Baloney, Baloney, Baloney!: A Memoir

Both my parents had been raised Catholic. But didn’t become regular churchgoers until we kids were old enough to behave while the priest dictated the Sunday lecture.

Early on, about the year I turned six, my parents discussed the idea of me being confirmed. I didn’t know what confirmation was, so I didn’t let it bother me. I could barely make the sign of the cross, and now they were talking about something called confirmation. I’d been to church a few times but not enough to fully understand what being a Catholic meant.

One bright, sunny Sunday morning, Mom woke me up early.

“You need to take a bath,” she said, pouring hot water into a tub situated in the kitchen, close to the stove. I never took baths on Sundays, so I wondered, still half asleep, why she was so interested in me bathing.

She said proudly, “Hoy, te vamos a confirmer.” (“Today you are getting confirmed.”)

It sounded threatening.

“What’s that? I asked, fumbling with my clothes as she prepared the bathwater.

“It’s a thing the Church does for little children so they can get closer to Jesus,” she articulated.

That’s all she said. All sorts of images popped into my head. Was I going to be put on a cross like the man I’d seen in church? The man my parents called Jesús? Why did this happen at church? Was it going to hurt? If I was going to be nailed to a cross, I knew it was going to hurt. All these thoughts circled around in my brain. I was expecting the worst.

“I don’t want to go to the church,” I cried as she scrubbed the dirt and filth from my body.

“It’s going to be fine. You need to do this if Jesus is going to accept you into Heaven.”

“I don’t want to go to Heaven. I want to stay here!” I demanded, shedding the first of many tears.

I got dressed—or she dressed me—in some new clothes. Looking at myself in brand-spanking-new black pants and a white shirt, I had no choice but to submit. I stopped crying, taking pleasure in my new clothing.

“See how nice you look?” my mom said.

“Mom, why is this necessary?” I asked.

“Because the Church wants all children to be confirmed. This way, you’ll be close to God.”

I could not believe this was happening to me. I argued. But the more I argued, the more determined she was to see me go.

A big, nice car pulled up to our house and honked. Chuy hollered from the other room, where he was getting dressed. “My compadre is here! We have to go!”

Mom combed my hair the way she usually did—two parts on each side of the head, culminating on top. She took me by the hand and walked me outside. Chuy came out of the house looking clean, shaven, and well-dressed.

“I don’t want to go,” I pleaded.

“Be quiet and get in the car,” he demanded, giving me that look he used when we misbehaved. I could tell my resistance was not in my best interest. The man he’d called compadre was also well-dressed. He was a tall man my dad called Hernandez. He had a box wrapped in white paper with a yellow ribbon around it.

“This is for you,” he said, handing me the box.

“You can’t open it until we get done at church,” insisted Chuy.

“I don’t want it,” I said. “I just want to stay with Mom.”

Chuy grabbed me by the arm and pushed me into the car, quickly shutting the door behind me. I started to cry, looking at Mom, who just stood there as these two men were kidnapping me and taking me to the man on the cross. She smiled and waved as if I was going to a party. Did she not understand I feared being nailed to a cross? Who would do this to young children? I didn’t stop crying even though Chuy kept telling me to shut up. He was trying to be nice about it, but I wasn’t falling for it.

The car pulled up in front of St. Joseph Catholic Church—a large, intimidating place painted white with a cross sitting high above the steeple. Several cars were already there. We were the last to arrive.

“Come on,” Chuy told me as he opened the door.

“I don’t want to go,” I said, still wailing like I was the sacrificial child before God and everybody.

Typically, the ritual of confirmation happens when a member of the Catholic Church reaches at least thirteen or fourteen years of age. In many cases, parents can decide they want it done earlier. Apparently, my parents felt it was time for me to go through the ritual. Not an exorcism but a ritual. Very different. The rite of confirmation states:

… by the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence, they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.

Try explaining that to a young Catholic and see where it gets you. Adults have a hard time understanding the message. Can you imagine a six-year-old? Regardless, as Catholics, we are bound by the teachings of the Church. And it states that parents must confirm their children.

The actual rite is nothing more than a church service, which takes about an hour. Then the children are brought up to the altar with a parent and a sponsor—in this case, Mr. Hernandez, who would be my godfather—as the priest makes the sign of the cross with holy oil on the child’s forehead. Now, if someone had explained that to me, maybe my hysteria would not have been so outrageous.

I was being pulled out of the car as I grabbed anything I could hold on to. I was determined not to go inside. Chuy pulled me, shook me, and told me to stand still while he straightened out my shirt.

As soon as he turned around to go inside, I jumped on the opportunity to flee the scene. A perfect time to escape. I slid under the car, keeping just far enough from grabbing hands.

That didn’t work. I was dragged out, shaken again, and literally shoved into the church. Chuy wiped my nose with his handkerchief and told me to stop crying, or he was going to spank me.

I sat quietly, hoping I would not be the first to be killed.

The nightmare was over within an hour. I had survived, thanks to Jesus, to whom I gave thanks for letting me see another day. We filed out of the church, parents and children alike, smiling and laughing. I was just itching to get in the car and open that box.

“What’s this?” I asked, holding up the small book I removed from the box.

“It’s a Bible,” stated the Hernandez man.

“What’s it for?” I asked him.

