|
stories > > > |
|
Bless Me, Father / By Virginia Sandy McLaury I reached the age of reason when I was seven years old. Now I don't know who decided I reached it (or how), but that's what I was told. From here on, I was responsible for my actions and transgressions. Certain offenses now became Sins with a capital S. And I was capable of committing them, according to the Catholic church of the 1940's. My mother and the four of us children attended Mass every Sunday. If you didn't, you were in big trouble, with a capital S. Yep, after the age of seven, it was a sin to miss Mass on Sunday. The only exceptions were accidents or illness. Little Catholic girls, and big ones too, were required to cover their heads with something before entering a church. If you didn't have a hat, a handkerchief would do. It was disrespectful to God to be bareheaded in church. Okay for boys, but not girls. Girls always wore skirts or dresses to church too, never pants. Mom was there to see that I knelt like a proper girl for the whole Mass. My body was not to touch the pew behind me when I was supposed to be kneeling. A light tap on the shoulder from my Mom would come first and if that didn't work, a good yank on my arm did. It was a strict environment - and I haven't even mentioned the school. At that time our teachers, nuns, were all-knowing and our parents believed everything the nuns told them -- or at least my mother did. A different point of view would never be expressed. Felt maybe, but never voiced. Our religious education followed the church rules set forth in a book called the Baltimore Catechism. Somebody in Baltimore was good at writing, I guess. We learned about all the saints and we prayed to a lot of them every day at school. There was a saint for lost souls and for lost items; saints for almost any occasion. For older girls, there were even saints you could pray to when you wanted to find someone to marry. "Saint Ann, Saint Ann, send me a man." I'm not kidding. We even prayed for such things as a "Happy Death". Well, we were supposed to pray for that. No way! I learned that I was the product of a mixed marriage. Of course, I already knew it was mixed. My father was a man and my mother was a woman. But that's not exactly what they meant. My mother was Catholic and my father was not. I was taught that he was a heathen. A wonderful, kind, fair, loving, funny man, but a heathen still. That belief would stay with me for several years. Believing my church was the only true church, I was taught that if he didn't become a Catholic before he died, he would go to hell. In those days, heaven was only populated by Catholics. So when I reached that reasonable age, it was time to make my First Confession and First Communion. I was struck with fear. How could a little girl of seven be bad enough to commit sins? I had to confess in the dark to a priest behind a partition. Would he recognize my voice? I knew two of the priests really well. The proper method of going to confession and communion was pounded indelibly into my brain day after day after day. We learned the difference between venial (smaller) and mortal (larger) sins. A venial sin might be me not saying my night prayers. A mortal sin might be deliberately lying to my parents or teacher, deliberately talking back to my parents or teacher, deliberately not obeying my parents or teacher. In this seven year old girl's mind, those were mortal sins. No priest ever told me differently, by the way. I could even sin and not actually do anything wrong. Just wrong thinking could be a sin or bring on an Occasion of Sin. Oh my gosh! How do I stop my thoughts? I looked forward to making my First Communion, but not for high moral purposes. I wanted to be a child of God, but what I really desired was the pretty white dress and veil and the presents that would come from all my relatives. But first I had to get through the "Bless me, Father" part. That's how confession started. Then you added up how many times you committed this sin and how many times you committed that one and when you left the confessional, you were cleansed of all sin. What a relief. |