Brides of Christ and disco madmen

Thanks, Chuckbert, for your recent post.  The images stirred some memories for me.

We had to go to catechism twice a week, Monday and Wednesday, in second grade so that we could prepare for our First Confession and First Holy Communion. The nuns smote us hip and thigh with all the possible ways we could sin. Talking back to Mom? Venial sin, that. Lying to Dad? Hitting John H. in the head with a branch? Obviously every kid would commit that kind of sin. But it wasn't just sins of commission that we had to worry about. It was sins of omission. Not helping carry in the groceries? Sin of omission. Playing up in the woods when Dad was changing the oil on the Willys, which he seemed to be doing every freaking week? Omission. The deck was stacked heavily against us.

It was a good thing we'd make our First Confession so that we would not go flouncing and bannering and ballooning, like shot crows, into hell. We practiced the prayers. Hail Mary was a piece of cake. The Lord's Prayer a bit tougher. The Act of Contrition ("O my God, I am hardly sorry") was fun because we would all squeak together when we got to the line, "But most of all, because they offend theemygod. . . ." The Apostle's Creed was a bear because it was long, and I didn't understand most of it. "He descended into Hell"? Oh, man, if Jesus descended into Hell, we were toast.

We memorized the Ten Commandments, which were pretty clear for the most part, but we all had trouble with the sixth: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." "Sister Mary Europeandasia, what's adultery?" "Why, it's . . . um . . . it has to do with . . . um . . . carnal concupiscience." We'd whisper to each other (venial sin), "Wow! Carnal concupiscience! What's carnal concupiscience?" And the ninth commandment, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," had my name all over it.

Sister Mary Europeandasia said that sometimes our little brother or sister would call their blankie a "covet" instead of a "cover." We were to remonstrate with our siblings if they ever said the word "covet" and correct them. Somehow I got the impression that even saying the word was a sin. 

Finally the Saturday of First Confession arrived. We had been drilled thoroughly about how to examine our consciences, what to say, what to do, how to act, how to make a good Act of Contrition, how to do penance. I went into the confessional (it was still that curtained, dark booth with a kneeler and galvanized mesh opening covered with pale blue cloth, through which you whispered to the priest). I could hear muttering behind the cloth. Was it my turn? Hard to tell. I said, "Bless me father, for I have sinned." The door slid open. "Shhhhhh!" Okay, it was obviously still the other person's turn. I kept rehearsing my sins.

First Communion Sunday! We girls looked like little brides of Christ, and the boys in their suits looked like miniature John Travoltas in Saturday Night Fever. We were starving from our three-hour fast: Baby Jesus could not be sullied by the contents of our stomachs, but who knows what happened when he hit that hydrochloric acid (venial sin for even thinking that). If a host dropped on the floor, the altar boys, we knew, would throw themselves on it like Marines on a live grenade.

We marched reverently up to the communion rail and knelt down with our hands under the cloth. We had practiced at home with Necco wafers. This was exciting. Father Shuler placed the host on my tongue, and the host immediately adhered to the roof of my mouth. (This was in the days of the almost-transparent hosts, not the hearty-grain fare of later years.) You cannot put your finger in your mouth to scrape it off. I worked it with my tongue. No luck. It was like trying to remove a piece of tissue paper glued to my palate with Silastic. I couldn't let Baby Jesus dissolve in my mouth. Oh, man, and I had just gone to confession the day before, and here he was, stuck. Really, really stuck. Starting to wrinkle and shrink. I continued with my tongue and vibrated my uvula. There! Got him!

That's how I make friends at parties if I don't know anyone. I just stand there by the onion dip and say loudly to no one in particular, "I spent half my childhood trying to get Baby Jesus off the roof of my mouth after communion." Then I make that Baby-Jesus-stuck-on-the-roof-of-my-mouth sound, and immediately all the lapsed Catholics in the room swarm around me, saying "You know how many laps around the beads I had to do when I shot a spitwad at Sister Mary Patrick?" "That's nothing. Let me tell you about the time we got into the sacramental wine." We just have a feast of reminiscence.

A bride of Christ