Murder in the Irish Channel (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) by Greg Herren Page B
Authors: Greg Herren
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them. They swung open without a problem, and I walked into the darkened church.
I’d never really set foot in a Catholic church besides St. Louis Cathedral before—I hadn’t set foot in a church of any kind since I’d left Cottonwood Wells, the little town in east Texas I grew up in, for LSU when I was eighteen. St. Anselm’s wasn’t as majestic as St. Louis; but then I doubted any church in New Orleans could compete with St. Louis. St. Louis was so magnificent it hardly registered in my mind as a church—particularly when compared to the Church of Christ I’d endured growing up.
There was a weird sense of peace and serenity inside St. Anselm’s, and as my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom I noticed at the far end of the church there were candles burning on the altar and there were several people seated in the front pews.
I walked up the aisle toward the altar, trying to process the calm. On the occasions when I’d been inside the Church of Christ when there was no service going on, it just seemed like a big empty room. It didn’t feel holy—not that it ever felt particularly holy to me during services, when the preacher was screaming about sin and fire and brimstone. Everything was a sin—makeup, skirts above the knee, being naked in front of another human you weren’t married to, mixed swimming, television—it seemed like every Sunday the preacher in our church condemned another function of modern life as a sin in the eyes of an angry God. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I began to really notice the hypocrisy. There was no way, for example, I could play football without being naked in front of another human being I wasn’t married to—but football trumped sin. My parents didn’t forbid my sister from wearing makeup, her cheerleading uniform certainly didn’t reach below her knees, and some of the moves she was required to do as a cheerleader certainly incited lust in teenaged boys—and in some adult men who shouldn’t have been looking.
Once I left Cottonwood Wells for LSU, I never set foot in another Church of Christ.
But then, the Church of Christ didn’t have enormous stained-glass windows on both sides of the building depicting incredibly gory and violent deaths of saints. The bright sunlight streaming through the windows and spilling over the pews was colored brilliant hues of yellow, green, blue, and red. And of course no Church of Christ had an organ, and certainly there would be no enormous cross with a bloodied and suffering Jesus on it behind the altar. The Church of Christ didn’t go in for such nonsense; while they did adorn their bare chapels with a cross, it was always a big metal one—and there was never a leanly muscled man in a loincloth with a crown of thorns on his head hanging from it.
That was idolatry, specifically prohibited in the Old Testament.
Funny how you never really get away from religion ,I thought as I walked up the aisle.
Between the windows were marble statues of what I assumed must be saints, with their heads bowed over hands clasped together in prayer.
How do people find comfort from such a horrible sight? I wondered as I drew closer to the front and could see how exquisitely detailed Christ’s passion was depicted. The eyes were so incredibly mournful, pained, and sad as they looked up to heaven. The muscles stood out in agonized relief. The sword wound in his side dripped blood.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
“May I help you?” a female voice asked quietly from the gloom to my right.
I turned; I’d reached the steps of the altar without realizing it. The woman who’d spoken was smiling at me. She was very short, maybe five foot tall or so. She looked to be in her late fifties, with graying hair that hung to the shoulders of her purple LSU sweatshirt. She was round, with a moon face and very kind eyes. Her hands were folded in front of her, and she exuded an aura of peace and calm that was hard to resist.
I cleared my throat,
I’d never really set foot in a Catholic church besides St. Louis Cathedral before—I hadn’t set foot in a church of any kind since I’d left Cottonwood Wells, the little town in east Texas I grew up in, for LSU when I was eighteen. St. Anselm’s wasn’t as majestic as St. Louis; but then I doubted any church in New Orleans could compete with St. Louis. St. Louis was so magnificent it hardly registered in my mind as a church—particularly when compared to the Church of Christ I’d endured growing up.
There was a weird sense of peace and serenity inside St. Anselm’s, and as my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom I noticed at the far end of the church there were candles burning on the altar and there were several people seated in the front pews.
I walked up the aisle toward the altar, trying to process the calm. On the occasions when I’d been inside the Church of Christ when there was no service going on, it just seemed like a big empty room. It didn’t feel holy—not that it ever felt particularly holy to me during services, when the preacher was screaming about sin and fire and brimstone. Everything was a sin—makeup, skirts above the knee, being naked in front of another human you weren’t married to, mixed swimming, television—it seemed like every Sunday the preacher in our church condemned another function of modern life as a sin in the eyes of an angry God. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I began to really notice the hypocrisy. There was no way, for example, I could play football without being naked in front of another human being I wasn’t married to—but football trumped sin. My parents didn’t forbid my sister from wearing makeup, her cheerleading uniform certainly didn’t reach below her knees, and some of the moves she was required to do as a cheerleader certainly incited lust in teenaged boys—and in some adult men who shouldn’t have been looking.
Once I left Cottonwood Wells for LSU, I never set foot in another Church of Christ.
But then, the Church of Christ didn’t have enormous stained-glass windows on both sides of the building depicting incredibly gory and violent deaths of saints. The bright sunlight streaming through the windows and spilling over the pews was colored brilliant hues of yellow, green, blue, and red. And of course no Church of Christ had an organ, and certainly there would be no enormous cross with a bloodied and suffering Jesus on it behind the altar. The Church of Christ didn’t go in for such nonsense; while they did adorn their bare chapels with a cross, it was always a big metal one—and there was never a leanly muscled man in a loincloth with a crown of thorns on his head hanging from it.
That was idolatry, specifically prohibited in the Old Testament.
Funny how you never really get away from religion ,I thought as I walked up the aisle.
Between the windows were marble statues of what I assumed must be saints, with their heads bowed over hands clasped together in prayer.
How do people find comfort from such a horrible sight? I wondered as I drew closer to the front and could see how exquisitely detailed Christ’s passion was depicted. The eyes were so incredibly mournful, pained, and sad as they looked up to heaven. The muscles stood out in agonized relief. The sword wound in his side dripped blood.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
“May I help you?” a female voice asked quietly from the gloom to my right.
I turned; I’d reached the steps of the altar without realizing it. The woman who’d spoken was smiling at me. She was very short, maybe five foot tall or so. She looked to be in her late fifties, with graying hair that hung to the shoulders of her purple LSU sweatshirt. She was round, with a moon face and very kind eyes. Her hands were folded in front of her, and she exuded an aura of peace and calm that was hard to resist.
I cleared my throat,
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