I was such an innocent kid. But then aren’t all children until they reach an age of reasoning and ponder some reflections of their youth? Some reflections bring a smile, some a shudder and some just have me shaking my head. Here are a few of my reflections:
My mother: An intelligent woman of style, class and grace. But mothers leave their marks, don’t they? For example, she would tell me to “go take a long walk on a short pier,” or “sing solo, so low I can’t hear you,” or “go play in traffic.” I always wanted to please her but she gave me mixed signals. Therapy, anyone?
My First Confession: I was raised Catholic and in those days nuns wore habits, looked very austere, and they were strict. “No questions. You must accept on blind faith.” Okay. So they gave us these little books that were about two inches high and two inches wide and fairly thick. It was the “Book of Sins.” It was divided into “mortal sins and venial sins,” all of which scared me spitless. At the age of nine we were told to study these sins. When the time came to make our First Holy Communion, we first had to venture into the Confessional and tell the priest our sins.
Well, I studied the sin book and couldn’t find a sin that I had to confess. I was beginning to sweat with fear. The nuns were expecting SINS and confession. I did put a little check mark beside a couple so the priest would know I was ready to be a good Catholic. To be on the safe side, I took the “Book of Sins” into the confessional in case I forgot what I had checked off. So I got into the confessional and was so nervous that I dropped my sin book. Plus it was dark in there. It smelled of sins and hell and incense, and I could hear the priest breathing. I thought I would faint. I confessed to everything from adultery, to coveting and murder just so I could get out. I don’t remember what my penance was but I think I’m still paying it.
Nun-Clickers: In those days the nuns, dressed in their habits, always stood very erect and had clickers. You know, those little aluminum things that in a nun’s hands, at least, emitted a sound that echoed like a roar from God through the hallowed sanctuary. When no Mass was going on, the nuns were teaching us when to stand, sit or kneel by clicking. Sometimes I stood when I should have knelt. “Nooo, Missy,” I would hear the nun at the end of my pew say. She pursed her lips while eyeing me, thrust her arm out with God-given authority and clicked the clicker again. I looked to my right and left to see what the others were doing. I wondered if this was a sin. Fainting became my norm.
Well, life went on and I managed to make it to adulthood. But not without some confusion. At times my mother reminded me of the nuns, though she didn’t wear a habit. The nuns reminded me of my mother because they were all strict, and I had bad dreams of clickers. Maybe I should have played in traffic.
—cher
Tags: adultery, blind faith, Catholic, childhood, clickers, fear, first confession, first holy communion, hell, incense, innocent kid, intelligent woman, little books, mixed signals, mortal sins, nuns, penance, reflections, safe side, smile, style class, venial sins
OMG! I can’t believe I’m reading this!!! I have a blog entry in draft about this very subject. I too was raised Catholic and attended Catholic school all the way to the 9th grade. I know what you’re saying about nuns and sin and oh boy, am I ever going to hell!!!
Thanks for the great blog entry. Those were they days, huh?
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I studied the Spanish Inquisition for a term paper in junior high school. I haven’t been a very good Catholic ever since.
It’s ridiculous that the church could get away with teaching kids about God based on fear and punishment.
Unfortunately, most religions are based on this.
A religion that would put a man in prison for believing the earth revolved around the sun instead of the other way around, is always several steps behind commonsense.
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Drama Queen,
Oh, do write your story! We can compare notes.
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John Tedder,
I know what you are saying, John. For me, though, I will always be a Catholic at heart. Maybe because I went through so much to get there, I can’t let it go. I think the Church has come a long way since those days, and I certainly have. No more fear. Some things we figure out on our own.
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Made me laugh. Faith is a matter of individual conscious.
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WalkTalkTours,
Yes, faith is a matter of conscience. In spite of everything, it has served me well.
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Very, very good in a number of ways.
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Ahh, the nuns…..Your account with the nuns reminds me of reading John Irving, my favorite author.
I don’t have any experience with this, but it always seems to me that they would benefit from knowing THE GUYS a bit.
From all the stories I hear, they are always depicted as so strict and uptight.
Also…..I love, “Sing solo, so low, I can’t hear you.” Brutal, but funny! And creative.
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FishHawk,
Thank you for your thoughts. Always good to see you!
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Bring Back Pluto,
Since the days of my youth, nuns have changed quite a bit, which is good for them and for those with whom they interact. They work steadfastly in any number of faith-based outreach programs. They have a true calling and I admire that. Not so much when I was a kid…!
Although, my parents had a friend who was a nun and would visit us often. She always had a six-pack of beer tucked under the front panel of her habit. It was so …human, and I loved her for that.
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Yikes…4 foot tall… screechy/witchy like voice…sporting that ever devilsh/angelic habit….always carrying a leather belt with her as that was her weapon of choice. She would literally jump up in the air as it would give her more smack leverage on the bare hands of her latest victim. She was by Holy name ‘Sister Angela’ the Principal of our Catholic elementary school. I swear she was the anti-Christ in disguise!
