Unholy Communion Sepia Saturday Week 51 (Click here to Sepia site)

I hesitate to share this last photo  a ludicrous reflection from my childhood archives, but why not, I feel accepted  among friends here on Sepia. I was raised Catholic by my grandmother; Mom acquiesced  to her mother in this matter because after she married her second husband who was not Catholic, and who was  not really anything, different for those times and seldom went to church, she still knew religious upbringing was important.  Coming from a long line of Polish Catholics, my Grandma Rose would ensure that my soul was protected and secured by my Catholic raising.  Grandma wanted me to go attend  Catholic school too, believing it would be good for me, but that was one discussion over which Mom prevailed, so I happily went to the neigborhood schools. Things went well for me there,

There are Catholic events along the life of every girl and  boy and the first, after baptism of course, is Holy Communion.  This was immersion into the faith,  and back in 1953, the date of this event in my life, it commenced by attending Catechism classes.  That did not suffice because the week before Communion we all  had to attend Catholic School anyway with all the "regular"  Catholic students, those of us, the renegades  from the public school hoods.  Oh what torture this became; we kids from the hoods  were mandated to arrive at the school  promptly before 7:30AM, thirty minutes before the rest of the class  so that we could do our assigned church chore which was some sort of penance for  not attending Catholic school; this was followed by daily attendance at mass.   

And oh, those nuns!  My grandmother was enamored of the "Blessed Sisters" which is what she called them but to me they were some sort of cross between a penguin and dungeon keepers.  The rules were ever so many that  were not  to my liking; I was not a bad child, just headstrong, a good student but fairly spoiled and used to doing things my way.  The Litany of rules included not to be talking in class, sitting just so, no fidgeting,  and worst of all for myself, no making faces. It is a lifelong trait that I can roll my eyes and show a full gamut of  expression with my face and lips.  Sometime I must write about my episodes with the nuns, the only time my Grandma was ever cross with me was when those Nuns would call her and report my daily activities, I really could not understand  why someone  whom Grandma thought so holy could be such tattletales.  But daily it seemed that there was something I did against their rules.  It was a week marked by suffering in my opinion never having had such immersion into the Catholic ways.

I was excited about getting a white dress for Communion, which meant a trip to our town's fancy store.  For this event, my other Grandmother, whom I hardly ever saw, (my father's mother, there was worse than bad blood between her and Mom,) announced that she wanted to buy my dress.  Well, she had not yet been shopping with me  but she was soon to learn about my opinions.  Both grandmothers, Mom and myself arrived at the store and the minute I saw the dress I knew it was "the one" it had some lace  rows with rhinestones along the skirt and I loved my sparkles even  back then.  Trouble was it did not fit and Mom promptly began to get others for me, but of course they were too plain.  I had seen the diamonds and they had to be mine! Mom was not so sure and tried to explain that maybe I didn't need that for Holy Communion, something plainer would do.   No way no how!  I protested such as only I could demonstrate, to the consternation of  the  saleslady, and I even went so far as to pronounce that after having to put up with those Nuns all week I deserved this!  Only this dress or nothing!  But my Grandmothers had already  put their heads together and both being excellent seamstresses knew that they could make this dress fit with a few adjustments here and there.  I was now appeased and pleased and Grandma Ball  paid for the dress and then off we went to get white patent leather shoes to match. 

Well here I am before we left my Grandma's house for the church; she had seen that I dressed at the last minute so that I not soil a thing.  I was fond of following Granpap out to the dirt, out to the garden, playing with the dogs, and whatever else appealed to me.  Besides I was hungry, back in those times in 1953 in the strict Polish Roman Catholic church one fasted before Communion, so I had an empty stomach besides my routine fidgets.  I was not that happy about anything except my dress; I  could not wait to wear it.  I really did not like those white knee socks but that was part of the prescribed attire, although I would have preferred red socks and made that known too.  Don't ask me why, just maybe I knew white socks would reveal the  dirt and maybe I feared keeping clean for too long; I really was gong to be very happy when this ceremony was all over and we had our big Sunday dinner with Grandma, who had baked for me alone a small lemon meringue pie, my request.

Somehow we made it to the church, St Mary's, the Polish Catholic church in town.  And off I went to join my  fellow Communicants or whatever we were called for the occasion.  Everyone came out for this event,  cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors, it was a big deal back then.  Or maybe they too were just looking forward to the great gathering afterward and the wonderful food.  Best of all for me there would be presents; kind of like a birthday in May instead of waiting till November.   And I was celebrating that I would be back in school with my friends that Monday, the next day and done with the Nuns.  At least for a time.

To every one's consternation, somehow, I managed to get loose before our grand  processional entrance  into the church.  And as evidenced in this "professional" photo, those white knee socks told the tale.  Of course being clever, I smudged them, thinking the dirt would rub away  but it didn't.  I can still see some of the Nuns scowling at me and "tsking.."  To top it all off, I managed to make a face such that it further reflected my issues of the week; here I was trying to be as proper as I could be, hiding my chin and cheek  dimples, not laughing too hard and somehow I came out looking like a baby hippo.  But here you have it, my First Holy Communion photo.....I think both my Grandmas nearly cried when they  first saw this.  But at least the snapshot at Grandma's house  was before dirt! There I am trying to look my sternest, trying not to make a face, but I was so repressed that I created a double chin....However the sparkles of the diamonds in the dress are there and I still have this prayer book somewhere in a drawer today.  I survived First Communion!

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