Confession and Memory

(This is an abridged version of a longer story.)

This particular memory is extant (unlike much of my life which passed in routine and boredom) but it has a haze over it like it grew a skin (seeing its results, but only barely perceiving the cause of its life). Many of my childhood memories appear like this. Someone says the right thing and the memory’s skin opens under the cutting words, then the blood and puss come up. I think about that memory for a few days, but ultimately the cut heals and I go back to living without it. Sometimes the memory is so horrid it makes my face wince. There is no metaphor there; I do wince at my past idiocy. I find those memories with miasma, not fog. This memory stuck around far longer. I do not wince at this memory; it’s a proud moment for me now. Maybe pride in my former self gave it reason stay. It bolsters my ego.

I always dreaded confession day at my Catholic school. Because of the film over the past I don’t recall how often we students went to confession. Once a week sounds like a good estimate, but I remember telling the priest, “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one year since my last confession.” The shame associated with saying “one year” is why I remember. Friends of mine went to confession everyday; they were so good (and for the same reason bad, why else would they go to confession everyday).

I often think about going to confession at a Church near my current home, more for anthropological reasons than any other. I would say, “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been nine years since my last confession.” I would remember it the rest of my life, not for the associated shameful emotion, but for the look of pity (and therefore arrogance) on the priest’s face. I would tell him I am sorry I let the Catholic Church make me feel guilty for being human and having human desires. I may never do this. It’s a fantasy I might never live up to.

I wondered what my classmates’ sins were. I asked David what he was going to confess. He said swearing, not obeying his parents, and some other minor miscellaneous things. All things Jesus spurted blood on Roman hands for, so I guess we should confess them (does their triviality matter?).

Sitting in the pews before confession was suffering because I brought all the guilt to the front of my mind, I was just trying to remember why I felt guilty and then recount some of those things to the priest so he could absolve me.

In the confessional there is a wicker screen. Everyone is given the choice to sit behind the screen or sit in front of the priest. In a class of 25 when the priest is the also the principal of the school the wicker screen is useless. He knows the voices well enough that when the fifth grade class comes in he knows who is sitting behind the screen. I sat in front of him when I went to confession. I might as well look at him. It showed definitive shame if you hid your identity behind the screen (besides, the wicker screen doesn’t protect identity, it isn’t a curtain, it’s a holey and incomplete security blanket).

I confessed my sins to a man in a black suit with a weird white collar. I told him every trivial thing I could remember, much of it similar to David’s sins. He told me to bow my head and close my eyes as he held his hand over me. I didn’t close my eyes. I watched him put out his hand and close his eyes while he said some boring words to someone I couldn’t see. I felt that, too. I thought him a fool because he spoke to himself. At the same time I felt ashamed because I sinned and I just told an authority figure how bad a person I was. He told me to go back to the pew and say some “Hail Marys” and “Our Fathers.” I left the confessional, kneeled at the pew, hands folded, facing the bronze crucifix and started:

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women . . . damnit, what’s the rest? Why can’t I remember this? I always say it fine when everyone else is saying it with me. OK, let’s try again. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women . . . oh well, I’ll move on to the Our Father. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on …Earth as it is in hea…ven . . . damnit. I can’t remember this one either. Whatever. I tried.”

That’s how it went.

The teacher rounded up all the students after we all made ourselves depressed telling some guy we barely knew everything we did in the last year that was supposed to make us feel bad about ourselves (according to him and those like him). The school wasn’t attached to the church, but it was very close. We walked around the back of the church and into the back of the school.

Going up the stairs to the back door the teacher said to me, “Doesn’t it feel great
to have all that weight lifted off your shoulders?”

The way she phrased it and the tone she used made it rhetorical. I knew what she wanted to hear, “Yeah, it does,” I said heartlessly. My words betrayed my thoughts. I should have said, “No, I don’t feel any different. In fact, I feel worse. I don’t like confession.”

I said pride in my former self is why this memory stuck with me for the past months. I am less proud of myself for not telling the teacher what I thought, but proud nonetheless. How many people can say they doubted their religion when they were in fifth grade? Besides, who’s to say if I told my teacher those things I wouldn’t now be a staunch Catholic because they would have found a project in me? I am proud of that young Will for at least thinking what he did. That was enough.