence.  A week later he signed himself into treatment for his alcoholism.  When he returned, he would walk past me without looking at me or speaking.  I was experiencing disrupted sleep patterns. This went on for months. Finally, I asked to see him.

 When I asked him about his behavior, he said that he was not supposed to counsel me any more.  When I asked why he hadn't told me, he said he was afraid he would hurt me.

 During the months that followed, I was unsuccessful at relating to him simply as my parish Priest.  I asked him to celebrate Eucharist for a special occasion;  he was rudely abrupt.  I felt deeply hurt and made sure we did not see each other at all for the next few months.  When I finally tried to talk to him about it, he claimed it was all a misunderstanding.  I asked if I might give him as a Christmas gift a photo I had taken;  he accepted and promised to offer his Midnight Mass for me.   I was overwhelmed that a Catholic Priest would offer his Midnight Mass for me.   I was emotionally enmeshed.  I asked him to celebrate Eucharist for my birthday.  He suggested he come to my house for a private celebration with just the two of us.   He did, but his conversation and behavior were quite stilted.  Later he admitted to me that he had intended to have sex with me that evening!  We tried having no personal communication.  When I went to him to tell him I felt insulted by the fact that he was treating me as a sex object and that I wanted to have a spiritual friendship with him, he propositioned me a second time!

 The words the second time were, "Sometimes I think we could be friends if only we went to bed together.  You know.  You could say, 'I'll be home this afternoon at 2:00,' and I could come on over."  I turned down his offer in spite of my strong desire to be friends!  I lived in denial for the next nine months.   I spent the summer meditating three hours a day.  At the end of the summer when someone said to me, "That man propositioned  you," the scales fell from my eyes.  I felt anger.  I tried to confront him, but he was too frightened to see me.  I experienced powerlessness.  I spent several weeks battling suicidal thoughts.  Early one morning I called my counselor telling her I was unable to get out of bed.  She said, "Mary, a three year old cannot seduce an adult."  I knew she was  right and that I had been emotionally three years old when he'd propositioned me.  The world tilted back into place!  I discovered Terry Kellogg's article "The Healing Power of Forgiveness" and began the process of learning how to forgive.  I spent two weeks at Christmas meditating three hours a day.  It was just about a year after he had propositioned me the second time that Father Mike was able to say to me, "I am sorry for all the ways I have hurt you," but he was still drinking and once again signed himself into treatment.

 For the next year and a half, each of us was busy with our own inner work.  Once he had a year's sobriety, he stopped trying to avoid me saying that he was available when I needed to talk about what had happened.  Because he is a very gifted Confessor, I prayed for the miracle that we might resume our Confessor-Penitent relationship; God answered my prayers. During the summer of 1988, aided by the fact that I was again meditating three hours a day, I wrote THE TRILOGY, putting on paper for the first time what had transpired between us.   In Part One, "Mimi Grows Up," I hinted.  In Part Two, "The Meeting," I disguised.  By Part Three, "Thanksgiving," I was able to state plainly! I shared each part as I wrote it.  By the end of the summer Father Mike celebrated Eucharist  thanking God for all the healing that each of us had experienced and for all those who had been praying for us. This act was an admission of guilt, a sign of his sorrow, and an act of reparation.  It brought me great peace, but we were not quite finished.  In another year each of us had grown enough that he was able to say to me the words, "I am sorry I propositioned you" and also to express sorrow for all the times he had not been honest with me.  We have spent the past several months struggling for mastery of  our respective goals of honesty and detachment. With  some measure of these, we are at last parting spiritual friends.  The  details of the parting are in my memoir "ADIOS."
 
 

 On Easter Sunday I promised chocolate to God in thanksgiving for all the healing God has done in me and in Father Mike, in thanksgiving for the fact that we have been Eucharist to each other, and as a prayer that, as we part, we might be Eucharist to all those whom God will send into our lives.

 On Holy Saturday I had left a stole I'd made for Father Mike in his mailbox. When we greeted each other after Eucharist on Easter, he wished me peace and joy.   He did not mention the stole.  That night I called him and asked, "Do you know I love you?"

