A wealthy businessman in our small town was known for two things: generous donations to the church and a wandering eye. One Sunday morning he hurried into the confessional, nervous and sweating. Father, I think I have sinned badly, he whispered. The old priest sighed. With you, my son, that usually means very badly. What the priest said next became the talk of the whole parish.
PART 1 — TWO THINGS ABOUT HOWARD
Everybody in Millbrook, Ohio, knew two things about Howard Lister.
The first was that he gave money to St. Bridget’s Church. A great deal of money. The new roof in 2009 was Howard’s. So were the stained-glass windows on the east wall, the heated sidewalk out front so the old ladies would not slip in January, and the shiny electric organ that our organist, Mrs. Doyle, refused to play because she said it sounded like a skating rink.
The second thing everybody knew was that Howard could not keep his eyes to himself.
He was sixty-one, divorced twice, and owned four car dealerships across three counties. His face smiled down from billboards on every highway in the area. He wore cologne you could smell from the parking lot and a gold watch he checked whenever a pretty woman walked by, as if he was timing something.
My name is Patricia Gorman. I have been the parish secretary at St. Bridget’s for twenty-six years. I answer the phones, type the bulletin, count the collection and keep the coffee hot after Mass. Nothing happens in that church that I do not eventually hear about.
And our pastor, Father Eamon Riley, was eighty-two years old, born in County Kerry, and the least shockable man I have ever met. He had heard confessions for fifty-seven years. He used to say there was not a sin left in the world that could surprise him, only new ways of committing the old ones.
He had buried half the town’s grandparents and baptized half its grandchildren. He knew which farmers were behind on their mortgages and which teenagers were sneaking cigarettes behind the gym, and he never once used any of it against anybody. He had a dry sense of humor and a soft heart, and he never, ever raised his voice. When the bishop wanted him to retire, he said he would retire when God sent a memo.
So I suppose it was only a matter of time before Howard Lister and Father Riley found themselves on opposite sides of a confessional screen. I just never imagined that what happened that morning would change our whole town.
PART 2 — THE SUNDAY MORNING
It was the second Sunday in October. Confessions at St. Bridget’s are heard on Saturday afternoons, but Father Riley always kept the confessional open for half an hour before the eight o’clock Mass on Sundays, for the farmers and nurses and anyone else who could not make it on Saturday.
I was at my desk in the little office off the vestibule, folding bulletins, when the front door banged open.
It was Howard. In a navy suit with his tie loose, his hair uncombed, and his face the color of skim milk. He was sweating, even though it was forty-five degrees outside. He did not say good morning to me. He did not even notice me. He walked straight down the side aisle and ducked into the confessional booth like a man running from the rain.
The little light above the booth switched from green to red. I am not proud of it, but I stopped folding bulletins. The office door was open, the church was empty, and Howard Lister has never in his life learned how to whisper.
“Forgive me, Father,” he said, “for I have sinned. It’s been, uh, about three years since my last confession.”
There was a pause. Then Father Riley’s soft Irish voice came through the screen.
“Go on, Howard.”
“Father,” Howard said, and his voice cracked, “I think I’ve sinned badly.”
There was a long sigh from the other side of the screen. I would know that sigh anywhere. Father Riley used it on the parish council when they wanted to buy a new carpet.
“Howard,” the old priest said gently, “with you, my son, that usually means very badly. Go on.”
PART 3 — WHAT HOWARD CONFESSED
I am going to tell you what Howard confessed, but not all of it. Some of it is not mine to repeat, and the rest I only half heard, because I finally had the decency to close my office door partway. Not all the way. Partway.
What I can tell you is this.
The night before, Howard had hosted the annual fundraiser for the Millbrook Children’s Library at his biggest dealership. He had paid for the band, the catering and an open bar. Three hundred people came. Howard gave a speech about the importance of reading and wrote a check for fifty thousand dollars on a giant cardboard sign while photographers took pictures.
Then, according to Howard, he had spent the rest of the evening flirting shamelessly with every woman in the room, including the new librarian, a young widow named Grace Mullins who had come to thank him and had left in tears.
“I didn’t do anything, Father,” Howard said. “Not really. I said some things. I put my hand on her back. I offered her a ride home and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She had to ask the caterer to walk her to her car.”
There was silence from the priest’s side of the screen.
“And then this morning,” Howard said, “I woke up and saw the picture on the front of the newspaper. Me and the giant check. And behind me, in the corner of the picture, there’s Grace, looking at me like, like I was something she’d scraped off her shoe.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Father, I’ve given this church half a million dollars. I’ve given the library more. Doesn’t that count for something?”
I held my breath. I wanted to hear the answer to that question very badly. I suspect half of Millbrook had been wondering the same thing for years.
PART 4 — THE PRIEST’S ANSWER
Father Riley did not answer right away. I could hear the old wooden chair creak as he shifted.
“Howard,” he finally said, “do you know what I did before I became a priest?”
“No, Father.”
