Catholic Teachings

The teaching of the Catholic faith was a very serious business and you needed to be thoroughly taught the fundamentals of the Catacism. That was the handbook of what a sin is and how you should avoid committing any sin at all. At about eight you make your first confession of your transgressions to the priest who was hiding on the other side of the confessional behind a purple curtain. He will give you absolution and a punishment of a decade of the rosary. That’s one Our Father, ten Hail Mary’s and a Glory be to the Father depending on the severity of your sins. When the priest comes out those he has given a whole rosary to for their sins are still there praying for redemption. Now he knows who these naughty ones are. But at seven years old I don’t know what I’ve done that was a sin. Can’t be rude to parents just get a whack, don’t know any swearwords that are worse than what Dad says and what else at seven is there that counts as a sin, it was all very confusing.
When you make it to your first Holy Communion you can only receive if your pure and free from sin. That means you have to make visit to the confessional the day before so that when you get the host it’s going into a sin free body. Some of my friends, who weren’t Catholics related that they didn’t have any of this great singsong, or a fiery sermon threatening hell and damnation. If you did naughty things, while we had confession, ommunion and fiery hell and damnation sermons on Sundays whatever time Mass you went to.About this time a number of us who had grown up together were taught to become altarboys serving the priest saying the Mass which was all in Latin,and we had to learn the whole Mass to respond to the priest on behalf of the congregation,with our backs to them all the way through.
Confirmation really completes the process of being wholly a Catholic and this is done by the Bishop who deals with each child to embrace them into the faith.Bishop’s rarely appear unless something is wrong other than for confirmations or Church dedications.Bishop Grimshaw had been a popular man and when he moved on the new one was a very austere guy called Restioux and most of the congregation disliked him,I know mother couldn’t stand him ” if he thinks I’m going to kiss that ring on his finger he can want on” was mother to Father she definitely wasn’t a fan of this Bishop.
Serving Mass was o k but when we moved to Renown St if anyone didn’t turn up to serve the Mass who was the closest and however early when Mr Duggan came knocking before I could say anything and sometimes I was still in bed and this is the early Mass,mother would say he’ll be there in a minute Mr Duggan,and that’s the end of it.The fact I was down to serve the 11 o clock meant a whole morning in church and a sung high mass at 11, I’m in church all morning.There were some lighter moments I used to get into trouble for,although I always though it was a bit harsh.There were four huge candles on the altar and they were in fact steel tubes painted white and in fact had a spring mechanism with a relatively short actual candle inside.These were lit prior to Mass by a lighted taper on a long pole which also had a snuffer on it as well.I was from time to time known to remove the short candle when no one was around.The result was some poor other altarboy trying hard to light a candle that isn’t there and running out of taper.These candles were a good seven feet above headheight so no indication a candle missing was obvious.
The other trick of mine was to soak the tablet of incense in water for as long as possible before a high sung Mass.Wafting a thurible with a burning insence tablet and the priest adding more  powder insence on it stank the whole church out especially at the long high Mass with lots of watching around the altar. Don’t think I ever got caught out but I noticed I was the thurible swinger less often as time went by which I was quite happy about.
The most memorable time was the month of May the celebration of Mary the mother of Jesus.The Church would organise a procession around Renown St and Ocean St carrying a statue of Mary,rose petals would be dropped in front of the procession all the way round and ending in Benediction at the Church.All the children were involved and both streets would be lined on a Sunday afternoon to watch.That has always remained in my mind it obviously made an impact on me.