Mom enrolled only me at Saint Clare’s, a Catholic parochial school, two blocks from Washington Elementary and Santa Clara Intermediate/High, public schools that my brothers attended.

Baptism, according to Catholic Church tenets, leaves an indelible mark on one’s soul. The nuns inculcate catechism lessons etched one on my mind.

The second sacrament after Baptism, First Communion, is a major Catholic event. It occurs when one has attained the age of reason, the ability to sin or not. At Saint Clare's it was a second-grade event for seven to eight-year-olds.

Requirements for First Communion were a soul cleansed of sins by a priest’s confession, memorization of the Our Father and Hail Mary prayers and knowing the ten Commandments. We also leaned God was a Holy Trinity, three in one, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit My wonderful second-grade teacher, Sister Mary Joseph, was kind and could explain complicated religious concepts in second grade eloquence.

With trenchant logic, she explained the Holy Trinity is within us. God the Father, our mind, God the Son, Jesus, our heart and God the Holy Ghost our soul. When we received Holy Communion, they became one with us.

She explained, we each had our personal guardian angel, sent by God, to always protect us from harm and to ensure we were never alone.  When we prayed, our angel, carried our message to God by wings, a form of special delivery before the internet. The angel also protected us from Satan, a fallen angel, who was lurking about to trick us into evil.

She described the Blessed Virgin Mary as super Mom, someone who we could always call on in a pinch, calls I frequently made later in life. Heaven was filled with saints, each with a unique assist position for things which might afflict us. If prayed to, like an attorney, they’d eloquently plead our case before God in their troubleshooting specialty.

Other, more sophisticated, theological aspects were also introduced. Good and evil, heaven and hell and praying had been introduced in first grade. Sins, in second grade, were divided into mortal and venal, or felony versus misdemeanor. Purgatory was a temporary sentence in hell where venial un-repented sins were burned off before God’s Peter let you pass heaven’s gate. I liked this concept. A younger brother needed purgatory time for teasing me and being a pest. Limbo was where unbaptized babies who died went. When I asked what limbo was like, the good nun described it as a nursery. I asked what happened when they got older but was told they never grew up but they were comfortable, well-fed and had their diapers changed.

Hell was the big news. It was operated by devils who horribly tortured those who died in mortal sin for all eternity.

While Mom, I and my brothers were baptized, Dad wasn't. I asked if he was going to hell as Limbo was out due to his age but she did a theological leap and explained, by being a good person, he was baptized, via time and action, as were all good non-Catholics. I don't know if this was true theologically but it satisfied me, however, I worried because Dad wasn’t always good.

She also versed us in the 10 commandments to ensure they weren’t just rote memorizations. I can still recite them:

I am the Lord your God. You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.Honor your father and your mother.You shall not kill.You shall not commit adultery.You shall not steal.You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.You shall not covet your neighbor's goods.

The first was easy enough; Mom and I attended Mass when required, so we were covered. I worried about Dad who never went to church and those not Catholic. Sister Mary Joseph explained they were just confused and God, in His justice, forgave and accepted them if they were good. When I asked.

 “God’s a man?”

She winked and replied.

 “No, His is just a pronoun, God is everything, he, she, it, male, female, everything.”

The second was another easy one except again I worried again about Dad. He cursed in Chinese if he had bad luck or stubbed his toe. His curses, however, were explained by the good nun, as against a Chinese pagan god not covered in commandment one.

The third was easy, kind of a repeat of number one.   Again, I feared for the rest of the family and others I knew who didn’t go to Mass on Sundays. I didn’t want to be in heaven with Mom the only one known. The kind sister said not to worry.

“They don’t sin because they don’t know better.”

This caused a flash of heresy.

“Sister is it better not to know too much?”

“No, my dear girl, if you know God, you are closer to God.”

Not wanting to pursue this further, I accepted Dad and my siblings would be in heaven with me but at a little distance from the center of action, yet still close enough to visit.

Number four was the big one. I worked hard on it and did what Mom asked. Dad was an easy pass. He never asked me to do anything.

