Fellow Travelers

by Thomas Mallon

How many mortal sins had he committed last night? Did each separate act he and Hawkins performed constitute an individual transgression, or was their entire three hours together—until Hawkins left, after some chatter and a tousle of his hair but no actual goodbye kiss—a single offense? It didn’t matter, because either way, he, Timothy Patrick Laughlin, was dead. Mortal sin, said the catechism, kills the life of grace in our souls. That is why the sacrament of penance is called a sacrament of the dead. And one could not perform penance without making a confession, any more than one could make a confession without perfect contrition—which he did not feel. To his astonishment, he did not want to feel it, however well he had once mastered Father McGuire’s illustration of these matters. Elizabeth says: “Anyone who commits even one mortal sin does more harm than hundreds and hundreds of earthquakes ever could do.” She is right. As the words came back to Tim now, he pictured the ground below the 38th Parallel opening up and swallowing a thousand American soldiers. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…. Because he could not say these words this afternoon, his heart would pound with fear tonight. If I should die before I wake…Could he live, for even a little while, without grace—drained of it, like the empty black milk bottle the catechism drew for a soul with mortal or Original Sin? No. And he could not take Saint Augustine’s approach, asking to be made pure but not just now, becau...