The other day (Sunday) TLW (The Little Woman) and I were
discussing children and her class in particular. Telling me stories about these
little 7-year olds and their quest to make their communion for the first time.
The conversation shifted to the use of bad words and what
constituted a bad word, and when a word isn’t bad and when it is in a context
of a thought. For instance: the ‘H’ word. Yes the first word you use when you
learn to swear, the ‘H’ word is the beginning.
“Now when you do something bad, you go to Hhh!” said one
little tyke.
TLW: “That’s right! If you kill someone, you could go to
Hell!”
“OOOOU! You said the ‘H’ word!”
TLW: “No, it’s not a sin if you use the word correctly, not
to swear at someone.”
Now, when I was growing up, that was one of the first
English swear words I used. Most boys learn things from their father’s knee,
me, I learned from the end of Dad’s foot, and most of the words were in
Italian!
As we talked, TLW mentioned the confessional, and how as
kids they are learning about telling their sins to the priest. They even have
an ‘Act of Contrition’ tapped to the wall inside the confessional. When we went
to confession so many years ago, there was no aid tapped to the wall, and we
ran through the ‘Act of Contrition’ very quickly, mumbling the words to get out
of there ASAP.
I would go every Saturday afternoon about 4:00 pm; entering
into this big ornate marble pillared church darkened since it was confession,
to confess my sins. Mom was a stickler about me confessing all to the priest. I
would stand on line waiting my turn and dreaming up sins to tell the priest.
Since I was under ten years of age, there weren’t too many sins to confess
other than I aggravated my Mother and Father and used the name of the lord in
vain. Mom believed I had a conscience and that I would reveal more sins to a
priest. I never said I lied, since you never wanted to tell a priest you lied,
so you lied to the priest!
The priest every Saturday would listen to my sins, bless me
and give me the same penance: “Say three Hail Mary’s and an Our Father”, on
occasion an Act of Contrition or a Glory Be to the Father. If you picked a
wrong priest, he would send you off with all the prayers, which was
embarrassing, as we had to go up to the altar to say them. If you were on your
knees longer than 3 minutes, your friends would snicker.
I would return home, Mom would question my older sister
Tessie (much older): “Did he go, did you see him enter the confessional?” Yes,
Mom worried about me.
4 comments:
Like the rest of us, you went to Father Gonzalez who didn't understand a word you said.
SSSSHHHH... I still feel guilty about that!
When I was a kid, I used to type my sins out on my sisters' old Royal typewriter and take them with me so I wouldn't forget. (There were so many, you know.) I was anal even at that tender age.
As a kid, I remember discussing this with our "fellow sinners" and came up with the conclusion, "sum it all up, just tell the priest we disobeyed our parents! That should cover everything!" it seemed to work, but we were still there REconfessing every Saturday!! LOL!
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