Five was a no brainer, I’d never kill anyone, not even a bird with a BB gun like my brothers. When I asked about war, the good nun said, killing then, was only for people God wanted dead.

Six and nine were confusing as I didn’t understand the details referred to. When questioned a bit, she explained adultery as kissing or hugging when not married and nine was when a man wanted another man’s wife, kind of like stealing.

Seven, eight and ten were simple don’ts, don’t lie, steal or want to steal. I never lied except when Mom told me to tell salesmen she wasn’t home when she was. This was explained as not really lying because Mom was not home to that person.

While ten crossed my mind a few times, especially at Christmas and birthday parties when a girl got a present, I wanted, I never stole

The ten Commandments were a little more complicated than when first read and covered some things not understood. I didn’t fret further over details, accepted Sister Mary Joseph’s clarifications, memorized the required prayers and the ten commandments until I could repeat them by number, out of sequence, when asked. 

When saying the Hail Mary prayer, I didn’t understand “Immaculate Conception” or even “Virgin” but she explained these simply meant Mary was pure, without sin and I put them down as additional titles like Blessed. 

To this day, I mentally talk to Sister Mary Joseph. She explains complicated moral dilemmas and reconciles what I’ve done and need to do to get me back into God’s grace.

With one more memorization, I was ready for my First Confession. I memorized what to say at confession. It was simple enough, as tested on the good sister, who was my first confessor. She was one who I could tell all to except she couldn’t wipe the sins off as she was not a priest.

In response to the priest’s introduction,

“Bless you child, is this your first confession?”

 My response was.                                               

 “Yes, father this is my first confession.”

 “What are your sins?”

“I disobeyed my mother and did not do the dishes when first asked. I also wish I had a Schwinn bicycle like other girls.”

The priest in response would mete out the appropriate penance and I’d be free of sin after I performed my punishment. It worked. When I left the confessional with a penance of three Hail Mary’s, a great feeling of relief swept me. I crossed myself, quickly recited my penance, re-crossed myself and was sparkling clean before God.

Mom and I made my First Communion outfit. When the big day arrived, Dad said I looked beautiful, a little bride he called me. He gave me five dollars. I doubled down on good deeds and gave each brother a dollar. Dad also gave me a rabbit’s foot with a brass metal case holding the stump on a little chain. He said it was for good luck by his deity.

"Shu, always keep this with you. Often in life, we need a backup. Sometimes you lose. Pet it to make you feel better and have good luck."

My First Communion was the only time Dad went to church until I married. I was so proud he was there with Mom. I carried the rabbit’s foot to the altar with me and in life, my talisman and petted it as needed.

Sunday, the boys and girls were segregated and assembled on the church steps for photo ops.  Mom brought her little Kodak. When the bells rang, we were marched in, boys first filling the front pews, then us girls. The boys were dressed in little suits or attired with a white shirt, tie, and corduroy pants. They were not the center of attention. We girls, in our first communion outfits, were the big act.

We stood, sat and kneeled through the Latin service until the altar boy rang the bells announcing the transubstantiation as Eucharist host became the flesh of Jesus Christ. We kneeled, back straight, with aching knees, waiting for Sister Mary Joseph to signal our pew to the altar.

When she reached my pew, I rose kept my hands together in prayer supplication and followed the procession to the altar, relieved my knees finally got a break. At the marble altar railing, I knelt with hands reverently upon the starched linen covering the railing, knees again sore.  As the priest approached, I opened my mouth wide and extended my tongue. The priest plucked a host of Jesus Christ from the gold chalice, held it between his thumb and index finger, crossed it before my face and gently laid it on my stretched tongue as he blessed me in Latin.

 

 

With God within, I bowed my head, crossed myself, rose and walked back to my pew with hands in prayer, filled with the Holy Trinity. I was, careful not to let the Eucharist host touch my teeth and let it slowly dissolve on my tongue as told by the good sister. She’d explained, God didn’t like to get chewed up before entering one’s body.  Kneeling in the pew, a wonderful feeling of joy filled me. My soul was in a shroud of light. God the Father, Jesus His only begotten Son and the Holy Spirit were united with me. My knees no longer ached.

