This weekend, our church parish held a mini-retreat for my daughter and the whole class of soon-to-be first communicants. The focus was on confession, specifically this their very first, which followed at the end of the two hours. They asked that one parent be present for the entire morning. I found the whole idea curious and didn’t know what to expect.

To start us off, our pastor arrived and spoke to the children. He focused on the idea that now they — the kids — are old enough to take responsibility for what they do or do not, the good and the bad. And that their goal is to grow in holiness and become saints. It was particularly effective when he was gleeful about admitting – as an example – that he was the one to do so well in school and then was equally silly and excited to admit that he was the one to own up to something done wrong.

We are lucky to have a fatherly priest. He spoke for half an hour, but the time seemed to fly by with almost no fidgeting. He spoke in ways and stories that the kids could understand, but I was happiest to see him relating everything in terms of the children’s relationship with Jesus. He made it personal, and then shared something personal that I’d never heard another priest say — that once he leaves the confessional, he honestly does not remember what you tell him.

The next part was pretty boring – they played a cartoon of the Prodigal Son and then we did worksheets together about it. All I can remember thinking was that I didn’t care for some of the ways that the movie company interpreted/softened the story for kids.

But afterward, their version of an examination of conscious for 2nd graders was pretty cool. Over the course of their weekly classes, they have taught the kids the Ten Commandments to the tune of The Farmer and the Dell. You’re thinking, “Weird!” aren’t you? Yeah, that’s how I was too until I heard almost fifty kids sing and remember them.

Having passed out plastic Christmas balls that could split in half along with paint and brushes, they sang each commandment by itself and then the teacher went through real-life examples of what “taking the Lord’s name in vain” meant – and so on down through the line. If the children had broken that commandment, they were to paint a brown spot inside their individual ball. As we went through them, there was a lot of painting and no fussing at all by the parents. I, for one, felt really honored to be sitting with my daughter and listening, not judging.

The exercise was of course designed to allow the kids to see exactly how muddy sin makes their ball and their soul. Best of all, at the end and after the point was made, we washed their balls totally clean of the brown paint, just as Confession cleans our soul. They were each given a sprig of evergreen, a symbol of life, to place inside the ball instead, a reminder that Jesus lives within us always.

When it was finally time for the real thing, my daughter ended up first in line and she was so brave. I hugged her very close when she was done. It was awe-some. God had let me hold her when she was born, and here she was being born all over again and into my arms she came.

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