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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK208 Jack Fritscherunderstand literal Transubstantiation? Does anyone? The other seminarian was happy the theater manager invited us two white boys to sit front row center, until we figured it out. The play could not be performed unless at least two white people were present, and if no white people were available, then two dummies dressed as white people were to be placed in the front row. The casting was perfect. Ha ha ha. All the white couples in from the suburbs laughed, relieved they%u2019d got off scot-free.I gave the people at Holy Cross Parish, kneeling at the Communion rail, Christ%u2019s body to eat and Christ%u2019s blood to drink.Actual body.Actual blood.No metaphor.Real.But it was my body and my blood. They demanded the be-all of something, life perhaps, and maybe with good reason because they had been promised life everlasting, and what they got was me, very Suddenly, very Last Summer. They judged my vocation a sign that life to me was no riddle. They said, Help me! They cried, Answer me! They said, If priests don%u2019t know, who does? I envied them. I suspected their particular answers lay in themselves particularly.Irony, the sin of irony, if irony is a sin, was rusting the edges of my soul. The other seminarian, probably Hank%u2019s spy, the pipeline to PeterPeterPeter, told me so. God! What must Vatican politics be like at Saint PeterPeterPeter%u2019s Basilica in Rome! The people pulled at my black cassock in the poor parish church, tugged at my Roman collar on the street, shredded my soul to bits seeking the Jesus-comfort in me. They took Communion on me, and the other priests, and left satisfied, for awhile, until some next great hunger called them back.%u201cA priest,%u201d Father O%u2019Farrell said, %u201cneeds a spiritual life. Anyone dedicated to public service needs a spiritual life to survive.%u201d Very Jack. Very Kennedy. Ask not!The work was hard. Very hard. Self-effacing. A priest%u2019s work is not about the priest. A priest must be all things to all men. A priest, who is truly another Christ, must remember eventually he will be crucified. A priest must give the people everything, including the hammer and nails. Black or white made no difference when life squeezes a person down to scary questions about what happens when we die, or worse, fearful terrible questions about what happens when we do what we have to do to survive in dirt and poverty and crime.