Tongues of Angels

Julia Park Tracey

Description

Through the eyes of Father Robert Souza, this novel explores the issues of the priesthood and celibacy in the Catholic Church.

A Catholic priest with questions. A penitent woman with a secret past. A jealous friend. The fourth in this lover's knot? God.

Father Rob Souza faces the forbidden desire of his own heart when Jessica, victim of a brutal assault, comes for counseling. Rob’s best friend, Lawrence, is a priest with an artistic temperament and trials of his own. A Greek chorus of gossiping priests, and church politics riddled with suspicion and battling for souls, force Lawrence, Rob and Jessica to make choices they didn't intend.

Tongues of Angels offers a peek behind the curtain of the priesthood, offering a funny, poignant look at Catholic angst and ambiguity. Based on a true story, Tongues of Angels is a canny, warm and surprisingly spiritual novel for our time. Now back in print for the 10th Anniversary Edition, through Indie-Visible Ink.

“Julia Park Tracey brings wicked honesty and scathingly hot nuance to this soulful novel; with crackling prose, she seduces readers. Tongues of Angels is both sexy and spiritual.” ---Jordan Rosenfeld, author of Forged in Grace

Julia Park Tracey is an award-winning writer, editor, and activist. Her women’s history project, The Doris Diaries (www.thedorisdiaries.com), is a series of early 20th century diaries penned by her great aunt; they include I’ve Got Some Lovin’ to Do: The Diaries of a Roaring Twenties Teen (1925-1926) and Reaching for the Moon: More Diaries of a Roaring Twenties Teen (1927-1929), both through Indie-Visible Ink. She lives in Northern California. Follow Julia at www.juliaparktracey.com, and on Facebook, Twitter, GoodReads and Amazon.

Sujets

• Erotica
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781475985719
• Langue: English

Extrait

Also by Julia Park Tracey
 
The Doris Diaries series
 
I’ve Got Some Lovin’ to Do: The Diaries of a Roaring Twenties Teen (1925-1926), Indie-Visible Ink, 2012
 
Reaching for the Moon: More Diaries of a Roaring Twenties Teen (1927-1929), Indie-Visible Ink, 2013
 
***
 
Confessions: Fact or Fiction ,
Edited by Herta Feely and Marion Wernicke;
Chrysalis Editorial, 2010
 
Amaryllis: Collected Poems , Scarlet Letter Press, 2009
 
Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays ,
Edited by Giselle Anatol; Praeger, 2003
TONGUES OF ANGELS
 
 

A Novel
 
 
 
 
 
Julia Park Tracey
 
 
Indie-Visible Ink
 

 
TONGUES OF ANGELS
A NOVEL
 
Copyright © 2013 Julia Park Tracey.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
iUniverse
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.iuniverse.com
844-349-9409
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
ISBN: 978-1-4759-8570-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4759-8572-6 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4759-8571-9 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013906683
 
iUniverse rev. date: 4/29/2013
First edition © 2003 by Julia Park
Second revised edition
© 2013 by Julia Park Tracey
 
Originally published as
Tongues of Angels: A Novel by Julia Park
ISBN 0595278205
Scarlet Letter Press, Alameda, California, 2003
 
Cover graphics by Chelsea Starling
 
Indie-Visible Ink
www.indie-visible.com
Birmingham Charlottesville Nashville
San Francisco Seattle Sydney Tauranga
 
 
What critics are saying about Tongues of Angels
Jordan Rosenfeld, Forged in Grace : “Julia Park Tracey brings wicked honesty and scathingly hot prose to this soulful novel; with crackling nuance, she seduces readers. Tongues of Angels is both sexy and spiritual.”
 
David Baker, Red Hills Review : “(A) comic novel about masculinity…the main characters, California Catholic priests, are manipulated by lust like puppets from the ropes of their cassocks. The closest contemporary work of fiction is Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit … (A)s erotically compelling as the Song of Songs .”
 
Christa Martin, Good Times/Santa Cruz: “It lifts up the chasuble…and exposes what’s underneath. Her story talks about all the things that some Catholics are hoping we won’t talk about…”
 
Dan Barnett, Chico Enterprise-Record : “Sexually charged: I was struck by [Park Tracey’s] lush, hothouse, erotic style.”
 
Kelly Vance, East Bay Express : “Hot under the collar…A scandalous yarn.”
 
Woody Minor, Alameda at Play : “Julia Park Tracey has crafted a fine and funny novel that takes the reader inside the priesthood — and the priest — to reveal the all-too-human side of the Catholic Church. Highly recommended.”
 
