When a priest has shown suspicious footage by his Superior, he is surprised to find out that a camera has been watching his every step inside the church. But the truth of what he has been doing with a young nun shocks everyone....CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
Father George could hardly remember when was the last time he felt so sad. He had devoted his life to the parish and his faith, but what happened to this respected institution had left a permanent taint on the image of his faith and the priesthood.
The small town he had spent his last year guiding and loving had become the target of burglaries and thefts that hadn’t even spared the church. When he discovered that the criminals had stolen all the offerings from the vicarage, Father George had decided to install several security cameras on the premises.
He wanted to protect the money that would be donated to the less fortunate in the community, but also safeguard the nuns and priests who lived and worked in the church.
Thankfully, Father George knew a man named Frank Murillo who worked for a security company. Murillo did a thorough and discreet job, and Father George finally felt safe again in the house of the Lord.
However, he decided not to tell his fellow priests and nuns about the cameras inside the church and only shared that he had installed one device inside the vicarage to keep an eye on their belongings.
He didn’t want them to feel watched while they prayed or found comfort in the Lord’s presence. And since the footage would only be watched in the event of another burglary, he thought it superfluous to mention that there were cameras at all.
They all seemed glad to receive the news. Among the most grateful was a young priest named Emilio. Father George tried not to show preferences, but from the moment the two men met, he felt a special affection for this young man. Maybe it was because he saw so much of himself in Emilio.
His mix of eternal optimism with an untamed wild spirit was a challenging profile to mold into the profile of a priest, but he could see that the boy was eager to learn and serve the community. And perhaps one day, he would.
Father George had been at this parish all his life and vowed to remain a servant there to the day of his death. But his strength was waning, and he knew he had to train somebody to take his place. The congregation needed new blood, and even the old priest realized that the younger generation needed a new approach to faith.
With dwindling numbers of people attending services, the battle between a life of faith and the pleasures of the world was never more real than at this present time. And right now, Emilio seemed the perfect candidate to replace him and bring forth the challenge.
The arrival of Emilio coincided with the arrival of a group of new nuns. Among the group was a beautiful girl named Eliza. Father George felt a strong urge to protect this girl even before he knew anything about her story.
It took quite a while for Eliza to establish some trust, but in the end, she confided in him. Behind the bright eyes and the shy smile was a girl who grew up in a violent home.
Her father was a harsh man who understood very little about the role he was supposed to play in both his marriage and his children’s lives.
The atmosphere at home was characterized by anger directed at whoever person was in his pathway. Eliza’s mother took the brunt of his anger until the day she packed a suitcase and simply disappeared into thin air.
With her mother gone, Eliza became the object of her father’s anger and disapproval. Although she was supposed to be a carefree young girl, she had to run the household and look after her younger siblings.
But when her father simply stopped showing up at home after his work days, a group of social workers knocked on her door and placed both her and her siblings in foster care. Given the substantial age difference between them, she ended up leaving the system before them. She was all alone with no one to protect or guide her.
Eliza would have become a classic case of a rebellious teenager if it wasn’t for the timely intervention of a school teacher named Miss Lizzy.
This woman took her under her wing and invited her to church. Although her foster family had done their best to look after the girl’s physical needs, they didn’t have the capacity to deal with her emotional world and her broken heart. Miss Lizzy, on the other hand, became a safe place against the storms of the world.
Miss Lizzy never married and was quite devoted to her faith. It was her love for the church and the worship music that planted the seed for Eliza’s decision to become a nun. She had very little trust in men, but somehow she was able to build a relationship with her Creator.
Father George was the first man in whom Eliza had found any kind of father figure. As this wise parishioner played a pivotal role in both Emilio and Eliza’s lives, it was inevitable that these two young, vulnerable people would start spending time in each other’s company.
Fortunately, Father George could keep a watchful eye on the young ones and guide them in the principles of a life devoted to God and God alone. Maybe it was the fact that Father George was too close to the situation that blinded his eyes to the truth.
Maybe it was his deep love for the two young people that made him ignore the signs. Whatever the reason, it still came as a huge shock when he was confronted with a truth he most probably hoped he would never have to face.
The security company that monitored the camera footage on the premises of the church was owned by Frank Murillo. Frank and Father George were old-time friends, and the preacher had very few people he could trust so unconditionally.
When Father George visited the Murillo household, he and his wife, Lillian, allowed this man of the cloth to relax for a brief moment in time and just be a human being with vulnerability and deep personal emotions.
When Frank phoned Father George that fateful morning, it was clear that there was distress in his voice. He had to urgently meet with the respected parishioner, but he asked that they meet at the offices of the security company to watch some footage together.
