Iwas seven and in grade two at a Catholic boys’ school. That was the age when little kids were prepared for communion. Before communion, there was a prerequisite for it, the confession. Every kid had to go through their confession before being allowed to receive the holy gift of communion. A compliant confession was mandatory for every Catholic child at that age. I don’t need to say that Catholicism is about ceremonies and rituals passed through generations by indoctrination.
In readiness for your first-ever confession, teachers lectured us about SIN, which would result in eternal hell. Hell was where one was burnt forever if one did not obey God and sinned. I was told that I was a sinner, a born sinner, a concept hard to fathom for a tiny mind.
Every word was said to impart fear of God and sin. Which seven-year-old would like to be roasted on eternal fire? To my little mind, the concept of sin and hell was foreign. My classmates, me included, trembled in their seats about what could happen after we were not free of sin. We listened fervently to these important don’ts.
The teacher taught about the ten commandments given to mankind by an old bloke called Moses on a tablet standing on top of a mountain.
I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
Remember to keep holy the LORD’S Day.
Honour your father and your mother.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s goods.
Think of any seven-year-old kid, two years into school, learning about lying, stealing and killing. Missing Sunday mass was a grave sin, a mortal sin. Doubting the Catholic faith was also a severe sin. The adultery part was intentionally omitted, but teachers generously quoted the sin of killing. Cain killed his brother, Abel. Did the teachers think these little kids were destined to be killing machines of the future?
At seven years of age, memories are hazy. So I stressed by thinking of the bad things I had done in my short life. Things like looking back in the church, sitting down and not kneeling during the family rosary, lying to Mum that I ate all my food and peed in the garden when nobody was looking. I made a mental list in my head and tried hard to remember them, awaiting the fateful day of my first confession.
That system imparted guilt to poor little boys like me from a young age.
Some boys instead became smarter and found innovative ways. They exchanged lists of sins they planned to recite on their first-ever confession.
On a fateful day, I knelt by the side of a cubicle, the confessional built to impart fear on little kids like me. On the other side, behind a mesh, was a priest, his bald head shining. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned”. I repeated my silly sins to him that I had memorised for days with a lot of effort. I could recite only three and stopped there, my memory failing out of fear of what punishments would await me. Then, cutting short my sins, I recited a prayer I studied in school. With a sign of blessing, the priest ordered me to recite a decade of the rosary as a punishment for my ‘terrible’ sins.
Two weeks later, I received the coveted communion in a gala ceremony my parents and relatives attended. I wore my first-ever tie for that event. I got a lot of gifts, primarily rosaries and prayer books. No toys, though. Religion was more important than playing.
Back in school, saints who abused themselves with self-flagellation were glorified. Saints who flogged themselves in the night and those who wore a crown of thorns on their heads, mimicking Jesus’s last few hours, were revered as role models. These saints bought their air tickets to heaven through these brave acts. Nowadays, such acts would be called self-harm and low self-esteem. But back then, these were glorified actions revered by faithful Catholics.
Confessions once a month were mandatory for kids. Once a year, before Easter, everyone had to confess. The priest marked off the family mission book, recording the attendance at a confession of the poor sinful soul. It was a documented act of compliance with the Catholic faith, tightly enforced. The church ensured that their flock was maintained in check, law and order.
A few years go by. Confessions were acceptable until a boy turned into a teenager. Confessions became tricky when I found the pleasure of masturbation as part of my puberty. In fear of being thrown to hell one day, I confessed my purported sin to the priest to avoid being burnt in the eternal fire, despite the embarrassment it caused for the teenage me. The priest asked too many probing questions across the cubicle, and I became seriously uncomfortable. That episode did not go well.
That ended my compliance with the joys and mercies of confessions of the Christian faith.
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