Holy Communion is a mystical and emotional experience those not Catholic cannot comprehend. Thereafter, I loved going to Holy Communion and did so every Sunday and racked up a slew of plenary indulgences, a Catholic Church tenet of get out of purgatory cards, much needed later in life.

In addition to receiving communion, I loved to hear and sing with Mass choir music. Gloria in Excelsis Deo, (Latin for "Glory to God in the highest") and Kyrie Eleison, (Greek for "Lord have mercy"). Even the Gregorian chant was beautiful to my ears. With my atypical contralto singing voice, the nuns put me in the school choir as a semi star. In grade school, with the sisters urging, I decided to be a nun. Dad laughed and said I would be a penguin but Mom encouraged me and prayed it would happen.

On the top of my school papers, I initialed J M J, for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph each page dedicated to the Holy Family. In my little purse, I carried a Saint Teresa's holy picture as my role model. She died a virgin rather than be raped. I also wore a Saint Christopher's medal which ensured I would have a chance to make a last confession and save my soul before I died.

In school, we learned death was our fate, a fate drilled into us which could happen any second. This appeared imminently possible from nuclear attack, its probability reinforced with school air raid drills.

With Moffett Naval Air Base nearby, we were part of a big X on a Russian atomic bomb map. Periodically the air raid siren would suddenly wail to let us know we were under attack. The fifty-plus students in each class marched in strict, doomed silence, under the direction of the nuns into the corridor. There, we formed long columns in the crowded hallway, crouched on our knees and put our foreheads on the floor. We covered our heads with our arms and waited to be blown to smithereens.

 

 

As the air raid siren continued to wail, the stern eyes of the nuns watched to ensure no head rose, an infraction resulting in an immediate rap on the head with a nun’s wooden clicker.

 

 

Once the fire marshal was satisfied with our response, the siren would wail a wobble, all clear, which meant we had been bypassed for nuking, the Russian bomber was shot down or the drill was a test, the latter always the case. We arose and nosily marched back to our desks, impressed with our good fortune of again avoiding death by an atomic bomb.

In the classroom, the nuns used the air raid drills as reminders of our potential sudden death and the danger to our souls if tainted by mortal sin. We were immersed in the idea, life on earth is fleeting but life after death is eternal. If we tripped up in this life, were caught dead with even a single unconfessed mortal sin, the punishment was an eternal hell. The good news was a priest’s confession, no matter how bad the sin, immediately cleared the slate.

Hell, and its opposite, heaven were constant classroom themes. Pictures were used for religious teaching reinforcement. In the classrooms, nuns kept a large roll of fantasied colored pictures on wood pictorial frames. Setting it up in front of the class the desired picture could be flipped to for the class to see.

The vivid pictorial roll consisted of winged angels looking blissfully down from clouds, saints and martyrs, some horribly tortured, the stages of Jesus's life including crucifixion, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the fate of sinners caught in mortal sin at death.

 

 

These sinners were pictured in hell, roasting over burning sulfur, gnawed on but never eaten by wild beasts, and my favorite, cooking in a giant boiling pot, each suffering their punishment for eternity. I didn't question the nun's punishment orthodoxy of hell but did think eternity in hell for eating meat on Friday too severe.  I rationalized the punishment was for being stupid. How could anyone wantonly eat meat on Friday, our family loved seafood.

In school, I was Miss Lin or Elizabeth to the nuns,  Lin, Liz, Lizzy, Lizard, slant eyes and eventually Cobra to classmates. While tagged “slant eyes” I never experienced racial prejudice that I recognized. Many got physical trait names. “Slant eyes” was like “big ears”, “whitey”, shorty, etc. I preferred Elizabeth but in fifth grade, I’d made the mistake of sticking out my extendable tongue in reply to “slant eyes”. Thereafter I was nicknamed Cobra. I tried to ignore this tag, kept my tongue in but it stuck and Cobra followed me into high school.

