Stephen on Quest

In the beginning of part 3, Stephen is at a crossroads: he loves prostitutes, worries about his soul, and hates the Church. Typical high school boy stuff (besides the soul thing) with a level of intellectual sophistication that many of us lack. In terms of his sexual development, his trips to the brothel give him a “tremor of fear and joy” (102) showing a continued struggle with his sexual behavior. He fully understands his actions are degrading and damning, but he can’t seem to stop his “sinloving soul.” (102) Interestingly, I think he uses this as a way to justify his dissent from the Church.

Stephen justifies not praying by citing that “his soul lusted after its own destruction.” (103) On one level, this strikes me as the basic self-loathing of the type of person that frequents brothels. Moreover, this has the underpinnings of an adolescent that sees himself and his problems as above the church and outside of the realm of divinity. Why pray to a “false Allseeing and Allknowing” (103) God when your problems are so grave? His problems are far too real to put faith into unproven entities.

His love for Mary makes this point both murkier and more legitimate. While the institutional Church (and God for that matter) has the unsightly burden of a checkered history of failings and intolerance, Mary is the beacon of purity. She went through life without sin, and specifically a virgin, qualities that Stephen clearly seeks to emulate. The latin passage praising Mary as an organic pseudo-deity roughly translates to this: I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a cypress on Mount Sion. I was exalted like a palm tree in its fate, and as a rose plant in Jericho. As if it were in the fields, the pastures of the uliva as a plane tree by the water in the streets, was I exalted. And I have given a smell like cinnamon, and balsam aromatical I yielded a pleasant odor like the best myrrh.

Justifying his disdain for the institutional Church, Stephen must go on the worst retreat of all time. Immediately after Stephen rattles off a list of gripes with a fundamental understanding of Catholicism, the retreat puts him face-to-face with the embodiment of the institution. The way the priest describes missions as “winning” souls sends shivers up and down my spine. Souls are not toys to be won at a carnival, but precious gifts that need religious nourishment. Force-feeding a group of teenage boys stories of St. Francis Xavier will not make good Catholics. Only small circle conversations, group discussions, amongst other similar activities (that will go unnamed) can do that. If Stephen went of Quest, he would finally find and outlet outside of the dark confines of his mind to express and explore his true feelings on religion. Otherwise, he will continually be pushed away by the rigged, unmovable Church around him.