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Re: New Parochial Vicar Placement - Saint Sebastian's Parish
From: Fr. Blanco <[email protected]>
Hello, Fr. Modric!
This email is regarding a new priest assignment at your parish. Father Sergio Ramos, ordained on 4 July 2017, is to start his new life dedicated as a man to the lord at your parish, Saint Sebastian.
Fr. Ramos will join your congregation on 10 August 2017; please have a room in the sacristy ready by then. The following Sunday, he will have his first Mass at St. Sebastian’s.
We, here at the Archdiocese of Madrid, hope and pray that he becomes a key part of your parish community as he transitions into this new time of his life.
Paz y bien.
Fr. Blanco, secretary to His Excellency the Archbishop Perez.
Luka often thought back to his childhood in Croatia, sitting with his family in the pews as he watched the priest lift the host high into the air and announce to the congregation, “For this is my body which will be given up for you. Do this in memory of me.” He could remember watching the priest at the altar and realizing that was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
Now, at 41, a not-at-all-seasoned priest, he wanted to smack his younger self's head. Being a priest wasn't about celebrating Mass, which was always beautiful, or socializing with his parishioners; no, it was mainly paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork.
As a Deacon, he realized how repetitive his life would be, and at the time he was fine with it; wasn't that why he joined the priesthood in the first place? But now, all he wanted was a small bit of action in his life. Maybe a phone call from the Nuncio telling him he's going to be a bishop! Instead, he opened his email to find news that he was to babysit a new priest. God, what had he done in his life to deserve such a punishment?
Luka checked his computer; the date was 5 August, and the baby priest was coming in roughly a week. Ugh, he slumped in his office chair, the leather squeaking as he slid down. Seriously, what is God up to? He corrected his posture and typed into his search bar, “Sergio Ramos Archdiocese of Madrid”
He scrolled through the results until he found an interview dated a week before Ramos’ ordination.
“Never thought I was going to be a priest,” Said Deacon Ramos, who is to be ordained next week, “as a child all I would think about was football and horses, nothing else. It wasn't until I was at university studying global history and I took a theology course that I realized what I truly wanted in my life, and that was God.” Deacon Ramos went on to say, “I can still remember my parents' faces when I told them I was going to seminary; they were shocked but so supportive! My mother cried when I left; her baby was going to be a father to many; must've hit her hard.”
Luka stopped reading and decided to scroll the rest of the page; he landed on a photo of Fr. Ramos. He was in his collar, smiling into the camera. Much to Luka’s dismay, he was unfortunately attractive, a complete and utter Father-What-A-Waste, and he definitely knew it.
You see, Luka wasn't stupid; he was obviously attracted to men. That wasn't the problem here; rather, he hadn't felt seriously attracted to any men in a long while. This, he realized, was going to be a long 5 days.
The week passed rather uneventfully; he focused most of his energy on his parish. Celebrating masses, baptizing babies, marrying people, and the inevitable funeral every once in a while. Not to mention the numerous emails he had both sent out and received regarding Fr. Ramos. In between all of this, he had managed to clean out the other room in the rectory, which had previously served as storage, so now Luka had to move all this crap to a new room. Unfortunately, that meant the already cramped storage room right next to the sacristy was now packed and could not fit anything more than a needle.
As the 10th of August finally made itself known, Luka woke up with an overwhelming sense of dread. How was he supposed to teach the ropes to someone barely younger than him, yes 30 is hardly young in contrast to 41. Shut up. He quickly knelt at the foot of his bed and began to pray, “Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus, while before Your face I humbly kneel and,
with burning soul, pray and beseech You to fix deep in my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope, and charity; true contrition for my sins, and a firm purpose of amendment. While I contemplate, with great love and tender pity, Your five most precious wounds, pondering over them within me and calling to mind the words which David, Your prophet, said to You, my Jesus: "They have pierced My hands and My feet, they have numbered all My bones." Amen.”
His knees popped as he got up and started his day, brushing his teeth and then showering. As he stared at himself in his foggy mirror, he made notice of his wet hair, which clung to his head as though it was shrink-wrapped on. Groaning, he realized how vain he must sound and continued his routine. He ran to the church 15 minutes before Mass and was met with Deacon Casillas already vested, bossing around the altar servers.
“Iker,” Luka called, “Did you get the email?”
The taller man turned around, his green and gold vestments flowing along with him. “Yeah, about the new parochial vicar?” Iker looked at him knowingly; they had been friends since Luka was first assigned to Saint Sebastian’s and Iker was in Permanent Deaconate formation. Needless to say, he's seen him at his worst and best; Iker knows him better than anyone on this earth.
Luka sighed, “What's with that face?”
“You're overthinking this,” Iker said matter-of-factly. “Do you even have his room made up? Because I can help you after this Mass.”
He cut him off. “No, Iker, I already have the room cleaned; it's nothing.”
The other man just hummed knowingly and turned his attention back to the altar servers who were currently trying, and failing, to open the wine bottle for Mass.
Luka began to vest, muttering the prayers associated with each cloth he placed upon himself under his breath before he walked to the middle of the sacristy, signaling that Mass was about to start. He led the altar servers and Iker in prayer before they processed out. Luka stayed behind for a small moment, a habit even when he was a Deacon, to take a deep breath in and out. Calming his nerves so that all he could focus on was God.
The Mass flew by; all the jokes he wrote in his homily hit, his hands didn't shake while distributing communion; none of the newer altar servers did anything stupid, and nothing went disastrously wrong, so Luka felt as though all he wanted to do was walk into the forest, find a cave, and die there alone.
Luka stood outside St. Sebastian, talking to each person who came up to him and thanking them for attending Mass. He wasn't stupid; attendance was dropping, and there wasn't much he could do about it. The families that came to St. Sebastian stayed here, and he was fine with that, although he was always excited to see a new face; he never bet on them being there forever.
He looked down and checked his watch as soon as he made it back into the sacristy, shit, Fr. Ramos comes in 30 minutes. Luka quickly devests and runs to the rectory as fast as he can in loafers.
He cannot have Fr. Ramos’ future room look a mess. Luka knew it really wasn't messy, but whenever he meets someone new, he feels the need to make a perfect impression.
Panting, Luka opens up the door, ignoring how it was already unlocked. He stormed upstairs, turned his head right and-
“Hello,” a shocking low-pitched voice said, “I assume you're Fr. Modric?”
Luka turned his head slowly to meet the man he had been stressing about for about a week.
“Fr. Ramos, Hello.”
He gave him a curt nod in reply, eyes drifting across the younger man's frame. He was quite tall, with a strong jaw and a nose that had clearly been broken before. Father Ramos was, undeniably, more attractive in person than whatever the diocese’s newspaper photographer had captured.
This was not good.