The 41st Sermon

Episcopalian priest Christopher Talley leaves for his yearly retreat, a week alone at a fishing resort where he writes the outlines for the sermons of the future year, and where â€" away from his childless wife and his demanding parishioners â€" he indulges in his desire for alcohol and strip club hookers. But most addictive is reliving the memories of his first true love he brought to the resort years ago.

Danger arrives when the blond parishioner he encounters tells him she has run away from her husband. But the beautiful Molly is really hiding out as part of a phony kidnap plot. Sex with this disturbed and thrill-seeking parishioner opens him to joys of physicality besides which the reality of religion is dull indeed. Fr. Talley learns Molly's mother is that first true love he still fantasizes about. He manipulates Molly to entice her mother to the resort.

Satan's complications are never easy; God's grace is never free.