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    Vestments
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    Vestments
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    Vestments
    Ebook494 pages7 hours

    Vestments

    By John Reimringer

    5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Let me begin today, illumined by Thy light, to destroy this part of the natural man which lives in me in its entirety, the obstacle that constantly keeps me from Thy Love. Taught this prayer as a boy by his grandfather, James Dressler recites it each time he’s tempted by earthly desires. Originally drawn to the priesthood by the mystery, purity, and sensual fabric of the Church, as well as by its promise of a safe harbor from his tempestuous home, James finds himself just a few years after his ordination attracted again to his first love, Betty García. Torn between these opposing desires, and haunted by his familial heritage, James finds himself at a crossroads. Exploring age-old and yet urgently contemporary issues in the Catholic Church, and infused throughout by a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, this is an utterly honest and subtly lyrical novel.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMilkweed Editions
    Release dateJul 1, 2010
    ISBN9781571318169
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Vestments

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    • 5/5
      John Reimringer has written a stunning debut novel set in the twin cities of Minneapolis/St Paul. Fr. James Dressler is 30 years old, a catholic priest who has come home to live with his mother for a summer while he decides what to do with his life. He is struggling with the idea of celibacy, both in the abstract and the physical, and has been banished to the boonies by his bishop because of a momentary lapse with a young woman in the parish. His only alternative seems to be a job teaching history at a local Benedictine college. In the meantime, he is earning money fixing up old houses with his father, while he watches his grand-father slowly die, and prepares to officiate at his younger brother's wedding. Meeting his old girlfriend, who is separated from her husband, he once again wrestles with desire and the need for human contact.There are wonderful backfills of how and why he decided to become a priest, of the lusty, bar-sprawling, blue collar, dysfunctional family he grew up with, of young first love and lover's regrets. The characters are lushly drawn as are the stories of his childhood and his relationships with various members of his family. The descriptions of the cities become almost a character of their own. The influence of the landscape, the factories, the rivers, the entire immigrant culture are woven into a tightly knit fabric of reminiscence. Multi-layered and multi-faceted, Reimringer's novel gives us a young man struggling to grow up and away from his father, struggling with young love and the decisions required when things don't go well, struggling to get away from the ugliness of a family who only communicate with their fists. The young Jim Dressler is attracted to the calm, quiet and ordered way of life the priesthood seems to offer.Best of all, Reimringer gives us a portrait of priesthood and the Catholic Church of his childhood (both Dressler's and Reimringer's). It is a church balanced on the tipping point of the post-Vatican II era, where priests are trying to come to grips with change vs. tradition, with a more educated laity, and the reality of life as they grow older and lonelier. In an interview with Eric Forbes of the Good Books Guide blog, Reimringer says"... I grew up devoutly Catholic, but as I got older I drifted to the left and the Church drifted to the right, and so I was writing in exile from the Catholic Church, which I deeply loved as a child, and whose rituals and people I still deeply love. The Catholic Mass is one of the most beautiful rituals on the planet, and the average Catholic, parishioner or priest, is ill-served by the Church's leadership these days. The novel is an elegy for what the Church could be and still occasionally is."He gives us real people who are priests. Real men who struggle with all the weaknesses, flaws and failings of themselves and their parishioners. Real men who play poker, drink scotch, kiss babies, endure soggy sodden food prepared by sullen, disgruntled housekeepers, who go out in all kinds of weather at all hours of the night to offer solace to dying people, and work for hours to deliver decent homilies on Sundays. He gives us a gut-wrenching picture of the loneliness of life in a rectory and the soaring joy of service to others. Each priest in the book is an eloquent example of the diversity of the men who have answered the call to this way of life, and the sentiments, motivations, failures and victories of each. Dressler's struggles and the anguish he faces as he decides where his loyalties lie will not be welcomed by very conservative Catholics, but readers will find a powerful portrait of love, repentence, redemption, and difficult choices made. It is a book that can be appreciated by readers of all religions.