CHOCOLATE MARSHMALLOW COMMUNION

            The arrival of the Sisters every June was better than a circus coming to town. Maybe even it was better than riding the blue and white Schwinn bicycle that sat in the window of the Gamble Store on Main Street. I passed it every day on my way home from school—first grade. I stood in awe before it, imagining myself a big girl, tall enough to reach the pedals and strong enough to ride this beautiful blue machine up and down the gravel road at my grandmother's resort by the lake.

            The Sisters stayed in our town for two weeks every summer while they taught Catechism to prepare the children for their First Confession and Communion. They arrived in a billowing of veils, the deceptively cool look of starched linen. They arrived in a clicking of beads.  Sister Bernard twirled round and round for us first graders, her skirts spreading like an umbrella, and when she collapsed in laughter on the ground we ran to her and threw our arms around her neck. The lucky ones who got there first arranged themselves on the carpet of her skirt while she told us stories. 

            The Sisters laughed often, sang loud camping songs, played ball and tag and Pum-Pum-Pull-Away.  Sister Rita taught the older children. Her eyes narrowed to sharp points and her words fell like fireworks when she perceived any injustice, such as the time a boy named Billy placed a tack strategically on my chair, and I yelped when I sat on it.

            I made my First Communion in 1947 in the old Sacred Heart Church, a white, wooden building with a pointed steeple and a bell that sounded hollow.  A wide, steep staircase led from the sidewalk to the door.  The vestibule, more like a storm porch, had a rack of devotional pamphlets featuring stories about teenagers who sinned against purity only once on graduation night, then died in a car crash and went directly to hell! 

            Double doors opened onto the main part of the church.  On either side were the holy water fonts, light blue enamel dishes in black metal fittings.  We dipped our fingers in the water and made the sign of the cross.  A girl named Bonnie and I splashed water on the floor by accident performing this ritual and were caught by Father Merth as we attempted to tiptoe around the water drops scattered on the hardwood.  "Don't be playing with holy things." He scolded. "You girls ought to be ashamed. I'll need to tell your mothers about this." Ordinarily Father Merth wouldn't raise his voice.  His eyes looked out as soft as the worried eyes of a family dog.  He had a voice like an Irish tenor and a face like Tyrone Power.  I cried a few years later when he was transferred and said goodbye to me.

            I started going to Catechism classes a year early with an older girl named Joan. After only one day I wanted to continue regardless of my fear of the older children.  The whole experience kept me in a constant state of breathless awe.  That first June nothing was required of me.  I was treated like a guest.  I watched and I listened.  I stared at Sister's face, at the white linen, at the black veil.  She put her hands under it at her neck and shook it like a long fan.  "Hot" she said.  I watched her walk up and down in front of the church pews where all of us children sat trying to memorize Latin phrases to say at Mass even though the majority of us were never expected to use them, not being the proper gender.  The nonsense syllables rolled out of our mouths importantly:  "Ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meum," we recited, raising our voices on the "ti" and on the "ju" and the "tu," sing-song as a nursery rhyme.  

            We walked in long lines, our hands pressed together, thumbs touching our breastbones, fingers pointing heavenward.  We genuflected, back straight, head bent.  We sang "O Salutaris" and "Tantum Ergo" while the altar boys swung the ornate brass incense burner and enveloped Father Merth in a cloud of smoke.  We pounded our hearts with our fists when Father lifted the monstrance holding the large white Host of the Blessed Sacrament behind a little round window at the center of a gold sunburst. 

            At noon we prayed the rosary just before Sister dismissed us for lunch.  The rosary prayer dragged on.  It made my knees hurt and my head float.  I let it float.  I tried not to listen.  I strived for surprise when  the last "Glory Be to the Father" released us to run towards the ledge by the basement stairs where I had deposited my bag lunch and thermos bottle with its reflective glass interior like a crystal well.

            The year of my First Communion Sister Bernard told a story about a child who refused to tell a lie in self defense and consequently went to heaven where she became a saint.  I vowed never to lie again.  That noon, before joining the other children on our daily trip to the drug store candy counter, I sneaked into the quiet church while the others were outside eating their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Stained glass filtered and colored the light.  I knelt in front of the blue and white statue of the Virgin Mary and looked up beyond the globe of earth, where her foot rested on a snake, into her calm face that gazed down at me.  "Please," I prayed "always let me tell the truth.  Make me a saint.  Take me to heaven someday." 

            Afterwards, in town, I bought a chocolate marshmallow cupcake.  Back at the church an older girl, nicknamed Peachy, invited a group of us in to sing by the wheezy pump organ.  We sang everything she could play before Sister Rita Marie rang the bell that announced the afternoon class.  At the end of the day, just before Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, we all gathered in the pews by the organ to practice hymns.  Sister Rita played the organ.  We were in the middle of "Salve Regina" when the organ stopped.  Sister Rita stood up from the stool and twisted her long skirts around to look at something.  There, stuck to the back of her skirt, was my chocolate marshmallow cupcake. 

