mea culpa and Happy Easter.. (my sins exposed)

Fast forward to today and we willingly expose everything on FaceBook. No need to write in those diaries anymore we have journals now. One of us has no couth whatsoever and writes about her life and posts it on a website called My-third life.. mea culpa. Maybe it was better in the ‘olden days’ but no less boring I’m sure.

I had a girlfriend who kept a diary and it was coded so every time she washed her hair, it was code for sinning with her boyfriend. We were Catholics and she had the cleanest shiniest hair, but also the blackest soul full of sins. I envied her a lot.

As for myself, I got bored with the diary after the first couple of weeks because I wouldn’t dare put down my real thoughts and desires! I had six siblings and no privacy, are you kidding me? Besides, I had all those sinful thoughts too.. just saying.

We used to skip mass which was also a sin, but we would pick up the (missive). Essentially this was a newsletter about everything happening in the church. These were kept at the entrance so it was easy enough to get a copy without actually attending the service. This was our proof of attendance, then we would escape to the corner confectionery store and drink cokes in the back booths while visiting with our fellow escapees.

If we ran into someone that had been at mass, that was a bonus, because then we could quiz them on the sermon. See, it’s this way, you could get caught if the adults were suspicious at all. They would say “ok what did Father Bob talk about in the sermon today?” you could stutter your way through something but essentially you were caught red-handed so to speak. The church I attended had about five masses every Sunday.

All these sins needed to be confessed at some point so we could clear the slate and start over again. Now you think this would be the easy part but it was the toughest for me. The priest could be the same one I had last time. I needed to get increasingly creative without him suspecting me of making up the same ones every week.

I had the most boring sins ever and if I had it to do over again I would make his ears bleed for sure. We also had to recite prayers as penance for our sins and that was torturous as hell. I would sing my favorite songs along with a few ‘Hail Marys’ under my breath, then make a clean getaway. But not before looking around to see if anyone was watching me. I didn’t want to get caught cheating. I was a good catholic girl and afraid of the nuns and priests and maybe even God, who could see right into my heart. It was plastered with menial and mortal sins which also gave me an innate fear of hospitals, if they opened up my chest, they would see all those black sins there. I wish I were making this up, but I’m not. I was a product of my Catholic upbringing.

Those days are long gone. I quit attending church in my early teens and have never been back. Don’t get me wrong, I received the highest marks in my religion class in the Catholic schools I attended. I also knew I was going to burn in hell, but nobody else suspected! Organized religion has since held no power over me but I do have my own higher power that keeps me on track..

Without our experiences in our life journey here, how are we to know what is right and what is wrong? I certainly don’t believe in sins and confessions anymore… well not totally, mea culpa. Maybe when I was on my knees supposedly saying the rosary as my penance, some of that spirituality may have seeped in, or perhaps it was there all along.

I was on a different mission in a Catholic church a few years ago. Sharing this story during Holy Week, I’m feeling a little irreverent, but why should that stop me? hmmmm  So anyway, I was kneeling in the back pew of this huge beautiful church. I picked the back row in case I needed a quick getaway. To my utter surprise, the whole mass was in English, not Latin. The kneeling and standing up and sitting and kneeling parts were also almost non-existent. It was all bearable but the worst was about to happen and expose me to everyone as the biggest sinner/imposter of all.

It was time for communion, leaving your pew and walking to the front of the church to receive the sacred host (a thin circular white wafer, the symbolic body of Christ) into your mouth and hopefully your soul. Back in my day, you couldn’t partake in this if you hadn’t been to confession, to cleanse your soul first, making it ready for Christ. Usually about a quarter of the people at the mass make their way up front to receive the host. Seeing as it was well over fifty years since I had confessed any of my sins, I wasn’t making that walk. To my utter horror, I was the only one left not partaking of the sacred host. Jesus kill me now..

My saving grace was that I didn’t know one person there, so my sinful ways were safe with me, whew… that was a close call though. A month or so later I ran into a girlfriend I hadn’t seen in forever and after exchanging hugs and hellos she went on to say  “You know I coulda swore I saw you at mass awhile back and I even said to my friend isn’t that —— ?” (name held back to protect my innocence ) “We weren’t sure and when we looked again, you were gone”. Well, she got that last part right, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Oh.. and my mission for my foray back into a Catholic church, was to check out the older singles scene. I know, more sins in the making, mea culpa, mea culpa… mea maximum culpa!

My only wish this Easter is for everyone to always believe in themselves.

Oh… and maybe expand your search elsewhere to find single men, but don’t give up.

Happy Easter

www.my-thirdlife.com

#livingmybestlife #mythirdlife #lmbl

Copyright April 3, 2021