Warning: Mixes Catholic and Neo-Pagan beliefs, may be offensive to the religiously sensitive.
Father Larry, a Catholic Priest of the Order of the Virgin Mary, opened the door of the confessional a tiny bit and peered out to see if there was anyone else waiting to make confession. Seeing no one, he sighed and opened the door the rest of the way to head back to his quarters in the rectory.
"Time for some mortification of the flesh." He thought to himself, changing out of his Priest's garb into his jogging outfit.
Even thought the days were starting to get longer, it was still not quite springtime and the late afternoon weather in Southern California was cool enough for sweat pants and a sweatshirt. Fr. Larry was a runner since high school, about 25 years ago. All through seminary he maintained his even temper and celibacy with daily runs. Now that he was in his own parish, he still kept running whenever possible. It gave him time to think, calmed his nerves and eased any temptations of the flesh. He murmured his usual small prayer of thanks that the church was almost next door to a good-sized suburban park where he could run whenever he wished. He followed the perimeter of the park in the evening twilight, giving him nearly a half-mile each lap.
He noticed a small group of people, about two dozen or so, gathering in one corner of the park. The spot they chose was well away from the street but near a parking lot, separated from the lot by a large hedge. They seemed to be a youthful group, mostly in jeans and black tee shirts, all in their late teens through twenties except for one couple in their mid-thirties. The man was tall, at least six foot two or three and appeared to be rather athletic under his black leather jacket. He had long dark hair worn tied back and always seemed to be amused at something, at least that's how Fr. Larry interpreted the half-smile that was continually on the man's clean shaven face.
The woman, however, was petite and curvy. She stood about 5 foot 2 or 3 and had long, straight dark-brown hair that hung most of the way down her back. Unlike the rest of the group, she wore some kind of long gypsy dress of a crinkly material that hugged her womanly curves. Not exactly slender, yet not really overweight, she carried any extra pounds in all the right places. She seemed intent on laying out some items on a picnic table, re-arranging them to some precise plan by the light of a couple of candle lanterns. Fr. Larry tried not to look at her and concentrated on keeping his pace steady. The rest of the group milled about the area, talking in small groups. They were too far away for Fr. Larry to hear any of their conversation.
On his next lap around the park, the group had aligned themselves in a circle with the older couple in the center. They all had their heads bowed, as if in prayer. Fr. Larry watched them as he jogged by, wondering what was going on. Then he remembered that he saw the same thing last month, a group standing reverently in a circle with heads bowed.
"Protestants! Why can't these people gather in a proper church?" Fr. Larry snorted to himself. "Better yet, convert to the true Catholic faith and I'll let them use my church for their prayer circle instead of a grove of trees."
He completed his lap by the light of the full moon and returned to the rectory for a shower, prayer and bed. As an oblate of the Virgin Mary, it was his custom to pray to Her first thing in the morning and last thing at night. This night he added a prayer of hope that She would guide the Protestants in the park to a truer understanding of Her gift to the world and the veneration that She deserved.
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Father Larry didn't think of the group until the next month, when he saw them again. He offered up another prayer that they might recognize the significance of the Blessed Mother. Then he put them out of his mind for the next few days.
For some reason, he remembered the prayer circle a few days later. He realized that he hadn't seen them in the park for several days and mentioned the circle to the parish secretary as she stacked up the newly printed bulletins for distribution.
"Oh yes, you didn't know about them? They've been there for a couple of years now." The elderly woman shrugged. "They're harmless, moon worshipers or nature worshipers or something. They kind of remind me of hippies from the sixties."
"You're kidding me." Fr. Larry grinned at her. "This is some kind of joke, right? Moon worshipers, very funny."
"No joke, I saw it in their flyer once. The Bishop knows about it, he's talked to them. That's how I know that they're harmless." She waved her hand dismissively and went back to stacking the church bulletins.
"You wouldn't happen to have that flyer around still?"
She shook her head. "Maybe the Bishop does."
"Humph. I'll just have to ask him sometime soon." With that, Fr. Larry headed off to the confessional to hear confessions again.
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The next time he saw the group gathered, he left off his jogging and walked over to them. He tried to get the attention of the tall thirty-something man, but was ignored. The woman, however, noticed him and came over all smiles and bouncy energy.
"Hi, would you like to participate in tonight's circle? She looked him straight in the eyes when she talked.
Fr Larry was used to women being more demure towards a Priest, but without his vestments and collar she didn't recognize him as a member of the Catholic clergy. Now that it was mid-spring, the weather was getting warmer and her gypsy blouse was lower-cut than the previous outfit Larry had seen her in. That amount of exposure was something else that the Priest wasn't used to seeing. Fr. Larry pointedly avoided looking at her display of cleavage.
"What sort of prayer circle is this? I see you people here nearly every month."
"Oh, you don't know about us? I've got a pamphlet somewhere..." She rummaged around in her bag, coming up with a folded piece of paper and tried to hand it to the Priest. "We hold a public full-moon circle here on almost every full moon. We practice eclectic Wicca, a Neo-pagan faith that has reverence for nature. We believe in a Goddess and a God and the balance of the genders. This is the last full moon before Beltane so we..." She stopped in her explanation. "What's wrong?"
Father Larry didn't reach for the pamphlet and had snorted when she mentioned the Goddess. He just couldn't bring himself to accept that people believed this sort of tripe in the twenty-first century. Protestants were bad enough, trying to say they had real faith without a true apostolic lineage. But this stuff? This was worse, it was pure blasphemy! His thoughts must have shown in the sneer on his face. The woman stepped back from him, looking worried.