“I sold cattle at the market in Killarney. I was a terrible salesman. Do you know why?”
“No, Father.”
“Because I kept telling people the truth about the cows.” I heard Howard let out a surprised laugh. “So I’ll tell you the truth now, the way I would about a cow. Your money is very generous, Howard. The roof doesn’t leak. The windows are beautiful. The organ is an abomination, but your heart was in the right place.”
“But you cannot buy your way out of being a decent man. Generosity with your wallet is not the same as respect with your hands. God is not running a dealership. There are no trade-ins.”
The silence that followed was so long I thought Howard had left.
Then I heard something I never expected to hear in my life. Howard Lister, owner of four dealerships and face of a dozen billboards, began to cry.
“I don’t know how to be any other way,” he said. “My father was the same. My grandfather was the same. Money was how we said sorry. Money was how we said everything.”
“I know,” Father Riley said gently. “And now you’re sixty-one and twice divorced and sitting in a wooden box at seven forty in the morning crying to an old Irishman. How’s that working out for you?”
Howard laughed and sobbed at the same time. “Not great, Father.” “No,” the priest agreed kindly. “Not great at all. So let’s talk about your penance.”
PART 5 — THE PENANCE
Normally, penance is a few prayers. Three Hail Marys. An Our Father. Sometimes, for something serious, a rosary.
That is not what Father Riley gave Howard Lister.
“Here is your penance,” the old priest said. “First, you will go to Grace Mullins, in person, in daylight, with no flowers, no check and no cologne. You will apologize for how you treated her. You will not explain yourself. You will not make excuses. You will just say you were wrong.”
“Father, she won’t want to see me.”
“Then you’ll write her a letter and leave it with her supervisor. In your own handwriting. Not your secretary’s.”
“Second,” Father Riley continued, “for one year, you will volunteer every Saturday morning at the Children’s Library. Not as a donor. Not as a board member. As a volunteer. You will shelve books. You will read to children. You will wipe down tables. And you will not tell anyone why you’re doing it.”
“A whole year?” Howard said.
“Fifty-two Saturdays. I’ll check.”
“And third?”
There was a pause. I could almost hear Father Riley smiling.
“Third, you will stop giving money to this church.”
“What?”
“For one year, not a penny. No roofs. No windows. Certainly no more organs. I want you to find out who you are when you can’t pay for anything. And I want this parish to find out that it can survive without your checkbook.”
“Father, that’s crazy. Who stops a man from giving to his own church?” “An eighty-two-year-old priest who has nothing left to lose,” Father Riley said. “Now say your Act of Contrition. And do it slowly. You talk too fast.”
PART 6 — THE TALK OF THE PARISH
Here is where I must make a confession of my own.
I did not keep what I heard to myself. Not entirely. I would like to tell you that I am a woman of perfect discretion. I am a woman of perfect discretion about everything except Howard Lister.
I told my sister, Margie, over the phone that afternoon. Just the part about the organ. And the part about the cows. And the part where he cried.
Margie told her bridge group. The bridge group told the Altar Society. The Altar Society told the Knights of Columbus. By the following Sunday, every person in the pews of St. Bridget’s knew that Father Riley had told Howard Lister to stop giving money to the church.
Nobody knew why, exactly. The details got twisted, the way they do in small towns. Some people said Howard had been caught embezzling. Some said he had insulted the bishop. Mrs. Doyle, the organist, told everyone that Father Riley had finally banned the electric organ and Howard had stormed off in a huff.
But the strangest part was this. Nobody seemed upset.
At the coffee hour after Mass, I overheard Bill Kaminski, a retired mail carrier, say to his wife, “Well, good. Maybe now Howard will have to show up like the rest of us.”
And old Mrs. Fitzgerald, who is ninety-one, said, “I’ve been waiting thirty years for somebody to tell that man no.”
When Father Riley came into the parish hall for his coffee, the whole room went quiet. Then someone started clapping. Then everyone clapped.
Father Riley looked around in complete bewilderment. Then he looked at me. I suddenly became very interested in the coffee urn. He narrowed his eyes. He knew. He always knows.
PART 7 — FATHER RILEY’S LECTURE
That afternoon, Father Riley called me into his office. He did not shout. He never shouts. He simply sat behind his desk with his hands folded and looked at me over his glasses until I wanted to crawl under the carpet.
“Patricia,” he said.
“Father.”
“How long have you been my secretary?”
“Twenty-six years, Father.”
“And in twenty-six years, have I ever asked you to keep the office door closed during confessions?”
“Every single Saturday, Father,” I said miserably. “And every Sunday. And twice on Easter.”
He nodded slowly. “What a man says in that box belongs to him and to God. Not to me, and certainly not to Margie’s bridge group. You’ll go to confession yourself this Saturday. To Father Nguyen at St. Mary’s. Not to me. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Yes, Father.”
I turned to go. Then he said, “Patricia.”
