I always feel grand after confession

 I always feel grand after confession





     I always felt it puzzling to realize the Sheehy household was of mixed religions. John was a pretty solid Catholic and Grace was raised by strong Christian parents who served in the Salvation Army. On any given Sunday the Sheehy kids would have had to choose between St. Emydius Parish and the First Methodist Church where the method was observed. The Church of Rome however had a stopgap in place that forbad any young Catholic from ever attending a Protestant service under pain of mortal sin.Thus when I spent the night with my dear Methodist grandma I could not accompany her to her church. I did however, get acquainted with the Methodist hymns and to this day love the great melodies of "How Great Thou Art," "Be Thou My Vision," "Amazing Grace," and my grandma's reedy warbling of "Bringing in the Sheaths" that was accomplished while keeping her dentures in place during the high notes. The Sheehy kids all sided with the Pope and while they did not attend Catholic grammar school they went to mass, made first holy communions and the worst possible Saturday bummer attended Cathechism classes. To have a precious Saturday broken up by listening to a devout yarn spinner was complained about by almost all of my non-Catholic school friends but you were not supposed ot say so in public. Greg took it like a good boy but he also quietly began to chuckle to himself over the illustrations in the "Baltimore Catechism" that was forced on these poor lost lambs every week. As a 1-12 Catholic schooler we were force fed catechism for one hour first thing in the morning and only felt shame for having impure thoughts so much of the time. 

1. Who made us? God made us.

 2. Who is God? God is the Supreme Being, infinitely perfect, who made all things and keeps them in existence.

 3. Why did God make us? God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.

 4. What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven? To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and serve God in this world. 

5. From whom do we learn to know, love, and serve God? We learn to know, love, and serve God from Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who teaches us through the Catholic Church.  

Even after Greg had drifted away from the true, holy and apostolic church he liked to laugh at the drawings in the Baltimore Catechism and would sometimes come out of a shower and expostulate "I always feel grand after confession!"

 



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