Saint Clare’s racial mix blended from blond white to dark chocolate brown. There were Portuguese, Mexicans, even a few Italians darker than me. In school, we were taught, all humans are part of God’s Mystical Body, each an integral piece of equal importance to the whole. I, however, thought myself part of the Mystical Body’s brain, my rationalization of superiority.

In the eighth grade, we learned the evils of other faiths starting with Martin Luther and his church door list of orthodoxy errors. Judaism was lightly skipped over as old news and Islam never mentioned except for the liberation of Granada from the Moors when Spain was at last free.

One Protestant heresy perked my interest, John Calvin’s Presbyterianism tenet of predestination. God, knowing all, knows all, including what we did and what we will do. If God knows everything I will do before I do it, it means what I do is predetermined. There is, therefore no free will. None, even sister Mary Joseph, could not give me a satisfactory explanation of our having free will if God knows everything.

While boy shy, I experienced boy crushes. In eighth grade, I was a secret admirer. He had a Hispanic last name, Castro, but was blond and blue-eyed. I attended his basketball games and cherished his dribbling from the bleachers but never talked to him, afraid of being rejected.

When living in rural farmhouses, I sneaked on the public-school bus with my brothers, hopped off with them at their school and walked the two blocks to Saint Clare’s. After school, I traipsed back over, got in the school bus line, clambered on in the rush with others and returned home with my brothers. None revealed my stowaway status but in hindsight, I suspect the bus driver knew.

Public school provided another perk not available at parochial school. It served a cafeteria hot lunch for a quarter. To cash in, I slinked away from Saint Clare's when the noon yard watch nun looked the other way and ambled to the public-school cafeteria. My cheap hot meal stratagem, however, was complicated by segregated cafeteria service periods for public grade and high school students. My lunchtime was when the high school students were served.

At the cafeteria, I looked down, squeezed in line, took my stainless-steel tray with indentations, slid it along the meal line and they plopped the food on. The elderly women servers never gave me a second glance and my quarters were accepted without questions by the cashier. I carried my tray to a vacant chair, gulped my meal down in unmolested silence then scurried back to Saint Clare's.

Again, in hindsight, my stealth cafeteria meals probably fooled none. They dished out the food and took my quarter without care where I went to school. By sixth grade, my older brother was in high school during mealtime and looked out for me.

Attending parochial school and our frequent rural house re-locations made me comfortable as a loner. As a bus stowaway, I lacked common school attendance with those on the bus, missed walking to and from school with Saint Clare's students and my sneaked cafeteria meals limited my lunchtime with them.

Parochial school holidays were different than public schools. They got out the week before Christmas and Easter, we the week after. My classmates didn’t visit my house due to distance and if they would, I’d not invite them due to home turf embarrassment. 

Once ensconced in our Tropicana Village home, I left early in the morning on the city bus line and got home late, a stranger to neighbor kids. At home, I retreated to my tiny bedroom to escape family din. The bedroom was my sanctuary where I studied and fantasized about a world of my own, a world where I was queen. 

Between thirteen and sixteen, puberty transformed me. Hopscotch and jump rope were abandoned and I sprouted to my full, five-feet seven-inch height, too dark, too skinny and with teeth and lips too big. My younger siblings called me frog or rubber lips due to my full lips before then added bean pole and duck because of my skinny long neck. Dad and my older brother retorted I was a swan confirming my neck was too long. I kept my lips pursed and my head down between shoulders to compensate.

On Saint Clare's graduation, the “select” were “chosen” for gender-segregated high schools. Notre Dame was the exclusive, all-girls, Catholic high school in downtown San Jose. Bellarmine, safely miles away, was for boys. Entrance was based on school grades, an entrance exam and probably parental influence. Catholicism also retains some of Jesus’s teachings of, “Blessed are the poor”. I suspect a few were given credit to retain this ideal.

I and the other 26 girls in Sister Mary Emanuel’s graduating class took the Notre Dame High School entrance exam. The boys took Bellarmine’s.

