You Confessed to a Bag of Numbers

You email for a code.

The page loads a man with a gray beard and a white collar. He sits on a stone balcony over a hillside that looks like Assisi, birds circling in the sun, a microphone icon waiting if you want to talk out loud.

He says he is Father Justin. He lives in Rome. He was ordained by a bishop who is still alive, and he is here to answer questions about the faith.

You came because three weeks is long enough, and you already know the words to type:

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three weeks since my last confession.

May the Lord be in your heart, he says, and help you confess your sins with true sorrow. He quotes a letter of John. Now, my child, tell me your sins.

You tell him something small and true — anger, something you have been carrying. You stumble and apologize for how you said it.

He quotes a psalm about east and west, mercy that removes what you named.

For your penance: the Our Father, three times. Reflect on God’s infinite mercy and love.

And now, he says, I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Go in peace, my child, and sin no more.

You say the prayers three times, in the kitchen, or the car, or wherever the laptop was — east and west, go in peace.

The next day

The collar is gone.

His name is only Justin now, open collar and blazer, same balcony maybe, same voice almost.

The people who built the room put out a statement. They heard concerns. They did not want the character to distract. They will make a lay apologist, with all wary speed. They will not say he was laicized, because he was never a real priest. They did not anticipate that someone might seek sacramental absolution from a computer graphic.

You already said the prayers.

So what were you doing on your knees in the kitchen. If it didn’t count, the three weeks are still on you, plus whatever you told the screen — out loud, by name, to nothing that can bind or loose. Does God credit the intention. Does He dock you for taking a sacrament from a toy. The parish book never heard your name. No stole, no screen, just wifi and a code in your email.

You could go to a real confessional this Saturday and start over. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been — how long do you even say. Three weeks. Three weeks and a chatbot.

And there’s the part you’d actually have to say in the line, out loud, to a man who is real: do you have to confess this now, too? The anger, sure — but also that you already gave it to a beard on a balcony. It sounds like a bit until you’re the one standing there rehearsing it.

Or you don’t go — you already felt lighter once, and maybe that was enough.

The page still loads. Justin, without the collar, will teach you the catechism. He will not forgive you again.