When a mostly young Father Sophos assumed his post as the shepherd of the East Main Catholic Mission, he was surprised to discover that his new position came with a building, but no congregation.

For some reason it was still in the books as a Catholic parish, but aside from his paid secretary and the three members of the dual pastoral/financial council who visited the mission once a month from their prefered parishes in town, the mission was rarely visited.

Mrs. Dolan, the secretary, was part-time, and visited the mission usually twice a week outside of slim staff responsibilities- to provide unnecessary janitorial services to the bathroom outside of the little sanctuary, and to cleanup in the fellowship hall on Saturday mornings after the youth group from nearby St. Luke’s Parish came down each Friday night for outreach and a youth service featuring loud music and dynamic Vicar Egan from St. Luke’s who could really kick it with the area kids.

Sophos’ services, offered each weekday at noonday, on early Wednesday evenings, and on Sunday mornings, had been empty since he took the mission over three weeks ago.

When you are at the edge of town, it’s not where people wanted to be, he thought. But he also knew that was not true.

It was a surprise then, on Tuesday morning, after spending time in his personal Scriptural study for an hour after arriving early at the church, for him to hear the buzz of someone ringing the doorbell connected to the modern, modest doors at the front of the blocky old mission building that used to be a small furniture warehouse.

He walked down the stale brown carpet in darkly lit hallway into the front of the sanctuary, where he flipped on the room’s lights and then walked to the set of double doors at the back of the hall, where he unlocked one of the two plain wooden doors and looked at his visitors.

Standing before him were three teenagers, skateboards in hand, hairs of mixed colors and lengths.

“Excuse me, sir”, the one closest forward said, “could we use your restroom?”

It was till early and quiet on the edge of town and the sun outside the building made Sophos’ eyes blink and burn for a moment.

“Yes, sure. Certainly. Follow me.”

He opened the door wide and let the three kids, each intentionally unkempt, into the modest, low-roofed room. Each kid entered and then scanned around the room- at the yellow walls along each side of the sanctuary, at the little pictures neatly spaced on each wall between the foyer and the wall of images and flowers and a table of candles and a lecturn sitting reddish under the drab room lights, and a figure of a man in a robe reaching forward with two hands outstretched.

Father Sophos led them forward up the center aisle, past the 10 rows of old pews with bleached brown cushions on the seat and back of each bench. The man in the robe with his arms out stared at them as they walked forward. Father Sophos was just lending them a service.

“The bathroom is through that door”, Sophos said, pointing at a wooden door that sat opposite of the hallway doors that brought him into the sanctuary from his office.

In front of the doors to the fellowship hall, though, the lead kid in a neon green shirt was not thinking clearly, and having only caught a glance at where the father was pointing, he rounded the pew at the front of the sanctuary and instead went and opened the door of the confessional booth behind it, and entered.

“Hey- what is this? There’s no toilet in here!”

Father Sophos withheld an audible chuckle and then felt a flash of sobriety cross his mind.

Son, he thought- that is the biggest toilet you will ever see. It’s just no one uses it any more.

“Son, come out of there- yes- it’s the other door behind you there. Go through that one, and the bathroom is in the first room on the left.”

“Mister- what kind of church is this?”, one of the teens asked him.

“I don’t know”, Father Sophos replied. “I don’t really know myself, son. I am trying to figure it out.”

“Do a lot of people come here?”

“They used to.”

“Did something happen? Did something go wrong here? I mean- this place looks pretty old and like it’s not very useful.”

“It’s useful. It has always been useful. It just sits where no one really knows that it is.”

After the kids finished their duties, Father Sophos walked back with them to the entryway doors. At the thin marble font sitting on a waste high pine table to the right of the doors, one of the boys saw it and turned and stopped and dunked his hands into it and rubbed them together, then wiping them on his shirt.

“That statue guy up front is kind of creepy looking”, one of the other boys remarked. “Yeah- he looks sad”, Hand Cleaner mused. “I hope he finds what he’s looking for.”

Father Sophos stood and looked at each one of the kids briefly, and then stated “Me too.”

“Thanks for letting us use the can, Mister.”

Father Sophos closed the door behind them and looked through the drab red light at the slate figure by the altar.

And then he returned to his office to prepare the meditation for the afternoon reflection on the Third Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary, where in the robed man’s bound hands they had placed a reed, as a sceptre, in mockery of His kingship- in case anyone visited the service today.