Confession

 

A short story.

Today I went to confession.

I had been thinking about it for a while, preparing for it, not the sinning but the confession part.

During confirmation classes our teacher mentioned confession was a requirement. He also said one couldn’t have the Holy Eucharist unless one had confessed one’s sins. I wanted to have the Holy Eucharist; it had been on my mind for many years.

I Imagined the day I would humbly walk up Christ the King church aisle, head bowed, hands neatly clasped behind my back. I would stand before the priest eyes closed and mouth open. He would place the white wafer on my tongue, I would slowly close my mouth, pause a second before turning around and walking back to my seat. I would kneel by the pew and pray looking pious and pure and mature – no longer a kid but a young lady growing up in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and Man.

My brother and I practiced the act of receiving the Eucharist with crisps; stick the tongue out, give enough circumference for the piece to land squarely in the middle of the tongue and then retract the tongue reverently. We got good practice with the crisps; it was the confession that needed some more work.

The confirmation class was scheduled to confess on Saturday, and I still didn’t know what to tell the priest. I had stolen a pencil and lied to my mother – that was as heavy as it got, but was it enough? Would he send me away admonishing me to dig further and find the real sins? Were these sins good enough for confession? I mean I had a crash on one of the alter boys but that wasn’t a sin or was it?

I walked up to the confession box in the corner of the church. I drew the purple curtain to enter, it was deemed inside. The priest sat behind a veil. I knelt afraid to look around in case he recognized me or I him. Something about anonymity brought security although I still struggled to be vulnerable.

I uttered the words “Father, I have sinned”.

In a calm deep voice, he asked me to confess.

I said “I stole a sharpener at school”

“My child, do you still have the sharpener?”

I said, “Yes father”, and in that moment I realized I was lying because I didn’t have the sharpener, it got lost. I had sinned again in confession. What about the lies? I didn’t mention the lies, oh dear, they were so many, I would never leave confession at this rate.

After a moment of silence Father asked me to go home and say, “Five Hail Mary’s and the full rosary”.

I withdrew from the confessional reverently. I had qualified for confirmation.

One of the other kids got news from his older brother that the priest dipped the wafer in wine at confirmation. We were going to have wine in church. We were almost adult Christians.

This was big!