Spanish Confession

I had my first Spanish confession yesterday. I´ve been trying to get to confession for 2 weeks now and have found it surprisingly difficult considering I live with 7 nuns at a Catholic school. Well, yesterday I went to Mass outside the school and found the confessional where a priest was patiently hearing confessions.

I waited my turn and when I entered I explained that due to my imperfect Spanish I might not be able to explain everything well. I also said I didn´t know how to recite the prayers in Spanish. Or, I thought I said all that. The priest looked at me a minute then asked if I was married. Um... no. I explained again that I just wanted to make sure it was okay to have the confession in Spanish if not everything said would be understood. He looked at me again, then repeated the marriage question. Hmmm...

I should point out, the priest is 98 and I don´t think he can hear very well, add my accent on top of that and I´m pretty sure he had no idea what I was saying - so at least I feel a little better that my Spanish might not be that bad.

I assured him I am not married. He asked if I had any relations with a man. I began to think that maybe we had skipped the introduction (which is fine with me since I don´t know it in Spanish) and had jumped right into the confession. So I quickly tried to confess as best I could and much to my pleasure, he gave a short reply, a penance, then asked me to recite the Act of Contrition. When I told him I didn´t know it, he gave me a card that had it written in Spanish. Yea! So I read it, he absolved, I feel good!

At dinner last night I explained this to the Sister´s and they said the priest I spoke with knows English. Perdon? Next time my first question will be ¨Do you speak English?¨