            "Who left this here?"  Her face reddened.  Her voice barely resisted a shriek.  "Who is the naughty child who was eating in church?"

            Dilemma.  Tell the truth?  But all the children were present, not just the little ones, but the older ones as well--Billy and Gary and all the other mean boys.  They might laugh.  How badly did I want to be a saint?  I thought of Sister Bernard's story and of my prayer in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin.

            "I did it."  My voice squeaked.

            "Who said that?  Speak up!"  Sister Rita yelled.

            "I did it."

            "Stand up!" She demanded.

            I stood up.  I held my tears but they balled up in my throat.  I felt every child's eyes on me.  Wasn't it wrong of her to make a spectacle of me when I had told her the truth just like the child in Sister Bernard's story? Sister Rita's edges blurred. She turned into the witch from Hansel and Gretel. "I'm sick," I croaked, stumbled over the feet of the child next to me, reached the aisle and ran from the church.

            I cried all the way up the street, turned onto Main, passed Gambles without even looking at the blue bike, slammed in through my Grandma Klimek's front door and threw my arms around her waist.  "I'm sick," I sobbed when she tried to find out what happened.  Little snakes crawled around in my stomach, my head burned, my eyes ached, my legs felt like seaweed. 

            "You just go lie down on my bed, Sweetheart.  You take a little nap.  You'll feel better later."

            After I awoke I told Grandma the story about the chocolate marshmallow cupcake, and she sent me back to the church to apologize and offer to clean up the mess.  A little thing, she said, squeezing me, kissing my forehead. A little marshmallow. Pish and tosh!

            A disaster, I continued to think, but maybe it could be fixed after all. 

            The children had gone home by the time I arrived back at the church.  I climbed the white stairs and looked at the organ stool.  No marshmallow.  I listened. No sound of the Sisters. I went back outside, around the side of the building, and opened the door to the basement.  Sure enough, the Sisters were down there.  But . . . they were laughing!  Even Sister Rita Marie was laughing.  How could she laugh?  What about the cupcake?  What about the tragedy of her long black dress smeared with sticky white?  I tiptoed down the stairs.  Sister Bernard held a big industrial broom in her hands. She'd pinned her veil back so it hung in a clump down her back.  She'd hitched her long skirt up somehow and wore a checkered apron over it.  Sister Rita looked pretty much the same as she had when I'd run away--a witch who was now washing a blackboard.  They didn't hear me.  I stood in the door. My heart thumped against my chest.  Sister Bernard finally looked in my direction.  Her eyes twinkled.  "Are you feeling better, dear?"

            "I'm sorry about the cupcake" I blurted.

            "I hope you'll think twice before you eat candy in church again," said Sister Rita as she cocked her veiled head and lifted one eyebrow.  "Now, how about helping us clean up this mess?  You want to wash off the tables?" and she handed me a wet cloth.

            Purple velvet curtains lined the walls of the sanctuary and I always wondered what was behind them.  I thought, maybe, heaven.  It never occurred to me that it was just a wall.  Curtains always covered an opening, a window or a door that led someplace.  The same velvet curtains covered the openings to the confessionals.  When you pushed them aside they felt thick and heavy.  Sister Bernard sat on the straight-backed wooden chair in the box behind the priest's curtain and practiced with all the first and second graders.  Pull the curtain aside.  Kneel on the wooden kneeler (it was crooked, a triangular platform, probably made to accommodate adult knees).  If you're too short, stand.  Let the curtain fall.  You needn't fear the dark.  Father will open a little sliding door; hear it?  After he does this you will be able to hear him breathe.  Don't wait for him to say anything, just start right in:  Bless me Father, for I have sinned....  We practiced over and over.  We practiced the Act of Contrition with its incomprehensible words.  Sister laughed when the Humenick boy said "Oh my God, I am hardly sorry for having offended you."

            Sin wasn't a "hardly" matter. She emphasized the different forms of sin and their degrees of harm. Original sin came right along with our bodies, and unless we were lucky enough to be baptized, it would keep us from ever seeing God. Baptism took it away but left effects—like grass stains that never came out completely no matter how thoroughly your clothes were washed. Mortal sin killed every last speck of God in us, caused the soul to rot and be cast into the flames of hell for all eternity. Yuk, we murmured, and Sister Bernard, acting like the thirteenth fairy godmother, smoothed things over by saying children committed mostly venial sins. Sort of like pricking your finger on the spindle, or tripping and skinning your knee on the gravel. It wouldn't kill you, but it did some damage and hurt a lot.

            We tried to figure out the difference between perfect and imperfect contrition.  Each word needed translation:  To be sorry because you loved God and didn't want to hurt him, or to be sorry because you were afraid God might send you to hell if you weren't.  Now why didn't they just say that in the first place?  In confession you could have either kind, it didn't matter.  If you were dying without confession, though, only love would work.  If you were dying, you had to be perfect.

