Day 8: The Seven Sacraments

My sickness—a.k.a. “the plague”—hasn’t gone away. In fact, it seems to be getting a little bit worse each day, to the point where I’m starting to wonder if I should be calling in a priest to administer last rites. And that got me thinking that I should talk a little about the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church.

The first sacrament is baptism, where a newborn baby is officially welcomed into the world as a member of the Church. I had my own baptism on April 15—tax day here in the United States—which seems rather appropriate, given how unpleasant things later turned out between me and the Church. My only real problem with the notion of baptism is that I was too young to decide for myself whether I wanted to be part of the Catholic Church—which is why certain denominations of Christianity have adult baptism instead, to allow people to choose for themselves. But we’ll get to that later (after the plague has passed, I hope).

The second sacrament people usually make is penance, or confession, where you tell a priest all the sins you’ve committed and he forgives you on God’s behalf, after telling you to say prayers or do other things to make up for your behavior. Back in the olden days, when I went through penance for the first time, we did it old school: in the little confessional booth where a special screen separated you from the priest to whom you were detailing your sins. Nowadays, a lot of churches do confessions face to face, with just you and the priest sitting together in a room, having a conversation. Yuck. No thanks. I made confession face to face once, and let’s just say that was my last confession. It’s creepy enough to tell some guy all the bad things you’ve done. A little bit of anonymity is the least the Church can offer to make the experience more tolerable. But I guess that’s the whole point: to make you really suffer for your sins.

The third sacrament is the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, where you take the bread and wine (which, through the miracle of transubstantiation, Catholics believe, becomes the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ). I had my First Communion in third grade. They made us dress up like miniature brides, with white frilly dresses and veils on our heads. I wish I had my family photo album with me so I could scan and post a picture. I looked like a complete dork. Personally, I think the boys should have had to wear tuxes and top hats so they would look as stupid as we girls did, but they got off easy—just regular suits. We all looked ridiculous, but just like with confession, I guess that’s part of the process—it is, after all, a rite of passage.

The next sacrament is confirmation. This is where you become an “adult” member of the Catholic Church. I was 14 when I made mine, and I was oh so mature. I guess you could compare confirmation to the bar or bat mitzvah that Jewish kids go through—but rarely is a confirmation anywhere near as elaborate, at least where I come from. You go through the ceremony, pick your “adult” name (a saint’s name that gets added after your middle name—mine is Rose, after my grandmother), and then maybe you have a little party to celebrate. For mine, I got a string of freshwater pearls and dinner with my immediate family at the local Italian restaurant. Not exactly a huge event, but then, my mom isn’t even Catholic, so I don’t blame her for not wanting to throw a big old bash.

The next two sacraments—marriage and holy orders (becoming a member of the clergy)—are supposed to be about choosing what you want to do with your life (because, apparently, there are only two choices for good Catholics: get married or become a priest or nun). I did get married in a Catholic Church, so I technically went through the sacrament of marriage. I guess I didn’t do very well with that one. Too bad divorce isn’t a sacrament as well, because I rocked that rite of passage! So I’ve been through five of the seven sacraments. And since it’s looking doubtful at this stage that I’ll ever choose to become a nun, I guess I’ll never get to take holy orders.

That means I only have one sacrament left to go through, the one that got me thinking about all this to begin with: the anointing of the sick (or last rites). This one is where a priest visits a deathly ill person, anoints him or her with holy oil, and forgives any sins to help prepare the person for imminent death. With the way I’ve been feeling the last few days, this sacrament seems a little too close for comfort. Since I only have a couple more days to go as a Catholic, please—pray for me. I’d like to get out of this without participating in last rites.