“Yes, Father?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“I’ll admit something to you, since you’ve confessed to me in a roundabout way. I was afraid I had been too hard on him. I lay awake last night wondering if I’d driven a lost sheep further from the flock.”
“And now?”
He smiled, the slow Kerry smile that made the old ladies blush.
“Now I think the whole flock was waiting for someone to say it out loud. Even if they shouldn’t have heard it. God, as they say, writes straight with crooked secretaries.”
PART 8 — FIFTY-TWO SATURDAYS
Howard Lister did his penance.
I know because the Millbrook Children’s Library is two blocks from St. Bridget’s, and every Saturday morning I walked past it on my way to buy the bakery rolls for the Sunday coffee hour. And every Saturday morning, through the big front window, I saw Howard.
The first Saturday, he was standing awkwardly in the middle of the children’s section in his expensive suit, holding a stack of picture books as if they might bite him.
The second Saturday, he wore jeans. The third Saturday, he was sitting on a tiny plastic chair, his knees up to his chest, reading a book about a bear to six small children who were laughing at his voices.
By December, the children called him Mr. Howie. By February, he had organized a winter reading program with hot chocolate. By April, he knew every child’s name and which ones were struggling to read.
He apologized to Grace Mullins in October, the week after his confession. I know because she told me herself, years later. He came to the library on a Tuesday afternoon, in plain clothes, and stood at the circulation desk with his hands in his pockets.
“He said, I was wrong, and I’m sorry,” Grace told me. “Then he just stood there. I kept waiting for the excuse. The but. It never came. He just nodded and left.”
She did not forgive him right away. She was polite to him on Saturdays and nothing more. But somewhere around the spring, she noticed that he never once touched her arm, never once commented on her appearance, never once stood too close.
“He’d become a gentleman,” Grace said. “I didn’t know that was possible at sixty-one. I thought people were who they were.” “So did he,” I told her.
PART 9 — THE YEAR WITHOUT HOWARD’S MONEY
The other part of the penance was harder for St. Bridget’s than for Howard.
For the first time in fifteen years, our parish had no rich benefactor. When the boiler broke in January, there was no Howard to write a check. The parish council panicked. Bill Kaminski suggested selling the electric organ, and Mrs. Doyle nearly kissed him.
Then something remarkable happened. The parish fixed it ourselves.
The Knights of Columbus held a pancake breakfast. The Altar Society sold pies. The high school youth group washed cars in the parking lot in February in their winter coats. A retired plumber named Joe Szymanski spent three weekends in the basement and refused to take a dollar.
Even the Methodists down the street sent over a coffee can full of donations with a note that said, “Heard you lost your sugar daddy. Hang in there.” Father Riley laughed so hard he had to sit down. He pinned the note to the bulletin board in the parish hall, where it stayed for years.
We raised eleven thousand dollars in six weeks. The boiler was fixed by Lent.
“You see?” Father Riley said at the parish council meeting, eyes twinkling. “This church ran for a hundred and twelve years before Howard Lister had money. It turns out it still knows how.”
People who had never volunteered for anything started showing up. Families who had quietly assumed Howard would pay for everything began dropping a little more in the basket. A church that had grown comfortable and lazy woke up and remembered that it belonged to all of us.
And the electric organ? The parish voted to sell it in March. Mrs. Doyle played the old pipe organ at Easter for the first time in eleven years and cried through the entire Gloria.
Howard came to Easter Mass. He sat in the back row, not his usual front pew. When the collection basket came by, he passed it along without putting anything in. And he smiled while he did it.
PART 10 — WHAT THE PRIEST SAID AT THE END
On the second Sunday of the following October, exactly one year after that morning in the confessional, Howard Lister came to see Father Riley in his office. I was at my desk. The door was closed. All the way. I want that on the record.
But Father Riley told me about it afterward, with Howard’s permission, so I can tell you now.
Howard had brought two things. A small notebook, in which he had written down every Saturday at the library, fifty-two of them, with a few lines about each. And a check.
The check was made out to the Millbrook Children’s Library. Not to the church. It was for the cost of a full-time children’s reading specialist, guaranteed for ten years, in Grace Mullins’s name, so that every child in Millbrook who struggled to read would have someone to help them.
“I don’t want my name on it,” Howard said. “Not on a sign, not in the paper. Nothing.”
Father Riley looked at the check for a long time.
“Howard,” he said, “do you remember what I told you last year? That there are no trade-ins?”
“I remember.”
“Well, I was wrong about one thing. There are trade-ins after all. You traded in the man you were for the man you’ve become. That’s the only trade God ever wanted.”
Howard is seventy-three now. He sold three of his dealerships and spends most of his time at the library. He married again, late in life, to a retired kindergarten teacher who calls him out every time he gets too full of himself. They are very happy.
Father Riley passed away four years ago, at eighty-six, still hearing confessions the week before he died. At his funeral, Howard Lister gave the eulogy. He told the whole story, every word, and the church laughed and cried. Then he looked up at the pipe organ and said, “Thank you, Father. For not taking my money.”
