March 18, 2008

Robbo the Bad Boy

The Bovina Bloviator, who is also on track to arrive on the Roman shore of the Tiber this week, notes the bright side of getting ready for one's First Confession.

Mine is tomorrow afternoon and I have been, of course, dutifully working my way up and down the Commandments, putting together a cribsheet of my 43 years' worth of unconfessed sinfulness. What I'm discovering, however, is that while I've certainly made some first-class howlers in my life, and I have some general traits and practices that need to be dealt with, overall the list really isn't all that......long. I had previously reckoned that it was going to take an hour at least to get through everything, but the truth is that I could probably cover it all in about five minutes (much to the relief of Father, I am sure).

Of course, Mom just laughed when I mentioned this to her last evening. "Why should you be so surprised?" she said. "What have I always said? Such a nice boy! Such a good boy! Bubi!"

And because my brain works the way it does, I just couldn't help thinking of this:

Posted by Robert at March 18, 2008 09:28 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Pretty much the same for me, Robbo, a little longer; around ten minutes. I think I'm older than you thus had more blots on the old escutcheon, as Wodehouse might say.

Safe crossing, friend.

BB

Posted by: The Bovina Bloviator at March 18, 2008 11:04 AM

Heh. The list is short. But what will surprise you, a year down the road, is how often you have to confess the exact same list.

It's a little like the scene in Blazing Saddles where Hedley Lamarr is gathering his posse. Not everyone can confess to stampeding cattle through the Vatican (and earn, from Hedley, an appreciative "Kinky"), but more of us are like the guy who in listing his crimes, repeats "rape", and when asked by Hedley why he listed it twice, tells him "I like Rape."

Not that you are a cattle stampeder, the priest is Hedley Lamarr, or all of us are serial rapists, but I think that I have a point in there somewhere. Which is that when we confess the same sins over and over again, it leads us to want to change ourselves.

That's one way that confession is good.

Posted by: The Abbot at March 18, 2008 01:14 PM