Talk about instilling a fear of the Lord into small innocent children…she was a definite ringer for that job!
I can even remember when my brothers all took turns being Alter Boys….they thought they were oh..so special because I could not be one.
LOL…oh my what a kaleidoscope of memories you have triggered with your post.
Some things I would rather not remember….and how clearly those memories seem to return
Nice one Cher
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DorothyL,
Sister Angela sounds like so many nuns in those days, especially the ones who were Principals of the schools. They instilled more terror than anything and used power at their will, not God’s. The power of our spirits to have survived all of that is a testament to God’s love, not the nun’s!
Sorry for the memories….
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Good day… Recovering Catholic here…
Yeah, I endured only 4 years of Catholic School, but it certainly left a mark. (and I mean that.)
I too dreaded going to Confession because I didn’t think I had that much to talk about. Now, I didn’t have a neat little book of sins to go by (although I wish I did… It might have given me some good ideas for fun things to do) so I only had the Ten Commandments to go by.
Not honoring father and mother was always a good fallback. Let’s see… false idols? I’m in 3rd grade, for pete’s sake… Does Bugs Bunny count?
Coveting neighbors wife? Uh, nope… she was like a thousand years old. Coveting neighbor’s goods? Idid like his little electric lawn mower, but I wasn’t allowed to cut the grass yet. How about coveting my brother’s toys?
Ah… name of the Lord in vain! I didn’t really do that one much, but at least it was plausible.
In all seriousness, I probably checked out of the whole Organized Religion thing right around 2nd grade, when we had a priest come in to take questions… you know… Play “Stump the Father”. I hit him with the dionsaur question and he gave me a bullshit answer. 2nd GRADE, and even I could tell it was bullshit. Like many boys, I read every dinosaur book in the library (wow… in retrospect, I’m surprised they even HAD dinosaur books in Catholic school.) Anyway, I knew that the dinos had been there for millions of years before mankind, yet he was up there still pushing that Seven Days stuff… He told me that back then, “the days could have been longer than they are now.”
I’m thinking, in my little kid head, “Is he flippin’ KIDDING me?” I wasn’t confident enough to argue with him about it though… The nuns will get you for that. In fact, maybe that’s what happened after all… Father Pinhead told her after class, “Make Dinosaur Boy pay…” I KNOW that’s really why she took my mechanical pencil away from me.
Another day, I asked what Jesus’ last name was. He told me “Christ.”
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN… wrong answer, and again, I knew he was BSing me. My mom knew the answer… People were named after their fathers, so it would have been “Jesus of Joseph”. Perfectly logical answer that I understood just fine. Why couldn’t he have told me that?
Sigh… OK, enough therapy for today… The important question is, why am I putting all this here when I have more than enough material for my own posting?
Don’t be surprised if you see this commentary appear again… =o)#
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bluzdude,
What a great story! All of it sounds so familiar. I have been kind of a church gypsy, exploring various realms from Pentecostal, to Methodist, to Lutheran and more. I learned something of value in each one. I came away with more substantive knowledge than I was ever taught in my youth.
I have my core beliefs now within the context of the Bible, though heaven knows there are many interpretations of that. The one truism for me is FAITH, above all else. Sometimes I equate dogmatic religions to politics, and once in awhile to Big Business. Still…I have gone back to my roots in the Catholic church. Someone will put a hit out on me for saying this, but I don’t go to confession. Let me re-phrase that. I do not go into a confessional. I tell God my deepest and darkest secrets, regrets, and joys. An automatic pipeline, if you will. Right? Wrong? I don’t know. I’ll let God judge when it’s my time.
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I agree completely with the “automatic pipeline.”
Who needs “the middle-man?” It’s all the goofy crap that mankind made up in order to deal with the eternal questions that has made such a mockery of what God is supposed to represent.
I find that all these denominations are about power and influence. Sometimes it’s monetary, sometimes it’s not. Maybe all these sects are necessary because they provide the powers that be with a reason to exist. If there are not differences that appeal to a certain “market”, there’s no reason for anyone to attend. Or chip in when the plate is passed.
I don’t claim to have any answers to the eternal questions. I wouldn’t call myself “atheist”… more probably “agnostic”, because I just don’t know. But what I do know is that if there is a God, you won’t need an organization to reach him. All you need is your own brain. Of course, there is no money to be made in that.
All the other trappings of organized religion are just things that some men made up a long time ago, in order to control people and amass power in whatever form… money, land, status, influence, etc.
I know that all seems rather cynical, but that’s the way I’m wired. It puts me in mind of a quote I read once, but have been unable to track down again to double-check the author. But it said, “Religion is the only thing that keeps the very poor from killing the very rich.”
OK, that and the National Guard.
So use your automatic pipeline with pride.