To my lovely daughters
TONGUES OF ANGELS

A Novel
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and, with full knowledge, comprehend all mysteries, I have faith great enough to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
—1 Corinthians 13:1-2
 
 
“I have never encountered a sexual problem that was not also a religious problem, nor a religious problem that was not also a sexual problem.”
—C.G. Jung
CONTENTS
Prologue
Ordinary Time
Advent
Christmas
Ordinary Time
Lent
Holy Week
Triduum
Easter
Pentecost
Ordinary Time
A Reader’s Guide to Tongues of Angels
Prologue
 
On feast days he wore red, the blood red of virgin martyrs and cardinals. His brocade chasuble, a heavy mantle that draped him from his collar to his shoes, was piped with gold, curved at the hem, with a slit for his head. When he walked he seemed to glide, and when he held his hands out to consecrate the Eucharist, the chasuble shifted to reveal his arms, cloaked in white from the linen alb he wore underneath, exposing the narrow cuffs of his black clerical shirt beneath the alb, layer under layer that ended at the naked brown skin of his hands.
Father Robert Souza was a Roman Catholic priest, under the chasuble and alb, and clerical collar (size Pontiff 3) and the black shirt and slacks that are the uniform of the priest.
And under that, boxer shorts.
And under those, the man.
Rob had deliberated over the boxers. For years he had worn bleached white shorts that his mother had ironed, yes, ironed with a heavy hand and an ancient iron that she ran over paraffin for a crisp sheen. When he was old enough to buy his own shorts, he switched to tight, bright bikini briefs, which had amused his fellow seminarians and given him adolescent moments in front of the mirror, admiring his physique, a blue-collar Portuguese boy in Speedos, building muscles to lift a chalice. His former girlfriend had once given him some black silk boxers which he still kept but never wore; after ordination, Rob bought white briefs that somehow conferred respectability with their simple, practical function, and suited his position in the parish.
But when Rob visited with some parishioners who suffered infertility problems, the husband explained how briefs lowered his sperm count and how, that for healthy sperm, a man should wear looser shorts. Rob worked through the issue as if it were a syllogism, a geometric proof: If tight shorts lower the sperm count, and lower sperm count can affect fertility, then men should wear loose shorts to ensure fertility . But when he added the x factor of celibate priesthood into the equation, he faltered. He didn’t need a sperm count, high or low. Rob stood before the underwear display in a department store on his day off, anonymous and average in his jeans and chambray shirt, and weighed his decision.
When a man has a vocation to the priesthood, he must meet certain qualifications to be ordained: be at least twenty-four years old, a legitimate child, and of sound mind and body, although the Bishop could dispense most impediments. Rob himself had received a dispensation from the Bishop because he had been a few months shy of his twenty-fourth birthday at his ordination six years before, and one of Rob’s classmates received a dispensation because of an undescended testicle. St. Thomas Aquinas had preached, long before the invention of the microscope, that each drop of a man’s seed was like a tiny man, thus sacred, and despite more modern medical understanding, the Catholic doctrine was the same. Although a priest must never put his gift to use, the living seed must be cherished. Rob, sound of mind and body, poised to choose between the guilty freedom of boxer shorts versus the ball-crushing, sperm-killing snap of tight elastic, was glad to have worked it out.
He had worn boxers ever since.
Ordinary Time
CHAPTER ONE

Rob searched the crowd in the Italian restaurant for a friend. His sun-darkened skin was bronze against his white collar. He felt the heat through his many layers, the weight of black clericals on an August day, the rub of his collar on his brown neck, and wished himself again on the soft shore of Kauai, with cool-warm water lapping his toes, an iced drink at hand. But vacation was over, summer almost gone, and the pace of church life about to pick up dramatically. Rob cupped a hand to his eyes to see across the outside courtyard, where tables were set under an awning, and patrons lounged with wine glasses at the outdoor bar.
There, Rob spied the sun-bleached hair, heard the distinct laugh, recognized at once the erect posture of his best friend, Father Lawrence Poole, bantering with the bartender. They hadn’t seen each other all summer; Lawrence had been in Italy for a month, then Rob had gone to Hawaii to visit relatives. Rob had missed Lawrence more than he’d expected, felt the loss of the regular afternoon call which filled that empty portion of the day; he had missed Lawrence’s wicked laughter through the phone line, the gossip and the companionship that only two souls with the same vocation could know.
Lawrence greeted Rob with a hug. “Hey, there, sweetie. You look relaxed. Did you get lucky over the summer?”
“Ha, ha.” Rob hugged Lawrence back. “You’re projecting. Is there something you need to confess?”
Lawrence put his hand over his heart and made a tragic face. “My lips are sealed.” Lawrence kissed his fingertips, eyes closed reverently.
“I’ll bet.”
The maitre d’ arrived to escort them to a table.
As Rob and Lawrence passed through the restaurant, a lingering trace of perfume met them, to Rob, as familiar as the scent of his own pillow, his own warmed bed, sweet and musky as a woman. And there was a woman somewhere in the room, nameless, anointed with a certain scent, one that pulled him like a ribbon of memory. Another woman had worn the same perfume for him, long ag