The chapel, now that I try to remember it, always smelled faintly of incense, though I don’t remember any incense ever having been burned there. Perhaps it emanated from the priest’s dressing room, off to the right by the altar.
That room, with a curtain (faded green, like on the cushions of the chairs, and on the kneelers) for a doorway, could also (by using the curtain as a sort of wall) be turned into an impromptu confessional.
I never used it as such, myself. This would have entailed letting all those there for Sunday Mass, all eight or ten of them, and the priest, that I wanted to go to confession. All those already assembled would have to leave the chapel for the few moments that I was confessing my sins. And on top of that, since all would be done on my request alone, there would be no chance whatsoever of the anonymity afforded by a regular confessional in a regular church. Much easier, all around, for me to live with whatever sins I had accumulated that week or so.
Any conventional confessional is terrifying in its setup. It’s in one of these contraptions that many Catholic children first begin to understand the concept of the “Fear of God.” Picture this: a small 7-year-old going into this darkened box within the church proper. There is only a bare board to kneel upon, so you do do very gingerly. Behind the closed screen in front of you is a priest. It’s not a priest that you know, because you don’t know any of them. You have been told by your teacher to tell him all of your sins, any one that you have committed ever in your whole life, since this is your first confession, after all. The anonymous priest on the other side of the thin wooden partition then slides the screen to your cubicle open, and it is time for you to begin.
The loneliest sound a small child can hear is the sound of the rasp and click of the screen in the darkness as the priest slides it open, waiting for your confession to begin.
white pebble 