A Friend of the Devil

During my sophomore year at Loyola, I converted from Judaism to Catholicism. When I made the decision to convert, it wasn’t as if I was this Orthodox Jew that wore a yarmulke on my head, went to the Synagogue on Friday nights and was part of Hillel, the Jewish ministry on campus. I actually tried to join Hillel my freshman year, but never felt a strong connection with the group. Jewish was really nothing more than a label to me. It was a quick response to the question what my religious identification was. I had a Bar Mitzvah, for example, but it was more like a big party my parents threw for me because I turned 13 (they gave a 19 inch color television and a jumbo sized jar of kosher pickles as my Bar Mitzvah gift). I had always placed my idea of religion in the image of my grandfather on my mother’s side—my Zadie. He was a very religious man, but he died when I was seven. When he died, he pretty much took the tenets of the religion with him. My parents tried to keep up with the traditions, but since my father was not very interested in Judaism, we more or less became nothing.

At Loyola, most of the people I knew were Catholic. Many had been attending Catholic schools all their lives. They found a community with one another when they went to church on Sundays. Loyola offered a 10:00 pm Sunday mass, officiated by one of the more popular, beer drinking, racquetball playing, philosophical priests on campus. The 10:00 mass was the best attended and I always felt left out.

“You coming to mass?” someone would inevitably ask on his way out, stopping quickly before I had the chance to answer. “Oh, shit, I forgot. You’re Jewish. Sorry, man.”

Converting to Catholicism was more meaningful than my desire to be part of a community.
Part of Loyola’s core curriculum requirement, was to take three classes in theology. It was the first time in my life I was being forced, offered—whatever the right term is to describe my participation—to study and understand organized religion. The theology requirement did not insist that people study just Catholicism. There were courses offered on all religions. In fact, the first course I took as a freshman was on the Old Testament. It was the first time I ever opened a Bible and the first time I contemplated spirituality.

Attending a Jesuit university did lend itself more opportunity for me to lean in the Catholic direction. I started regularly reading the Bible, speaking with priests and, although I do not consider myself “found,” for the first time in my life, I began formulating a religious belief. What became very clear to me was that religion—in my case, Catholicism—made me feel very good. I felt cleansed, relieved, excited, important, inclusive. It was those feelings I carried with me when I made the decision to convert.

Before, during and after my conversion, I was very involved with the church on campus. I also spent quite a bit of time at the Ministry Center. At church, I was a Eucharistic Minister, which meant I offered the consecrated body and blood of Christ to the members of the church. Loyola priests used actual fresh baked bread in place of the circular hosts that most churches offered. Each time I held a chunk of Jesus in my hands and offered “the body of Christ” to my fellow congregants, I felt honored to share the moment and make a spiritual connection.

I was also a Lector at mass. I would either recite one of the weekly readings, or occasionally several students and I would act out a passage for affect. One time, a priest asked me to perform a scene from one of the readings. I was supposed to be in a paddle boat unsuccessfully fishing. I called out to Jesus “help me Lord, I am yours” and a school of imaginary fish began jumping from my imaginary lake into my imaginary boat. At the very moment I performed the reading, I truly believed that I was in the middle of a lake and oodles of fish were gracing my boat. My belief was in the expression of emotion on my face. I was told this by several people after mass. I made the connection.

Being involved in the church helped me feel connected to my chosen faith. It brought me a comforting feeling that felt cleansing. Each mass I attended, each discussion I had with a priest, each expression of faith confirmed my conversion. I made the right decision.

Even though I was very involved in student ministry, I was hardly a pious person. In fact, I was a hypocrite when it came to a very basic tenet of the Catholic faith—pre-marital sex. It was a side of my personality that was a struggle, mostly during times of introspection, like when I was at mass. I never looked down upon myself when engaged in a sinful act.

Whenever I was out of the element of the church, in the dining hall, at class, at the gym, and especially at the bars, I was a downright libertine. I wanted to hook-up with the women on campus, and I was relatively non-selective and uncaring in the process. I loved scamming for women. Whenever I got lucky—which was often—I was satisfied.

Loyola was a very small school and the ratio of women to men was 6:1. It made the game of chase so much easier. The pool of women was always so plentiful, and the opposite was the reverse for them. It was almost as if the girls had to take what any of us guys were offering.
There just weren’t that many of us to go around. Great odds when you’re a guy.

