Hail Mary

Paris told me that she has her first confession she needs to attend next week at her school which is a catholic school.  And she said, “But I don’t know what I’m going to confess.”  And then all the memories of my early church going days flooded back.  My mother use to take me and my two sisters to catholic church every Sunday.

I have four memories of that time.  The first one is how me and my sister, to pass the time away, would play a game.  And the game was see who could make the bread (ya know that little wafer thing which represents the body of christ) last the longest in our mouths.  Being the competitive spirit that I am, I took this game very seriously.   The second is how I use to really want to drink the wine from the cup.  I thought it wasn’t fair that only the adults got to drink it.  Third is when my sister and I were going to do our communion, dressed to the nines in our custom little white dresses made by my mom.  My sister and her friend who was also going to communion got into a gnarly cat fight.  I think we were all of about maybe 8 and 9 years old.  I don’t remember the fight, but somehow I recall a small memory of veils getting ripped off heads.  My sister is like a roller derby girl.  Not one to be messed with for sure.  And the fourth was freggin confession.

I hated confession.  My sister and I use to stand in line and argue who had to go first.  I felt like I was standing in line at the gallows ready to be hung with the catholic guilt rope.  And then I got in that little booth.  Is it just me or does anyone else find it totally creepy that a young child is made to go into a dark booth with some strange man on the other side who you can’t see his face but only hear his voice and you have to talk about how “bad” you’ve been?  Who came up with this nonsense?  Maybe for some it was a cathartic experience, but for me and my sister it was torture.  So there I am, “Bless me father for I have sinned.”  I recall that a lot of my sins were about swearing.  I had a thing (ok, I confess I still have a thing but I’m working on it) for swearing.

In fact, once my sister and I went into the condo community elevator where we lived, closed the doors and started saying as many swear words as we could.  And when the door opened, guess who was there?  Yup, mama.  I don’t remember getting in trouble for it though.   My mom was never real big on the disciplining.  Maybe because she though because we were going to have to confess our badness to the mystery man in the dark booth it would make everything all right with the big man up above.

So I would tell what my perceived sin was and then he would tell me to go say 5 hail Mary’s and I would be forgiven.  I would kneel down, wrap the rosary around my little hands and say my hail Mary’s.  I slightly recall there was a part of me that thought this whole process was ridiculous.   The interesting thing is that lately, when I go to one of my favorite coffee houses in Old Town, I usually stop into the catholic church for a few minutes to pray.  And while I’m there, I’m shocked that I am there.   Church never left a positive impression on me, so the fact that I have chosen to intentionally place myself back into a church amazes me. Can’t say I’ll be stepping into another confessional any time soon but hey ya never know.

So it will be interesting to hear what Paris decides to confess.  I wish I could be there when she does.  I just hope she walks away from the experience feeling good and not creeped out like I did.

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