Therefore ‘stealing sugar’ was a serious crime in the eyes of a child. Nowadays when the over consumption of sweet food has become a health hazard, it is difficult to believe that once sugar was regarded as a great treat and indeed was a scarce and precious commodity too, in many a household. In a small voice, he whispered “I stole sugar!” Finally one day, losing patience, the teacher asked him what exactly did he steal? “No! No!” the teacher would exclaim: “Don’t tell your sins to me, only to the priest.” However, every day, despite the warning, Frank shouted out the same story. There was one little boy who, when hecame to where he was to think about his ‘sins’ would shout out: “I fought, I stole, I said bad words.” After a suitable pause we would be given a make believe penance and told to say the Act of Contrition. Then we would have to think of what sins we were going to tell the priest. All this took some time to get in the right order. The formula consisted of reciting ‘Bless me Father…….’ followed by ‘the first half of the Confiteor’, then ‘this is my first confession’ and ‘here are my sins’. We learned the correct procedure for confession and then practised it by going in turn to the teacher’s desk for ‘pretend confession’.
Prayers had to be memorised too, the Confiteor and the Act of Contrition for confession, plus some prayers to say before and after Holy Communion.Īfter Easter the preparations began in earnest. My father would listen and coach me until I was word perfect. Along with the shiny new English and Irish readers came a small attractive little book with cream coloured pages printed in red ink: The First Communion Catechism.įor our homework each night we were told by our teacher to memorise the answers to two questions from the catechism. Preparation for First Communion began when I moved into First Class.
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