During the time I was going through my conversion, I started having doubts about my lifestyle. On one hand, I enjoyed the attention and sexual gratification a hook-up brought. But, I knew what I was doing was counterproductive to my faith. I wanted to be a better person not just religiously, but as a whole. It didn’t matter if I actually had sex with the woman or not. I just needed female physical companionship. The more I could have it the more I wanted it. I was not interested in any long-term relationships with any of the girls I met.

My carelessness was even present immediately after I converted. I was tempted by the devil within hours after my soul was cleansed.

The week before I was baptized, had my first communion and was confirmed into the Catholic faith, my mother had set me up with a girl, Sabrina, who worked at her office. Without even trying very hard, Sabrina and I had sex on our first date. I picked her up at work, drove her back to my dorm room, we flirted with each other and then we had sex. It was passionless, it was quick, and it meant nothing to me. After I dropped her off at home, I decided that was the last time I would see her. She was nothing more than sex. I‘m sure we talked, but the only thing that remains in my memory was how easy it was for me to sleep with her.
Sabrina, however, had a different conclusion to how the night went. She got my phone number from my mother and called me a lot over the course of the next few days.

“I really enjoyed last night,” she had said to me. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Are you thinking about me? Do you miss me?”

I didn’t know what to say. “We just saw each other last night,” I said. I wanted to get off the phone.

“Want to get together?” she asked. Sabrina did not own a car, so getting together meant me driving to the suburbs to pick her up.

“I really have a lot of work to do,” I told her, “I have a pretty important weekend coming up and I really can’t find the time.”

“I know about your weekend,” Sabrina said. She had a smile in her voice; she was giddy. “You’re getting baptized this weekend, right. Your mom invited me to come, isn’t that great!”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want her to be there. I only wanted my family and friends to attend the ceremony. I tried giving her excuses why she shouldn’t come.

“You know, Sabrina,” I said, “the church only issued a certain amount of tickets to each person in the ceremony and all of my tickets were spoken for.” I was lying during Holy Week. “Besides,” I continued, “it would be awkward for you to go since you don’t know anyone there.”

“I know you and I know your mom,” Sabrina countered.

“That’s true,” I said, “but I’ll be so busy involved in the ceremony that we wouldn’t even get the chance to see each other.”

When we got off the phone, I immediately called my mother. “Why the hell would you invite her to come on Saturday night?” I asked.

“I thought you liked her,” my mother said. “Don’t you like her?”

“Mom, I hardly know her. We went out one time.”

“She told me you guys hit it off,” she said. “I’m sorry. I thought you wanted her to come.” My mother sounded wounded. “I can tell her not to come,” she said.

It was too late. Even though it was one of the most important nights of my life, I didn’t want to hurt my mother’s feelings so I told her not to un-invite her.

Sabrina attended my conversion ceremony and since she didn’t drive, she brought two of her friends with her as well. My mother invited them to come with us to dinner after. It was all very uncomfortable.

After dinner, Sabrina walked back with me to my dorm as her friends went to get the car. She started rubbing my crotch through my pants and asked if we could go have a quickie. I didn’t feel that having sex on the night I was baptized was all that appropriate, so I politely refused the offer. I did agree, however, to her coming back the next night—Easter Sunday—for an “evening of fun.”

Sabrina’s friend dropped her off the next night, as planned. When we got into my room, she immediately took off her clothes, put a condom on my penis and began having her way with me. I was on top; she was on top; we were upside down and sideways. Nothing was happening. I pretended to enjoy myself. I made grunts and groans. After what seemed like an hour, I knew I wasn’t going to finish. I was getting tired and I could tell that Sabrina was too. I waited a few moments, started moving faster and harder and pretended to be getting close to completion.
To finish the charade, I let out a loud moan as if I came. I pulled out, rolled onto the floor, and tried to catch my breath. Sabrina quickly pulled the condom off my penis and held it close to her face. I could not tell if she was looking at it closely to make sure there were no rips in it or if she wanted to confirm what we both knew—that I had faked it.

Sabrina got up from the floor, tossed the condom in the garbage can, put on her clothes and walked out of my room. She never said goodbye, she never called me again and soon after, she quit working at my mother’s office.

After Sabrina left, I sat on my bed and cried. It was the night after my baptism and I was disappointed in myself. I realized that that night was the moment of my life when I was truly and utterly pure. I was cleansed by the waters of Christ and I would never be given a clean slate like that again. It was the moment of my life when I could have decided to make a conscious decision to not be promiscuous. It was the moment in my life for me to be better. I had made a major decision to do something drastic—be something different—pick one religion over another; abide by its tenets. It was the moment in my life when I failed. The devil knew exactly what he was doing that next night. The devil was a friend of mine before I converted. That night, he achieved “best friend” status.