 He replied, "Yes."

 "How do you know?" I pressed.

 "From the things you say and from your gifts,"  was his response.

 "On a scale of one to ten, how much do you think I love you?" I risked.

 "A nine," was his reply.

 "Thank you!" After some moments I added, "Did you find the stole?"
 

 "Yes."
 "Will you take it with you to San Francisco?"

 "Perhaps." Then after a few seconds he added, "It is already in my suitcase.   Thank you for the stole and for the Easter card."

 "I gave you another gift at Eucharist today you don't know about yet," I said.  Then I told him about the chocolate.  He did not say "Thank you".

 When Father Mike returned from San Francisco, he found a note from me which repeated my gift of chocolate. This man, who in six years had not even sent me a Christmas or birthday card, when he sat down to talk, said, "I brought you a present!  You may hate me.  I brought you a box of Ghirardelli chocolates.  I know you like chocolate."

 After a long pause, I responded, "Thank you.  Since I won't be eating them, I'll have them for a long time!"

 The following week Father Mike came to dinner at my house, the first time he had visited me in five years.  He brought the box of chocolates.  "If you change your mind, you will have some good chocolate to eat," was his comment as he placed the box on the altar in my meditation room at my request.

 The next day I sent him a message, "I promised God that I will not again eat chocolate as a prayer for you.  I made this promise during the offertory of Eucharist. I put it in writing and gave this to a Priest. If I wanted to find a Canon Lawyer somewhere to dispense me from my vow, I suppose I could, but I can't imagine why I would want to! When we sit across the heavenly banquet table from each other, someone will come up behind you and whisper in your ear, 'Mary never ate chocolate after the Easter of 1990. She offered it to God as a prayer for you.'   You will look at me and say 'Thank you.' I'll smile back, 'You are very welcome!'"

 As we sat talking a few days later I blurted out, "You have been a priceless gift to me!"

 "And you to me!" was his heartfelt response.

 On the morning of the Monday before he left, I delivered a bouquet of roses for his breakfast table on my way to Eucharist.  At noon I asked to see him for the last time.   We sat in his office.  "You haven't thanked me for my gift of chocolate," I remarked.

 "No," he confirmed.

 "Do you appreciate it?" I inquired.

 "Yes," he responded.

 "It is enough!" I said, gesturing "It is finished!"

 We proceeded to the Reconciliation Room, where we had met.  I knelt before him and shared Psalm 63.  I confessed my failures to love and to be patient.   I confessed my pride.   He shared some wisdom from his own struggles.  He asked me to say for my penance an Our Father focusing especially on the words "hallowed by Thy Name" as an act of thanksgiving.  Then he placed his hands on my head and prayed the words of absolution over me.  We stood  and hugged for the last time.  Tears were close.  I daubed my eyes with my finger.  I kissed my finger tips.  Anointing with tears and the kiss, I traced a cross on his forehead.  "Thank you for everything," he said.

 I knew  he did not want to hear "Good-by."  "Have a good day," I said, utilizing the words he had used so many times to assure me of God's and his love and care.  I turned and walked out.   Late Tuesday night I left a chocolate muffin in a plastic bag tied to the handle of the truck he had loaded with all the things he was taking to his new assignment.  I also stuck one last holy card in the window.

 On my way to Eucharist Wednesday morning, I noticed that the truck was not gone, although the muffin and holy card were.   I had picked two roses from my garden to take to school.    I left one of these in the door handle of the truck, and I got out a permanent marking pen.  I wrote "I am loved."  on the large side view mirror where he would see it every time he looked out the window!  Then I went into church and sat by the gifts.  At the offertory I carried the bread to the altar with the silent prayer, "Abba, I give Father Mike back to You."

N.B. On May 25, 1990, Father Mike wrote the first letter I'd ever received from him.  He began, "I feel I owe you an apology for not saying good-by to you."  Our good-by was one of the best things  we had done in six years, and he was apologizing for it!!!!!! I  struggled to forgive him. Then I made the mistake of writing to tell him I had.
 When he visited Albuquerque during February of  1991, he took me out to dinner and we spent several hours talking.