“It’s for you to use when you come to church. It’s your own personal Bible. Every kid gets one when they’re confirmed.”

I thought it was going to be a toy of some sort. Instead, I got a book. Little did I know, I would lean on that Bible more often than I ever expected growing up. Mr. Hernandez brought me a Christmas present every year until I got to high school. I never saw him but on Christmas Day. As long as he brought me presents, I considered him a great godfather.

There were pleasant times when Dad would relent and allow us to visit Mom’s parents. We visited them every so often, especially on Sundays after being dragged to church. Since that awful, excruciating experience I’d endured earlier, I couldn’t figure out why church was so important to Hispanics. My grandparents were very religious, always preaching to us about being good Catholics.

Grandmother would say, “Praying to Jesus Christ will help you be a good Christian.” She taught me how to pray. In Spanish. “Put your hands together like this,” she would say, entwining her fingers together. “Now, you kneel, like this. Now say what I say.”

I would mimic her, saying things like, “Please forgive me for my sins,” and “Bless my family and help me be a good boy.” Or something like that. All this praying would eventually come in handy as I grew older.

It wasn’t long after confirmation that I had to attend something called catechism. I had to go every Wednesday after school. Apparently, St Joseph’s had classes for children whose parents wanted them to make their first Communion—another one of those things I didn’t quite understand. I was a child who had no interest in making my first Communion, but I didn’t have a choice.

St. Joseph’s was small and built in the shape of a cross. I bet the place didn’t hold more than a hundred people. The front door faced Main Street. As you entered the long walkway, which led to the altar where Jesus hung, long benches on either side accommodated churchgoers. Toward the front, the walls split left and right, depicting a cross. The altar stood higher than the rest of the place, giving the priest a good view of his parishioners.

At the center of the altar stood a huge table made of some kind of fancy stone with white cloths hanging from all sides. Behind this table was an exceptionally large cross with Jesus Christ hanging from his hands and feet, held up by huge nails. His head, hanging close to his chest, showed the agony he must have suffered. His long brown hair hung down to his shoulders. A brown beard adorned his face. His closed eyes gave the impression he was asleep. It was a sad but solemn crucifix that would remain in my memory forever.

I, along with about twenty other children my age, took a seat close to the front of the church for our first catechism class. Two nuns appeared out of nowhere, giving us instructions on how to sit. One was pretty and young, the other was old and looked mean.

“This is a place of worship,” the older one said. “You must be quiet. As you walk in, you make the sign of the cross. Bend your knee, like this. Put your hands together, like this, and walk slowly.”

All instructions were in Spanish. The nuns separated the boys from the girls during these catechism classes, and the boys got Sister Theresa, the older, mean nun, for our teacher. She would scold us if we didn’t get the prayers right. Our Father and Hail Mary were the two top prayers everyone had to learn.

After a few weeks of continuous repetition, we could recite these with very few mistakes. It was boring and uninteresting. Even though the nuns tried to explain what these prayers meant, we didn’t—or at least I didn’t—understand how they related to us. There were a couple of other prayers we had to recite and memorize as part of passing this class, but they had little status in the prayer hierarchy. Sister Theresa wouldn’t punish us as harshly if we got those wrong.

We would kneel while the madrecita, or Sister Theresa, walked back and forth in front of the pew with a ruler in her hand. In an effort to intimidate us, she would slap her hand with the ruler, as if this gesture would make us memorize the prayers faster.

“Say it again! This time, say it slowly so I can hear the words,” she would say, holding the ruler above her head. I could feel her urge to hit someone.

After several months of reciting prayers and listening to Sister Theresa explain parts of the Bible, we were ready to make our first Communion.

How could I have passed catechism? To this day, I’m still trying to figure that out.

My first Communion was a much better event than confirmation. On that day, both my father and mother took me to church. I looked like a gentleman leading a ceremonial party. We kids were lined up in alphabetical order, making me first in line. I had on new black pants, no belt, a white shirt, and old shoes that my dad spent an hour trying to shine so they wouldn’t look so old. All the boys were dressed the same, and the girls wore their fancy dresses in bright colors and ribbons in their hair.

We went through the church service. Then, about halfway through Mass, the priest, Father Frankie, called us up front. We recited the Our Father and a Hail Mary. Then he blessed us as we took the host, a round piece of bread that tasted like cardboard. I got to eat Jesus Christ through a round, dry cracker that got stuck on the roof of my mouth. I hacked out loud to get it to unstick. It was the hardest thing to recover from.

We stood, facing the parishioners. They clapped with smiling faces as they looked at their children with utmost pride. After the end of the service, we walked out of the church, following the priest. I could see my father and mother beaming. I was proud of myself. I was on my way to becoming a good Catholic.

For a time, some of us went to church every Sunday. I liked the idea of being there in my Sunday best even though it was always the same thing. Whether Chuy was hungover from the night before determined if we walked or rode. Sunday service ended with a good meal for lunch. Sometimes.

Religion was part of our life growing up. Understanding the significance of prayer helped me. There would be many times when I relied on prayer to help me get through some tough situations. When I felt the world crumbling in on me, I would take time to ask God for assistance. At times, faith would guide me. When that failed, I fell back on good old common sense.

I still pray. I might not go to church as often as I used to, but I still make the sign of the cross and thank God for the day.