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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOKWhat They Did to the Kid 191Infinite Thy vast Domain,everlasting is Thy Name.%u201dChills ran through me. Boys were changing into priests, their souls marked for all eternity. Their mothers and fathers pressed and craned toward the sanctuary where the drama of the ancient ritual unfolded in incense, robes, and music. I could see perfectly down into the sanctuary, but somehow my vision veered off-kilter. I wanted to witness the miracle of Ordination without fearing that a jaundiced old priest like Rector Karg might steal my Ordination away. I wanted to anticipate the very instant the sacrament of the priesthood would mark my own soul indelibly.Once a priest, always a priest! A priest forever! Nothing more could Rector Karg do about it.But my joy slipped. Even perfect ritual cannot deliver perfect moments. I suddenly felt sorry for the people down below, for the mother or father who was shoved off to the side or behind a pillar while I could see so well. Rector Karg threatened my path to this day. Always in awe of my vocation itself, I was suddenly overpowered by him.Our whole seminary year was built up to this supremely metaphysical moment when boys became priests who could conjure Christ%u2019s body and blood and soul and divinity under the appearance of bread and wine. My blood flushed with anger. I felt simply, with all my clothes on, high in the choir loft above all those people, naked. I felt stripped, even under my wool cassock, naked, nude as a sculptor%u2019s model who, locked and tensed into position, remains totally, separately, existentially himself despite the artist%u2019s devouring eye, despite the brush-brush of charcoal sketches, despite the soft slap of hands laid on clay to give it shape.My very desire for the crystalline purity of the priesthood caused an unaccustomed hardness in me. Perfume rose on the warm air. No, my God, I said calmly, I want no pleasure from this natural feeling that will go away if I distract myself. I concentrated on singing our rendition of the hymn, %u201cVeni, Creator Spiritus, Come, Creator Spirit.%u201d My body was betraying my soul, so I stepped outside my body. Everything, I realized is not either-or. Some things are plain neutral. I wanted nothing: not pleasure, not indistinct desire. Nothing in the world could matter. Not even the world. No one could get in my way. Not even Rector Karg. I stepped fully into my vocation. I could will my way over anything, even the hard physical joy in the very idea of the priesthood.