LOL. Mary, so if you had to make things up in order to confess, you essentially were taught to lie to the priest. 😈 I also went to a parochial elementary school (1960s) where I learned guilt was the driving force behind every waking hour! 😂 “If you’re not doing it, you must be thinking it.”

As a child, that motivation has you flinching with any raised eyebrow, intake of breath or side eye glance from a teacher, minister, parent, etc.
One moment I remember so vividly was in church. My mom and I would always go to 7:30 AM service and right after was my Sunday school. We had a very strict, intimidating ‘old school’ minister and of course, he was also the principal of our school. This was after Easter and he was telling the story of Jesus coming to the Garden to Mary after resurrection. I had dozed off with my head in my mom’s lap and I remember hearing him, with his big booming voice say, “Lori, Wake up!” OMG. I shot up from my mom’s lap and was on the verge of tears waiting him to come down from the pulpit and grab my ear to take me off to his office. (Yes that happened to all of us at one time or another)

As a child, I didn’t realize the minister had said, “Mary, Wake up..,” that revelation came to me years later when hearing the story again at Easter. LOL. I even told my mom who cracked up. She had wondered why I shot up out of her lap like that and…that I never fell asleep in church again!