It’s time l confess.
I still remember the day I made my first confession, my shiny new soul paired with my even shinier first holy communion shoes. But the funny memories, the ones that still make me laugh, came during those primary school years when confession was a compulsory field trip.
Without warning, our teacher would clap her hands and announce, “Right, everyone. Line up, we’re going to confession.”
And just like that 30-plus kids marched out of school. We shuffled down the footpath to the church in a long, squeaking line of black school shoes, some kids rehearsing their confession under their breath, others scrambling in a panic to think of something to say because their week had been fairly uneventful and the pressure was on to have something to report. Heaven forbid you walk into the confessional empty-handed.
In hushed voices we swapped intel the way other kids traded football cards, “What are you saying?” “I kicked my brother,” “I said rude words with my friends,” “Not doing chores for my mum.”
By the time we reached the church steps we were a tangle of nerves and guilt. And yet, looking back, the whole ritual feels almost tender, this shared childhood drama of trying so earnestly to be good when our biggest crime was pinching someone’s colouring pencil.
There was a time I remember having absolutely nothing to say – no fights, no stolen crayons, not even a cross word. In a panic, I considered confessing to something I didn’t actually do…only to realise I would need to confess that lie too.
I was recently talking with my aunty about going to confession as kids.
Though her last confession was a long time ago, it was so deeply ingrained in her that she rattled off the routine like it was yesterday: Starting with the Sign of the Cross and greeting the priest…“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
She also remembered times when she couldn’t think of any real sins, and falling back on a couple of ‘emergency’ sins one could always confess to, like “telling lies and swearing” (which she never actually did), “talking in Mass,” and the universal favourite, “fighting with my brothers and sisters.”
It was our childhood Catholicism at its finest, equal parts guilt, creativity, and pure survival instinct.
As a child I always had to think long and hard to pull from memory the Act of Contrition we had been taught: “Oh my God, l am very sorry that l have sinned against you. Because you are so good and with your help, l will not sin again, Amen.”
Leaving the dark confessional, we were certain that we had done something good, we had been forgiven, we were in safe hands even if we had only confessed “silly” things.
I usually walked away with the classic penance combo: five Hail Marys and three Our Fathers. Judging by how often I found myself back in that confessional I’m surprised the priest didn’t give me a loyalty card.
Many of my acts of charity or restitution involved “helping my mother more” which usually meant doing the chores I’d been avoiding all week.
I’m fairly sure the priest and my mum had an unspoken agreement: I confess, he absolves, and I come home ready to do the dishes or clean my bedroom. If holiness could be earned by peeling potatoes, I was well on my way to sainthood.
Looking back now, those childhood confessions feel like gentle lessons in growing up. We weren’t saints, just kids trying to make sense of right and wrong, one Hail Mary at a time.
Maybe that’s why those memories still make me smile: because beneath the nerves and the sometimes creative storytelling, there was something deeply comforting about knowing we were being nudged quietly and kindly toward becoming better people.