Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
CONFIRMATION.
THE day on which I received Confirmation was a distressing one to me. I believed the doctrine of the Roman Catholics, and according to them I was guilty of three mortal sins; concealing something at confession, sacrilege, in putting the body of Christ in the sacrament under my feet, and by receiving it while not in a state of grace! And now I had been led into all those sins in consequence of my marriage, which I never had acknowledged, as it would cut me off from being admitted as a nun.
On the day when I went to the Church to be confirmed with a number of others, I suffered extremely from the reproaches of my conscience. I believed, as I had been told, that a person who had been anointed with the holy oil of confirmation on the forehead, and dying in the state in which I was, would go down to hell, and, in the place where the oil had been rubbed, the names of my sins would blaze out of my forehead; these would be a sign by which the devils would know me, and would torment me the worse for them. I was thinking of all this, while I was sitting in the pew, waiting to receive the oil. I felt however some consolation, when my sins came to my mind; which I derived from another doctrine of the church, viz., that a bishop could absolve me from all sins any minute before my death; and I intended to confess them all before leaving the world. At length the moment for administering the "sacrament" arrived, and a bell was rung. Those who had come to be confirmed had brought tickets from their confessors, which were thrown into a hat, and carried around by a priest, who in turn handed each to a bishop, by which he learned our names and applied a little of the oil to the foreheads. This was immediately rubbed off by a priest with a bit of cloth quite roughly.
I went home with some qualms of conscience, and often thought with dread of the following tale which I have heard told, to illustrate the sinfulness of conduct like mine.
A priest was once travelling, when he was passing by a house, his horse fell on its knees, and would not rise. His rider dismounted and went in to learn the cause of so extraordinary an occurrence. He found there a woman near death, to whom a priest was trying to administer the sacrament, but without success; for every time she attempted to swallow it it was thrown back out of her mouth into the chalice. He perceived it was owing to unconfessed sin, and took away the holy water from her; on which his horse rose from its knees, and he pursued his journey.
I also had been told, that we shall have as many devils biting us, if we go to hell, as we have unconfessed sins on our consciences.
I was required to devote myself for a year, to the study of the prayers and practice the ceremonies necessary on the reception of a nun. This I found a very tedious duty; but as I was released from the daily labours usually demanded of novices I felt little disposition to complain.