As a child, I was lucky enough to like school. While I didn’t realise it at the time, I enjoyed learning things. I often asked teachers questions when things weren’t quite clear to me. This was appreciated ... in most subjects.
Our religion teacher, Sister Josephine often struggled to convey the intricacies of the Sacraments and various other aspects of the Catholic faith to her class of nine year olds. The Sacrament of Confession was riddled with inconsistencies.
“The soul is in a state of divine purity when you received the Sacrament of Confession”, she stated, eyes closed, head raised with intensity to the ceiling.
My hand shot up. “So does that mean that if you died straight after confession, you’d go straight to heaven?” I asked.
“Yes” she confirmed.
“Even if you had just confessed a mortal sin?”
“Of course”, She snapped. “All sins are erased after completion of the penance”. I missed the tell tale spots of red growing in her cheeks. I needed to clear up the loose ends.
“So if you had a mortal sin, and you got knocked down on the road on your way to confession, you’d go straight to hell. But if you made it to confession and got knocked down on the way back from confession, you’d go straight to heaven?”, I asked, excited at my insight.
“The Lord hates a Smart Alec, and ‘tis a Smart Alec we have here!” she roared. “Get OUT of my class and take your Smart Alec questions with you!”
I left the class on shaking legs, feeling confused and mortified.
A few weeks later, the same Sister Josephine covered the thorny topic of the Pope’s ability to speak in tongues. As usual, I looked for the literal interpretation.
“So, if the pope went to Africa, and met a remote tribe who had their own language and who had never ever set eyes on anyone outside of their own tribe, he’d be able to chat to them in their own language as if....”. I knew I was doomed before I finished the sentence.
As I sat outside contemplating the wrong side of the classroom door, I thought about my crime. Asking questions that didn’t have a straight answer? Misinterpreting the Word of God? Embarrassing my teacher who didn’t know how to speak in the language of a nine-year old?
As an adult, I tend to focus on the bigger picture questions rather than getting bogged down in the detail like my nine-year old self. Usually, it’s just myself who I pose the big questions to, but Ed my husband gets the odd query. Anyway, my motto is..”Just keeping askin’”.
Susan McKeever April 2006