 

 

 

Notre Dame selected me and five others as among Saint Clare’s “chosen.” Without parental influence, my isolation in grade school ensured good grades, I knew I aced the test based on the questions and perhaps Sister Mary Emanuel or the priest who occasional visited Mom played the poverty card for me. I accepted going despite tuition cost because Mom was ecstatic, I was shy of attending public high school, none ever refused the honor of acceptance and I was proud to be among the “chosen”.

With Notre Dame near Mom's work, we rode the bus together. I earned my tuition and two dimes a day bus fare babysitting and working summers. I made my school uniforms on my little portable singer sewing machine Dad had unexpectedly bought for me for a birthday present. The uniforms were simple enough to make, a checkered long skirt with a white blouse. The homespun marked me as one who couldn't afford a uniform from downtown Hart's Department Store which carried a wide selection of parochial school girl's uniforms. I was proud to make my own and smugly looked down on girls who couldn’t sew.

 

 

 

My sex education during grade school consisted of misinformed school girl whispers.

Alone, without direction, I purchased my first bra and Kotex pad, not unusual back then. One didn't talk about those “things”.

I was prepared for menstruation from girl gossip and it occurring for me after most my age.

By sixteen, I was fully equipped, to the point some boys whistled or made comments when I walked past. At first, I assumed it was catcalling about my long neck but soon realized my breasts were the object of their attention. Turning brown-red and quickly walking away only encouraged them. It was my first sense of sexual power but I didn’t think of it as such then. Instead, I thought my breasts, like my long neck, were another deformity.

 

 

 

 

I carried my school Pee Che folder in front to avoid boy’s whistles and snickered remarks.

The first-time sex was openly mentioned in parochial school was when I was 16 at Notre Dame during a three-day religious retreat in the school chapel. There, in its little elevated pulpit, using illustrated stories, the Jesuit priest, Father Newhall, inoculated us against communism and the perils of sex

He wasn't a bible-thumping firebrand. He was much more persuasive, a good story-teller who began in a whisper gradually increased his tempo and paused when needed for emphasis.  We listened spellbound. Once the scene was properly set, he'd rush into a staccato roar of incredibility over the evils of communism and sins of sex.

After the first day to cover the godless evil of communism, he switched it the real danger, sex. Initially, I inferred he meant intercourse but it was worse, much worse. Even impure thoughts or kissing a boy for longer than three seconds were mortal sins. My reaction was.

No problem, I’ve never kissed a boy and don’t think impure thoughts.

On the third day, he expanded into sexual depravities, self-abuse, and lesbianism. I sat enthralled, not on the perils of hell but his expansion of sins never imagined. As he ranted, I moved my hands from my lap to ensure a safe distance.

He concluded the retreat with a vivid story of a girl, sent to the eternal flames of hell. Again he started softly, almost in a whisper, how she was invited and visited a girl classmate for a sleepover. He related how they did girl things, put on make-up, dressed up in heels, danced to records, talked about boys, told one another secrets, then put on nighties, hugged one another and went to their beds.

His tempo and volume increased as he described, with the light off, the girl who lived in the house, clambered out of bed, slid in bed with the girl visiting, awoke her and kissed her lips. From this shocking revelation, he stuttered how her hand drifted down to breasts and swept down to her private parts. The girl aroused from sleep, returned the kiss and willingly descended into the depths of grinding sexual pleasure.

After an intense pause to allow this depravity to settle in our minds, his tempo and volume picked up to an incriminating crescendo as he asked.

“How could it happen, why would a girl risk eternal damnation by allowing hands to touch her private parts for a moment of perverse sexual pleasure? “

Starting anew, he related how in the morning, on the way home, the visiting girl's car was struck by a speeding train at the local railroad crossing. In a rising tone of voice, he graphically described the violent impact, her body crushed in the crumpled car, the firemen struggling to get her out of the twisted wreckage, the blood as it oozed from her popped out eyes. With another pause, his voice switched to a verbal rampage of her offending hand. It was severed by broken glass and laid asunder, splayed on a steel rail track, flattened to a squishy mess by the train.