Anyone that judges you for that will have their own judgment to deal with soon enough.
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bluzdude,
You are a gentleman, a scholar and my hero!
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I laughed through so much of this. I too was traumatized by nuns as a child. We were taught by Immaculate Heart nuns who to this day still wear black and white habits and call the hair showing orders of nuns “rebels.” I don’t know how we all made it through school, but we survived somehow.
I have to admit that when my kids tell me how “mean” their teachers are I don’t have a lot of sympathy for them, they have no concept of what mean really is. The one positive thing I can say is that everyone was always on their best behavior and we never had chaos in the classroom. One mean nun with a yardstick can keep an awful lot of kids under control.
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Tina T,
The nuns, as you said, did control the chaos in the classrooms. I have to wonder, though, how many were so turned off by the mean-spirit of their demeanor, that they left The Church to find more welcoming homes.
We must have gone to different schools together.
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Well I was raised Lutheran, so I have no first-hand experience with nuns or clickers or confessions. I have to say, it sounds like a pretty traumatic way to grow up, but at least when you’re older and wiser you have great material for your writing!
Where I went to elementary school (a regular public school) there was a Catholic private school about four blocks away. We would talk about what went on there and create stories and myths about it. The school was called “Holy Rosary” and I don’t know where we got our ideas from, but we’d say things like: “I heard that at Holy Rosary, the nuns are so strict, that if you are sick and throw up, they make you eat it!”
Of course I don’t believe that now, but isn’t it interesting how the concept of fear/humiliation/castigation that we children “sensed” or somehow “picked up” was translated into the tales we told about that mysterious place?
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Tamara,
Children are often very intuitive. It was not as bad as some may have imagined, but I find it interesting that other private schools, for example, did not elicit such speculations of terror.
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Tiff,
I often think that FAITH is something which we carry in our hearts, minds, and actions, rather than regimentation of services. I believe that attending services is good positive reinforcement, but if one walks away and takes nothing but self-satisfaction in attendance, then the spirit of of God’s message has been squandered. If we implement our faith through actions which are pleasing to God, then I believe He will bless that.
Your grandmother had a profound and positive influence on you. To think that she and your grandfather put 13 grandchildren through Catholic school, tells me that they knew children need foundations. This, I do believe is necessary. My parents seldom went to church but forced my brother and me to go. That’s okay, because we came to need the belief in an infinite and invisible parent. We looked upward because our parents were MIA, so to speak. The “pipeline” continues….
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I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story and all the commentary. Though I did not attend Catholic School (many of my friends did). I was raised a Catholic but attended a public school across the street from the Catholic school. Like Tamara above we would look across that street at that school and talk about what horrors we believed were going on there. I can relate to so many of the stories because I heard them all second hand from my buddies. My mom went to that School in the 1930′s and would tell me how the nuns would dole out the discipline with what they called “a cat of nine tails” which appeared to be some kind of whip.
Also she would say that in those days the kids were expected to bring in an offering each day for the Virgin Mary (and being a poor family with 7 children) she couldn’t do it. The nuns would berate those that couldn’t. The point of all this is that as a result of her experiences she told my grandparents her son (me) was not going to that school and would be going to public school. Thank God for me.
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Paladin,
Your mom was a wise woman in her decision to put you in public school, given the way Catholic schools were in those days.
Your thoughts about the “offering” sparked yet another memory for me. Our church in those days listed the the monetary “offerings” of each family by name in the church bulletin every Sunday. The listing began with the $2.00 offerings, then $5.00, then $10.00 and so on, up to $50.00 and above. The rich ones. More shame for my brother and me. Most of our friends went to the same church, and though we lived in an upper-middle class home, we were on the $2.00 list. People in attendance poured over those bulletins during Mass, looking I suppose for their very own righteous names. I hung my head low and wondered again about the “Book of Sins.”
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Ah and you have now rekindled that memory of mine. Yes, I too remember the same exact thing. As you said to the other poster, we all must have been living the same life, just in different places!
A couple of other humorous thoughts for you. I grew up in a small town but we had three Catholic Churches on the same street. One was Slovak, one German and the third I believe was Irish. Funny how we were all serving the same God but none trusted or liked the other. Each was very suspicious of the other and a great deal of competition existed among the three. None of the adults wanted to go to the “other churches” unless they absolutely had to. I don’t think I ever went in to the German church till mine was closed and they were combined. Talk about uncomfortable. Not very Christlike now that I think about it.
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Paladin,
You are such a gem. I had to laugh with you on this because it is so true. Segregates, all!
If you have a blog, please let us know. If you don’t, you should. Otherwise, pour a cup of coffee, or a glass of fine wine and join in whenever you can. We will look forward to it.
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[...] entitled, “Unclarified Butter: My Childhood Confusion.” You can reference it at http://www.askcherlock.com/200.....-confusion It was initially begun as a whimsical article about growing up in the Catholic Church. But as my [...]
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