Father George was surprised. There had been no burglary recently, and everything seemed in order. But Frank insisted that what he had seen on the camera footage of the church was disturbing and could cause serious damage to the faith and the congregation.
It was with fear and a heavy heart that Father George drove the distance to town. He knew it had to be serious if Frank could not speak over the phone.
Deep down, he wondered if the cameras had caught the face of something he deeply cared for who was involved in some kind of sinister behavior. Father George knew that it would bring him nowhere to speculate, yet he had no way of stopping his mind from running through potential scenarios.
Frank asked his dear friend to sit down and close the door of his office. He even let down the blinds to make sure that the conversation they were about to have was completely private.
There, in the safety of his business, Frank warned Father George that what he was about to witness would most probably leave him devastated and distraught.
Frank had carefully compiled a single video containing clips of movement in the church over the span of about 2 months. Although there was always a very small chance of the footage being interpreted wrongly, there was hardly any doubt about what had been going on in the church when the priest wasn’t looking.
What was most disturbing was that Father George had no idea of the situation. Had he been a little more alert, he might have picked up on the warning signs, and all of this could have been avoided. As Father George drove back to the parish, tears streamed down his cheeks.
He felt a mix of emotions. On the one hand, he felt responsible for what had happened. On the other hand, he felt cheated and mad. But there was also the strange emotion of relief. He could hardly explain. Had his subconscious mind known all along but simply prevented him from confronting the truth?
When Father George drove into the churchyard, Emilia was standing near the gates and waved in greeting with a solemn expression. Father George told him to go wait in the church office. Emilia bowed his head and walked silently to where he was instructed.
That was the most difficult conversation Father George had in his life. There was no denying what he had seen, but he still asked Emilia if what the camera footage revealed was the truth.
With a head hung low, Emilia confessed the sinning. But before he could elaborate, Father George roared at him to leave the premises. He couldn’t believe that his beloved disciple had betrayed him in such a scandalous way.
The conditions for not expelling Emilio from the church were clear: he had to leave immediately without saying goodbye to anybody. He would be transferred to a faraway congregation and forbidden to ever again make any contact with anybody from this parish.
Emilio had no choice but to accept the terms. He was heartbroken to lose his mentor and father figure, but he knew he had made a mistake and was willing to pay the price. Emilio packed his bags and booked a hotel in town to spend the night.
Father George was devastated, but now wasn’t the time to think about how he was feeling. There was another person who had become entangled in all this mess, and he didn’t know what to do about that.
After much consideration, he decided to have a word with Sister Agnes. She was responsible for the nuns in the parish and would know what to do better than him.
The conversation with Sister Agnes was a difficult one, but Father George left it to the nuns to deal with the situation. When Eliza woke up the next morning, she was summoned into Sister Agnes’s office and asked to explain why she and Emilio had been sneaking off the church premises in the middle of the night multiple times a week.
Instead of praying and studying like they were supposed to, they had also been seen entering her bedroom together. Sister Agnes explained that Emilio had been sent far away and that she was debating whether to do the same with her. But first, she wanted the truth.
Eliza almost fainted when she heard that Emilio had left. She burst out crying when she realized that he had taken the brunt of their punishment to protect their little secret and begged Sister Agnes to reconsider.
And when she finally told the nun the whole truth, Sister Agnes couldn’t help but burst into a barking laugh. The nun called Father George into her office and had Eliza tell her version of the story once again.
When Father George understood that he had been terribly mistaken, he jumped into his car and rushed to the hotel Emilio was staying at. The poor priest didn’t deserve one ounce of the punishment he had been inflicted.
What Eliza had revealed didn’t match what he had suspected. It turned out that the two youngsters had indeed been sneaking out at night, but to go see some live musicians perform at a local bar in town.
They played heavy metal music, and somehow Eliza had grown fascinated by the genre so much so that she was neglecting her prayers at night. The education she had received so far had convinced her that she was sinning simply by listening to it.
She had confided in Emilio, and he had proved to her that what she was doing was harmless by going with her to the bar. And after those nights out, they would lock themselves in Eliza’s room to listen to some more music, unaware of the cameras watching their every move.
Emilio knew these behaviors were not worthy of a punishment, but he had preferred to protect his friend’s silence anyway. Eliza had already been betrayed by an important man in her life, and he wouldn’t be the second. Father George apologized profusely to him.
The boy was sweet and caring and exactly the person he would want to lead his parish one day. For the time being, they would work on telling apart sinful behaviors from slightly odd passions.
The following night, Father George joined both Emilio and Eliza at the bar, and all three of them sang together to the music she loved so much. What a shocking misunderstanding! Did Father George make the right decision..<<CONTINUE READING>>