We sat stunned in silence. After his next pause, he then thundered in a staccato frenzy, how that hand corrupted her soul, tainted it with self-seeking pleasure, her soul twirled down into eternal damnation. He then switched his voice and tone back to conclude calmly, as matter-of-fact, her screaming while stuck upside down in a boiling sulfur pot, her punishment was not only fair but too good for her transgression.

Wow, I’ve never imagined touching myself or another girl!

The pin-drop silence as he stared accusingly at us from the pulpit at his finish was broken by a wail. In a pew, a girl collapsed, thrashed about and sobbed. Nuns rushed over and led her out, obviously guilty of the travesty the priest warned us about.

I knew from eight years at Saint Clare's to admit nothing at school but was relieved I was innocent of this new self-abuse and lesbian sins. I also wondered why one girl was sent to eternal damnation, while the other could get off scot-free with a simple confession, an obvious miscarriage of justice. My questioning God's mysterious ways, with heretical thoughts, was occurring more frequently. The retreat resulted not in a recommitment to faith but my questioning it. I never saw the girl who collapsed in a wail again.

I retained my close friend, Julie, at Notre Dame. We shared a common sense of humor and aversion of parochial school orthodoxy. Contrary to most, who accepted what was taught without further question, she was someone I could talk to, not chit chat but mind and heart talk to without the filter of caution. We talked about sex and boys of course but shared jokes about nuns and priests, our social world, even Father Newhall’s stories as we bonded closer.

Julie helped put things in perspective. More importantly, the city bus allowed me to visit her house. Her house a mansion to me was inhabited by a stable family, an envy of orderliness. It inspired me to want the same. I admit, however, with hindsight, my friendship with her was tainted with an agenda. What I said, always carried a slant of equalization, no, a hint of my superiority. Seeds, I now worry, eventually sprouted into weeds in her mind.

Puberty marched on, my breasts grew and hormones coursed through my body in stronger and stronger swirls. Working on a math problem, reading a book, staring out a window, it didn’t matter, my attention would suddenly divert to boys as hormones ended their journey in my brain. There was no thought taboo. They fought for attention despite my attempts to divert them by thinking of holy images. If I closed my eyes to convert an impure thought to that of Jesus, crucified on the cross, the hormones lifted His lion-cloth.

A few girls at school admitted, "doing it" and a wild one even bragged about, "doing it" with different boys. She became an instant authority. We virgins listening intently to any scrap of information she imparted. We learned we bled, it hurt the first time, boys constantly wanted it and there was a "rubber thing" to avoid pregnancy.

Bookish, I returned to the downtown city library with my close friend Julie as things sexual were absent in the school library. In books, we saw, black and white sketched pictorials of the female anatomy, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, wandering egg, vagina tunnel and a little bean clitoris. We also checked out male anatomy but having seen younger brothers naked there wasn’t much to learn for me other than things got a lot bigger at puberty. As an only child, Julie pestered me about what I knew with brothers but of course, I knew little. We learned when a man ejaculated, millions of sperm in semen rushed from his testicles, spewed out his penis, smeared about the vaginal tunnel, squiggle raced up fallopian tubes and if a fresh egg lay on the uterus wall, the winning sperm invaded it, slammed the door behind him and bam, the girl was pregnant. Nine months later, the girl was a mother for life.

As the hormonal pressure cooker heated up, when 16, I committed my first mortal sin. To save on water and gas bills at home we turned off the shower once wet and soaped up with one of the little-used soap bars Mom brought from work. Admonishments against self-abuse kept me from playing with my private parts but I rationalized, this excluded my breasts. I soaped, lathered, squeezed them, washed them again then rinsed them and rubbed them dry with a towel. 

Menstruation justified a thorough washing of my pubic area. I kept telling myself it needed more soap. It felt good but after a few quick soap strokes to my clitoris bean, I diverted my hand away to a breast, the priest's admonishments of self-abuse fixated in my mind. Still, my hand would dash down for another quick stroke then move back up to cling to a breast. As I showered, I fantasized about male TV or movie figures.

