CONFESSION...AKA....PENANCE....AKA....RECONCILIATION

I am a child of the Bronx. I was born there, spent the first 11 years of my life there, have been back to visit almost as many times as I am old and I was born in the 50's so that will give  you an idea. My name is Bob Arcuri; I'm a professor of communications at a state college in Florida and ever since I went into the 10th grade and met Sister Miriam Catherine, I have had a passion for reading and writing. I love writing short stories, mainly about growing up Catholic in New York and Florida, but I also like writing on a host of subjects from pizza to drug and alcohol addiction to the question that's been plaguing me for years: if  you can put a man on the moon, why can't you put metal in a microwave? My goal is to hopefully receive positive feedback on my writing and maybe someday be published. But if I only get people to smile, cry, laugh or just ponder as a result of my stories, I'll be happy. As I continue to blog, you'll be introduced to a host of characters from my past, many of which I liked, but many I did not. But I begin with one of my favorite experiences from my Catholic elementary school days, going to confession.

If you grew up Catholic in the 50's, you earned a red badge of courage. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it must have been for those poor, beaten down, guilt ridden souls who came before us, I only know that when I was a kid in the Bronx, the Catholic bar of expectations was very high indeed.

    My mother was a convert. When she met my dad she was a Methodist and if she had any hope of getting in good with Angelina and Antonio Arcuri, she'd better start following St. Peter's Ragtime Band. Now converts are the worst; they're like reformed smokers. They just recently learned all the Catholic stuff that lifers have already forgotten and they're always up in your face quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That was my mother. And to make matters worse, since my older brother was already written off as a "lost soul," my mother had plans for me to become a priest. Fortunately for me, the best she ever got was an altar boy. The first mass I served was on a 7:00 a.m. mass on a weekday in February. It was colder than a well diggers butt, but every single member of my family, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and parents were there. You would have thought I was being ordained. Every time I recited one of the Latin prayers, you would have thought I just changed water into wine. Ooohs and ahhhs filled St. Helena's. But the thing I remember most was that Father O'Shea said the mass and he farted throughout most of it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before one can become an altar boy, one must first receive one's first holy communion. This meant CONFESSION. We received our first communion in the 3^rd grade and you're probably wondering, "what kind of sins could a third grade Catholic school boy commit?" By the way, that thing about going blind is a myth. I have 20/20 vision.

The nuns were assigned the task of training these new Eucharistic recruits in the art and science of what we now fondly call, reconciliation. We did mock confessions. Sort of a Liturgical Moot Court. The nuns would act as the priests and we would go in and make our confession. Since it wasn't for real, we got to make up all the sins. All the Italian boys confessed to high level mob hits while the Irish boys usually owned up to some kind of bar fight. The girls were typical girls and confessed to things like eating meat on Friday or talking during mass. There was a rumor, however, that Debra Weeks may  have raised the bar for future communicants and confessed to slipping a boy the tongue. I often think that if it had been a few years later, I would have confessed to the Kennedy assassination. Anyway, the day of the first confession had arrived

We were all hoping that we could have had Father O'Shea or Father McInnenny for our first confession. With them it was 2 Our Fathers and 2 Hail Marys and you were back on the street. Now in those days, you went into a small booth, the priest slid back the door and you had a screen with a curtain between you and the priest (they still have those confessionals for those who would rather have wisdom teeth pulled without anesthesia than go to face-to-face confession). The reason for the screen and curtain was anonymity. But we were sure Monsignor Scanlan would recognize our voices, so we disguised them using pathetic 3rd grader accents or trying to sound like a grownup. The boys probably sounded more like the girls than the girls. To this day I still remember my penance: 3 Our Fathers, 3 Hail Marys, 3 Glory Be's and the Apostle's Creed and a promise to never sin again. The 3, 3, 3 and Creed were easy, it was that promise that has been a bit hard to keep over the years. So there I was, full of sanctifying grace and ready for my first communion which wasn't for another 3 days. What if I sinned before those 3 days were up? All of the priests at St. Helena's knew me. What would they do? Was there some kind of court you went to where the priests handed down punishments for 3^rd graders who couldn't go three days without sinning? But then it dawned on me that I could go over to Saint Raymond's where no one knew me. I had the bases covered. But if you're a Catholic you learn that there are two kinds of sin, veneal....less serious....sort of like a misdemeanor of sins and MORTAL....the felony of sins. But to commit a mortal sin you had to KNOW it was a sin, you had to WANT to commit it, then you had to COMMIT  it. In other words, you had to want to feel up Suzie, you had to know it was wrong to feel up Suzie, and then you actually had to feel up Suzie. THEN you committed a mortal sin. I think they may have changed their position on mortal sin since then, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, I had a lily white soul. The nuns told us that if we were to have a horrific accident and die at that very moment, we would go to Heaven, but only after a stop in Purgatory. The nuns always had a way of cheering us up. With lily white soul, I was ready for the granddaddy of Catholic events......FIRST HOLY COMMUNION.