At
the beginning of Chapter 3, following the grave, “mortal” sin he commits at the
end of Chapter 2, Stephen continues to troll the streets at night, waiting for
the “whores” to “call to his sinloving
soul.” (109). He is drawn to the prostitutes who come out
in the Dublin nights, and his “mortal” sins seem to propel his movement away
from the Church and his revolt against Catholic values which dictate that he
should maintain a sense of self discipline over his lusts. At the same time he pursues impure women, he
keeps a focus on the Virgin Mary, sometimes hypocritical, but often soothing to
his soul. On his bedroom wall is “the
certificate of his prefecture in the college of the sodality of the Virgin
Mary,” (111), and when he reads the Latin prayer to her in the chapel, he
“lull[s] his conscience to its music.”
(112)
Stephen
surrenders his soul in prayer to the Virgin Mary just as he surrenders his
bodily lusts to prostitutes.
A
retreat in honor of St. Francis Xavier, a follower of St. Ignatius, causes
Stephen to think about his grave sins and he is tormented afterwards by the
thought of what he did. One night, he
returns home to imagine in his bedroom images of figures from hell, with “the
malice of evil glitter[ing] in their hard eyes,” and a “rictus of cruel
malignity lit up greyly their old bony faces.”
(149) Stephen resolves to repent,
and eventually surrenders to the Church to confess. In this moment of epiphany, he finds his
spiritual faith, and goes out in the city to find a Church so he can confess
his sins. He asks a woman on the street
for the nearest Church, and she points him to the Capuchin Friary:
Stephen
blesses himself, and confesses for the first time in eight months. The retreat has convinced him that he doesn't want to live with the knowledge
that he will go to hell for his actions.
But by going to confession and mustering up the courage to do so,
Stephen finds himself liberated: he “strode homeward, conscious of an
invisible grace pervading and making light his limbs.” (157).
He has gained some self discipline, a sign of maturity, which Stephen
has not exhibited until this epiphany.
When
he returns to Belvedere and goes to Mass with his classmates,
he
is ready to receive communion in his newly found state of grace, and “[t]he
ciborium has come to him.”
Repentant now, there will be questions - will Stephen continue to maintain a sense of maturity? Will Stephen keep up his self discipline? Will Stephen remain in control of his lust?
Repentant now, there will be questions - will Stephen continue to maintain a sense of maturity? Will Stephen keep up his self discipline? Will Stephen remain in control of his lust?
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