Then it happened. I tripped across the forbidden line. I couldn’t stop stoking, I was Louisa, (Pina Pellicer), the girl who smuggled a gun to Rio (Marlon Brando) in jail, in the movie, "One-Eyed Jacks."

 

 

We were escaping on a galloping horse. With eyes closed, bent over, I stroked to the gait of the bouncing saddle while clasping a breast with the other hand. Just one more stroke, another squeeze, just one more stroke, another, I couldn’t stop. Bent over, one hand squeezing a breast, the other stroking my clitoris in a fury, it happened! A wave of intense pleasure spread from head to toe. I discovered sex, not as discussed or thought of but as felt. It felt great.

Worried others in the house heard, I turned on the water full blast to cleanse away guilt but knew I’d committed a mortal sin, a sin the priest lectured about during my freshman retreat. I’d committed, an impure act of self-abuse. The squished hand on the railroad tracks, imprinted in my mind, stared at me as I dried and dressed. My sin was not with a boy. It was much worse than three seconds of kissing, worse even than intercourse. It was a perversion. I had played with myself, committed self-abuse, an admission no girl, even the “expert”, at school admitted to. I descended into despair knowing I was in mortal sin, that only at confession could I avoid eternal damnation, being stuck in burning sulfur or in a boiling pot.

I must confess at next Friday’s confession session. How am I going to say it?

I scripted my confession like I did before my first Holy Communion but now it was complicated.

Bless me father, I have sinned. In the shower, I touched my private parts and experienced an impure act. No, sounds like I’m a pervert. It’s worse than intercourse.

I committed self-abuse, skip the touched my private parts. No, he’ll ask what was my self-abuse, what private parts, what was I thinking, was it the first time, how did I come to commit this act of perversion? The questions could be endless.

I’ll keep it simple.  I committed and impure act father. No, he’ll think intercourse, want to know the name of the boy if we thwarted God's plan and used a "rubber thing" if I was pregnant, where we did it? Better to plead an impure thought. No, you can't lie in confession. It had to be the perversion of self-abuse, then the questions.

There was, however, a glimmer of hope for an easy out. When we went to the nearby Saint Joseph's church for our weekly Friday confession, three priests heard them. One, was old Father Frankie, known among the girls as "Father Chomp" because of his loose dentures. He never asked questions in the confessional. He was the chaplain for San Jose Hospital and could do a Mass under half an hour, the sermon limited to a few words of, "Be good until next week".

 In the confessional, he waited until you finished enumerating your sins, blessed you clean and sent you out with a three Hail Mary penance, end of story. It was also rumored he was a bit deaf. Father Chomp was a get out of hell easy pass.

The other two were not easy outs. One knew me personally. He was old and stopped by at our house on occasion to visit and check up on Mom. I was his little angel. I enjoyed going to confession to him because my sins kept me his little angel. To confess to self-abuse would change everything.

The other was Father Pastoria, nicknamed by we students, Father Pastrami, due to his breath. We also tagged him “the ferret”.  When saying Mass, his sermons dragged on and pushed the length of his Mass up to the next hour's Mass time. In the confessional, he wanted to know every detail, always on the lookout for sins committed unknowingly or omitted. Even a standard, "I disobeyed my parents," was pursued with which, why and how.

Marched over to Saint Joseph’s for our Friday’s confession session, two priests were hearing confessions. Neither had Fr. Pastoria on the door. I shifted to the pew for Fr. Frankie, relieved to have an easy out. While the pew line for him was longer he flipped the girls out quickly. Soon I ended up second to the edge of the confessional. As the next girl went in the rest scooted over and pushed me to the pew’s edge placing me up next. I was nervous but calmed myself with assurance Father Franke was an easy pas and I could whisper my sin.

Then it happened. Fr. Pastoria strode up, tapped his door and replaced Fr. Frankie. Dear Fr. Chomp, got up and left. For the first time, I faced the confessional curtain with trepidation. My imagination expanded my terror as I awaited my inquisition as the girl stuck in the confessional booth now faced.