            Mama and I stood on the white painted stairs in front of the Church on the June day I made my real First Confession.  She'd helped me examine my conscience with questions from the little white prayer book Grandma gave me for my First Communion.  "Don't tell me now, Honey.  Just think about the question:  Did you tell a lie?  Did you disobey your parents?  Did you say your morning and night prayers?  Did you keep your body pure?"  I tried to figure it out.  Not only did you need to know the bad things you did, you needed to know how many times!  I was six years old.  Six years was a long time, I figured, to remember how many lies I'd told before the chocolate marshmallow cupcake caper and my choice to tell the truth.  I made up a number, something that seemed big enough to span the years.   

            After it was over my knees were shaking.  Mama floated in the sunlight on the church steps, looking like one of the flowers in her new hat.  I wanted to tell my sins to her.  The sun felt warm.  All my sins were gone.  I'd tried to be sorry because of love, but my shaky knees indicated such unselfishness was harder than I'd thought.  The priest's words cleansed my soul despite my fear--clean as a newly baptized baby.  "Do you want to hear what my penance was, Mama?  Do you want to know what I said to the priest?"  I wanted her to know all that was gone, just how clean I had become. 

            "Goodness, no.  You must never tell a soul what you say in confession.  Only God can know.  When the priest is in the confessional he is just like God.  No, honey.  Don't tell me those things.  They're gone.  God took them away."

            "I could tell you my penance, though, couldn't I?"

            "No dear.  Not even that.  It's your secret with God."

            I awoke early on my First Communion Day.  So much to remember.  Don't drink water.  Don't eat anything.  Don't commit a sin.  Don't wrinkle that pretty white dress.  Don't scuff those new shoes.  Don't go in the road, it's dusty.  Don't sit in the grass; it stains.  Don't forget the white prayer book with the mother of pearl cover.  Don't forget the white rosary.  Don't forget the white veil.  How could I forget the white veil?  It was the best part.  I think I went to the side of the lodge and picked lilies of the valley.  I think Mama pinned them to my veil but maybe the lilies on my veil were imitation.  I remember the scent of the lilies, though, and the damp white bells hiding under the ferns.

            Sister Bernard had told us over and over that our First Communion day was the most important of our lives.  Jesus who was God was really and truly coming into our hearts in the round white host that might stick to the tops of our mouths. Don't put your finger in and pry it loose because you're not supposed to touch God.  If you stuck a pin in the host, blood would come out and this was true, because a little boy who didn't believe took the host out of his mouth and waited until after Mass. Then he stuck a pin in it and sure enough.  None of us would want to do such a thing, of course, because it was a terrible sin and the boy certainly could go to hell for such a sacrilege, which was the worst of all sins that even God had trouble forgiving.

            On our First Communion Day, Sister Bernard said, God would answer any prayer, grant any promise.  This is the way it worked:  After the priest put the host on your tongue (we practiced sticking our tongues out properly) you were to bow your head and walk slowly back to your place where you should kneel down and talk to Jesus who now was in your heart.  Ask him.  Probably you shouldn't ask for a new bike.  It would be better to ask for something he understood better, something holy.  I'd heard enough saints' stories to be able to grasp this distinction.  I decided to ask Jesus, just as I'd asked his Blessed Mother on the day of the chocolate marshmallow cupcake, to make me a saint.

            We sang:        

"Jesus, Jesus, come to me

All my longing is for thee

Of all friends the best thou art

Make of me thy counterpart.

Jesus, I live for thee

Jesus, I die for thee

All my longing is for thee

Jesus, Jesus, come to me."

            I sang with all my heart. "Make of me thy counterpart." What a strange prayer, but religion contained so much I didn't understand that a prayer to become a cash register like the one on the counter at my grandmother's resort didn't seem any stranger than the rest of it. The cash register was the only object I could think of that was not the counter itself but definitely a counter-part.

            After Mass and posing for pictures with the other children and with the Sisters and with Father Merth, we went to Grandma Klimek's house on Main Street. 

            Parked in my grandmother's dining room was a brand new royal blue and white Schwinn bicycle.  I stared at it.  I'd seen it before of course. It was the very bike that was supposed to be in the Gamble Store window down the street.  What was it doing at Grandma's?  It couldn't be mine; it still was way too big. This machine looked enormous!  Whose was it?  Was it my cousin, Sandra's?  Grandma laughed.  "It's for you, Sweetheart, for your First Communion.  It's from me, from Grandma." 

            I barely dared to touch it. "What's wrong?' Grandma put her arm around me. "I thought you really wanted this bicycle."

            But who could say it? Who could know how God saw things, or in his eyes what truth might be? "All my longing is for Thee," I had sung. Who could know what other longings Jesus saw as he slipped into my soul on the First Communion host? Did he see me with my nose pressed against the Gamble store window and balance my longing for this bike with the longing in my First Communion prayer?

I reached out my hand to touch the handlebars of Grandma's gift. What if I'd got the whole thing inside-out, and every longing I would ever have would lead me to a sweet communion?

"Can we take the bike outside? Will you teach me how to ride?" Grandma laughed. And I laughed, too, tasting through the freedom of that laughter, the deliciousness of chocolate marshmallow on my tongue.

Copyright© by Christin Lore Weber, 2006. All rights reserved