75 Confession

Though my brothers and I dodged Mass whenever we could, most weeks it couldn’t be avoided. An hour’s boredom was a sufferance enough but the shame of sitting out communion piled on the misery. Taking the blessed sacrament when not in a state of grace was out of the question, so when it came time for the good Catholics of Twydall to come forward and kneel at the altar for communion, I – an accomplished sinner and serial Mass dodger – remained at my pew. Hardier souls might have brassed it out and chanced a bolt of lightning, but not me. I just sat there and squirmed.

The only way to clear my slate was to attend confession. Fine, but I was well known to our parish priest and that made things awkward.

There are certain things a young boy cannot bring himself to confess to a priest. Not this boy anyway, not even in the sanctity of the confessional, and certainly not to someone who’d know my voice. And that was tricky, because deliberately withholding something in confession is – surprise surprise – a sin. However, genuinely forgetting something and not remembering it until later is acceptable, meaning any sinful oversights are absolved with the rest.

Aha! I’ll brainwash myself into forgetting the rude stuff before my next confession.

Easier said than done. Whilst kneeling on the front pew and waiting my turn in the confessional, I examined my conscience in preparation of a full and sincere confession.

I need to confess to taking the name of the Lord in vain… coveting my neighbours’ goods, missing Mass, not honouring my father and mother, stealing biscuits from the larder… and a bit of swearing. That’s all. There’s nothing else. I’m sure of it. I’ve had no impure thoughts about bare ladies.

With my hands clasped, I gazed up at our Lord on the cross, high above the altar.

I am thinking good, holy thoughts. I am definitely not thinking about tits and fannies and intercourse and other sinful things. And if I ever did, I’ve forgotten about them.

By the time I got to the confession box the images in my mind were raging out of control. No matter, after a customary act of contrition, I confessed the routine stuff.

‘Anything else?’ Father Naylon enquired.

‘No, Father,’ I said, after some selective soul searching.

‘Are you quite sure?’

‘I’m sure,’ I said, dismissing the fact that my bed sheet was starting to look like the Turin Shroud.

Three Our Fathers and five Hail Mary’s later, I was pure again, and come Sunday, I took communion with the great and the good. Amen.