The conjuration

In times when celibacy is increasingly rejected by young clergy, those who willingly submit to it are often given preference when it comes to the allocation of congregations. So I had the good fortune to look after my parish as a pastor. A true picture-book parish, I was congratulated, a beginner's parish without any strange personalities who wanted to harm a pastor or real estate speculators who wanted to snatch up cheap church properties or land. All good-hearted people.

After almost a year here, I could justifiably claim to have arrived. The older members of the congregation slowly began to get over their initial reservations about my youth, and the young people were happy that I could speak (and understand) their language. Everything's hunky-dory, so to speak.

I actually got this parish when I was almost 30 years old. After being ordained as a priest at the age of 25 and agreeing to celibacy, I served as a chaplain for almost five years under various experienced pastors and impressed them with my integrity and willingness to serve. When this parish here became vacant because the long-serving pastor passed away, I was recommended to take over the parish.

I settled in quickly, the villagers, who are normally not very willing to change, accepted me and even attended my services more than they had with the old pastor.

I had a nice apartment in the vicarage next to the church. Although there was no parsonage housekeeper like there used to be, I wasn't spoiled either. In addition, Johanna, the sexton, lived next door, who took on these tasks and mopped once a week, did my laundry and cooked at least once a day, so that I had to start looking after my figure. For the latter in particular, I benefited from the fact that everything here was easily accessible by bike. There were no steep inclines between the main village and the two neighboring villages that still belonged to the municipality. I only needed my hitec mountain bike, which I had owned for years for fitness reasons and which also made me look cool with the village youth, for a few farms a little outside and the forester's lodge in the forest.

Of course, in addition to the church services and personal counseling and pastoral care, I also offered regular activities such as discussion groups, Bible study groups and the like with rather mixed success. My attempt to start a choir failed miserably. After all, the sexton, who also operated the organ, had two teenagers in addition to her own daughter, whom she taught in this art. With her husband, who was also a kind of janitor, we once successfully organized a craft afternoon with woodworking and various tools. We could expand on that.

Apart from that, I was active in the various clubs in the village, practised table tennis, supported the local club and learned that the choral society was not enthusiastic about my choir activities. It wasn't my goal to build up any competition. As a reconciliation, I sang in the local choir and they were happy because I had a pleasant singing voice.

It was perhaps interesting that the local soccer club not only had an old men's team but also several youth teams and even a cheerleading team. I was told that this was much more than just waving pom-poms around, but a serious sport, and the squad was quite successful in competitions.

I watched them train. 15 tough girls training endurance, strength, flexibility and acrobatics, cheered on by an even tougher trainer, who also made sure that everything looked graceful and light-footed and with a smile on her face. Stretches that made me blush. The girls trained harder and longer than the A team of the youth soccer team, who were playing in the district league after all.

However, I have to admit that it wasn't just the girls' workload that made me sweat, but also the fact that they were all exceptionally pretty girls. Even if the spectrum of beauty varied from the small, delicate personalities who always stood at the top of the pyramid or were flung through the air to the somewhat more rustic ones who carried the larger half of the team on their shoulders. The coach, who was almost twice as old at around 35 and had obviously been part of the squad herself in the past, was also a feast for the eyes.

Much to my displeasure, I started to get excited when I imagined having them all with me in confession. I wondered what they had to tell. My own unchastity **** me to recommend myself in order to quickly change my mind. So I switched to the old men, who, after a quarter of an hour of hard training, finally switched to the pub for a well-deserved third half-time.

This finally brings us to the heart of my story, because something happened to three of the cheerleaders that shortly afterwards had an impact on my own life.