My Portuguese confession

Missing my flight by a few minutes and having to buy a 50 Euro overnight bus ticket to Madrid also meant missing my friends and buying myself a ticket to one of the lowest points I can recall ever sinking to.

I killed the first few hours of my unplanned extra day in Porto with a lengthy lamentation and downcast train ride back to the city centre. I never got to say goodbye to my travel buddies and was going to have to see Madrid alone instead. Taking the slow sightseeing route round Porto’s Plaça de Monsinho Alberquerque monument, nothing it had to offer seemed the least bit scenic.

A heart brimming with thoughts of my life and my parents, and a wallet filled with just about zilch, I turned a corner to come face to face with a modern Portuguese igreja.

I usually drop in to say a short prayer when I pass a church – all the more reason to when you’re waiting for a ten-hour bus ride four hours away.

Scouring the church for a confessional, I found my way to the first pew where I dropped to my knees. Two elderly women whispering the rosary behind me could have been mistaken by anyone as using the church as a gossip venue. Turning back, I asked them, “confessão?”

After some undecipherable babble, they prompted me to follow them, “sacristy”. They led me to a young priest who turned me down, citing that confession could not be done as he did not speak English. As the incomprehensible dialogues continued around me, an old priest was brought into the picture, who kindly obliged.

Neither did he speak English. Shuffling about his office, he took me to another room where I made my confession in a mix of English, Portuguese and Latin. The one thing I will probably remember most distinctly years from now, will probably be the balding white-haired padre clasping my hands and smiling.

“Proverbios 23:26,” was what he asked me to read. “Today… corazon… Dios,” he repeatedly signed with his hands, prompting me to do the same. I told him that I had not been to confession in three months. Was it really because I was working in Holland (where 99% of the population understand English), or was it because I never did make the effort to head to church a tad earlier?

A long-needed confession was followed by a blessing from this warm and gentle old man. Leaving the sacristy, I came back to that same pew, and started writing.

“O my son, give me your heart…” - Proverbs 23:26



- posted on behalf of Andre Brinstan Frois