I prayed Hail Mary's for strength, to tell the truth as my mind raced for the best phrase. Mostly, however, I prayed for Father Chomp to return.

Finally, the light above my side of the confessional blinked off and the girl exited. I rose from the pew, entered the confessional, pulled the loose draped velvet curtain as closed as possible and knelt on the hardwood kneeler. My lips were a couple inches from the screen. The little wood door on the priest’s slide in front of me.  A sense of doomed fate took hold. My heart pounded. I kept reminding myself to keep my voice low to avoid being overheard by classmates.

Suddenly the door slid open with the priest's ear bent to the screen. Even in the dark I could recognize him and knew he could me, Father Pastrami, no escape.

                                             

"Bless you, what’s your confession?"

"Bless me father, it’s been one week since my last confession. I’ve sinned. I disobeyed my mother by not helping with the dishes. I teased my younger brothers. I argued with my father."

“Why did you argue with your father?”

Relief, a diversion, I lied.

“He won’t let me get a driver’s learning permit.”

A brief lecture ensued on needing to wait to drive and the virtue of patience. Knowing as he rambled on about patience I needed more, I blurted as he finished.

"I cheated on a test"

The latter an offering gasp to offset my failure to mention self-abuse. As I said it, I knew it was another sin, a lie.

 I’m lying to a priest! Must I now add my lie to the sin of self-abuse?

"Is there anything else?"

"No father."

“Which subject did you cheat on?”

“Geometry”

With a little further of his inquiry, my expanded lying and his lecture about studying to make cheating unnecessary, I was let go. My penance, three Hail Mary’s and Our Fathers, normal venial sins retribution.

Drained, I crossed myself, rose from the hard kneeler, pulled the curtain aside to face the exterior light and left the confessional. Instead of feeling clean as the curtain closed behind me and the next girl approached, worse guilt assailed me than experienced before entering.

As I walked to the altar, I noticed the pew line for Fr. Pastrami had shrunk while the line for the other confessional was longer.

 Kneeling before the altar to do my penance, my arms on the cool marble railing, my palms together in supplication, I knew I was among the damned. I was in mortal sin, my soul black, doomed to eternal hell if suddenly killed in an atomic attack or by a car. My vile hands would send my soul to perpetual hell of burning sulfur.

As I mentally reviewed my plight, I considered doing a bigger penance but knew only a priest could wipe away my transgressions. I was damned unless I fessed up to it all, self-abuse and now confession lies, which I couldn't.

Sunday, Mom, as usual, insisted I attend Mass and take Holy Communion. I tried to eat something in the morning to disqualify my ability to take communion. The Catholic Church required not only a soul cleansed of mortal sins but also a fast from midnight before communion back then. She, however, watched to ensure I didn’t eat.

At Mass, I genuflected and crossed myself as we entered a pew. As the liturgy of the Mass progress, my mind raced for an excuse to skip communion. Kneeling in the pew, head bowed, as the altar boy rang bells to announce transubstantiation of the host my quandary found no resolution. With no excuse; I morosely tagged after when Mom rose in the pew and motioned me to follow. At the altar railing, I knelt, stuck out my tongue, and took communion then walked back, head down, to our pew.  Jesus was stuck to the roof of my dry mouth, my soul in unredeemed mortal sin.

Back in the pew, kneeling with eyes closed, I accepted I was an obdurate sinner.  

God’s in my impure body, there’s no salvation for me. I’m on the dark side.

I tried to behave in the shower but soon sinned again. With a plethora of mortal sins piling up, unable to wipe the soul slate clean, I repudiated my parochial orthodoxy, removed Saint Teresa's holy picture from my purse, took off the Saint Christopher medal hanging from my neck and converted to unrepentant sinner, never to be a nun. Only my close friend Julie knew of my conversion.

Accepting my soul was damned; other mortal sins accrued no longer mattered. I created an elaborate new me but a hidden one, a secret puppet shadow, to placate my self-abuse. Instead of guilt she looked forward to soapy showers, ritualized them with erotic fantasies while I inculpably took holy communion. Eventually, she led to a life of adultery.