Unquestioning obedience was the hallmark of the learning process in St. Mary's Grade School. As an earnest second grader, I knew that challenging the teachings of Sister Annecitus — a towering German nun clad in a stern floor-length Franciscan habit — was never an option. So on that early spring day when she taught us the Holy Act of Confession, I learned the sacrament verbatim.
It's a simple invocation, actually. You begin: "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was one week ago. I (insert list of cardinal and venial sins here), and I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee." Ten Our Father prayers and fifteen Hail Mary apologies later, and the slate was wiped clean.
Now you have to consider the fact that my very disciplined mother loaded her passel of innocents into the station wagon almost every Saturday night so our little souls would be cleansed before Sunday Mass. Of course I needn't tell you that coming up with a viable list of offenses to report weekly was no small task for an eight year old such as myself. Creative-minded even then, I figured God wouldn't mind if I detailed a few standard transgressions — such as fighting with my mischievous seven-year-old brother, arguing with this brother, tormenting said brother, etc. — and got advance absolution for them. (Sister Annecitus had just covered the importance of themes in our storytelling class.)
Unfortunately when I offered my mea culpa to the priest behind the mysterious, shadowed screen of the confessional, my teacher's German accent had slightly altered the intent of my supplicant prayer. I thought she had told us to say "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was one week ago. I (insert tortures of misfortunate brother here), and I am hardly sorry for having offended Thee." To have to make up sins in advance and then tell God that you weren't sorry for them anyway didn't quite make sense. But obedience was the rule of the day, so I didn't dare ask anyone to explain it to me. I was well into fourth grade before I figured out the correct way to confess, and it was many years after that when I realized maybe I hadn't really mixed up the words after all. If you knew my brother Sean, you'd understand.
