My Confession

Second grade was the big time in many ways. It was a season of sacraments. Reconciliation and First Holy Communion were all to go down this year. Us seven-year olds were just sooo mature to accept Jesus as our boy. Reconciliation was the first holy event to prepare for because we needed to repent our sins before we could eat the Jesus. Seven-year olds have so many sins. I mean, let's get real here...what are the seven-year olds doing that require a confession?

Well anyway, the second grade criteria prepped us for months. The second sacrament would be the gateway to Jesus-my drug of choice. Preparing the introductory prayer to the priest was our first lesson. We would practice this with Mrs. Sasha.

"Oh my God, I am sorry for my sins, in choosing to sin and failing to be good. I have sinned against you and your church. I firmly intend with the help of your Son to make up for my sins and to love as I should. Amen."

I got my intro down and the next part was reflection and personal. I needed to think about what my confession was to be and trust that Monsignor would keep this admittance between God, him, and me.

We were informed that the priest would issue us a penance. After we left the booth and then returned to our pew, it would be our responsibility to say our penance. The penance would probably be some prayers.

The big day: It is my turn in line and I stressed for many weeks about what I would tell the priest. In my opinion, I really wasn't doing anything wrong that needed to be reported to God. "Hey God, I'm annoying and hyper." Okay.

So I get up to Monsignor feeling as brazen as hell and break into my intro prayer. Perfecto. It is now time to report my sins. I proceed to tell the man that, "I do not have any sins, but was curious to why the church issues prayers as pennance when we are supposed to pray daily anyway?"

Monsignor looked shocked but excited. He gave me this long-winded speech about how he could tell me to walk to China as penance but that would be unrealistic. Prayers are more realistic. Then he gave me a penance of two hail marys and one our father. Maybe I got a penance sentence for being a big mouth?

Maybe I could have confessed that I put a Sorry game piece in my Ken doll's hot green underwear and mounted him on top of my Barbie? My mom walked in on this position and was like, "whoa."