“Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession.” My cooked-up shopping lists of transgressions were as brief as they were artificial. Bearing a false witness here, coveting a neighbour’s Davy Crockett lunchbox there — they remained in the realm of the venial. I mean, how many mortal sins could any upstanding first-grader have even a clue about transacting in a week’s time?
Your standard three Glory Be’s as penance and I could get on with my Saturday. Anyone sentenced to a full rosary’s worth must have been old and evil enough to have stepped in some pretty deep stuff that week.
Oh, Nick Mashlik and I were Saturday regulars at the Catholic Gift Shop! I had my off-white plastic Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph holy water trough mounted on the bedroom door before we’d hit October of that piously mythical school year. I kept several back-up bottles of holy water stashed in my sock drawer. I was working on a first-class collection of holy cards as well. Hell, everyone had a Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in 1958, but how many had bragging rights on the full set of apostles in mint condition? Trade you one St. Agnes and a George the Dragon Slayer for a St. Cletus and a pair of Stanislauses…
The arc of enthusiasm waned a bit with each succeeding year.
Grade Eight, now captain of the altar boys, I’m training sixth-grade acolytes to shine as torchbearers and drilling the seventh-grade rookies. “Keep a sharp eye on your paten, fellas. Not so much as a crumb gets past you — y’all saw what happened that time Billy Kavlovski messed up, right?”
A communion host had hit the floor and Father Deuster had blown a very public apoplectic gasket. A nuclear radiation zone was declared, the glowing spot quarantined with a ring of the same orange powdery stuff that Janitor Joe would use to soak up puke in the hallways.
Then — overnight — everything changed.
With the enlightened decrees of the Second Ecumenical Council, all that Latin we’d committed to memory was now committed to the trash heap, an archaic fossil in ultra-modern 1965.
Communion hosts — those holiest of holies? Lighten up, kids! Now we can pass them around like a bag of chips! But wait, there’s more — have a little wine! Let’s all share from the community chalice here. (Germs? Please. Our holy vessels are still certifiably blessed, just today by the good Padre Vilbaum.)
And where Monsignor Valschen once did the bulk of his work — facing the altar, his back turned to the fenced-off congregation as he dealt one-on-One with the Almighty, now… Now? Well, it seemed as though the good vicar had turned his back on his Maker to work the room, eye-to-eye, toe-to-toe, and hand-to-mouth with an ever-thinning flock of faithful tithers.
Five decades later, I have another confession to make. Bless me, father, but the abruptness of Vatican II erected a mental hurdle I was never able to clear:
If the Pope is infallible — why did he change his mind?
Peter Scotchmer4 years ago
This is a first-rate evocation of an era in church history seen through the impressionable eyes of a pious
young lad before Vatican II. The yawning disparity between such youthful religious fervour vividly recalled and the skepticism of the child grown up, reflecting on his younger self, is persuasively conveyed. One is left understanding, with sympathy and without judgement, what permanent effects on the child’s beliefs would be wrought by the sudden and dramatic changes brought about by modernization of liturgy and practice in the wake of the changes. The flood of memorable detail is miraculous in its realization. An extraordinary achievement. Well done!
Anonymous4 years ago
Many, many thanks, Peter. Bless you, kind sir!
Peter Scotchmer4 years ago
Anonymous
You are more than welcome, dear sir or madam. I only commended what is there for those with eyes to see to marvel at and appreciate…!