First Confession

Drawing on the author’s hardscrabble childhood in early-20th-century Ireland, Frank O’Connor’s “First Confession” chronicles the experience of seven-year-old Jackie, who must ready himself for the emotional and spiritual challenge of his first confession in the Catholic Church. The story was first published as “Repentance” in 1935 but heavily revised in later editions. This guide follows the version most reprinted today from O’Connor’s 1951 collection Traveller's Samples: Stories and Tales. O’Connor (1903-1966), who published more than 150 works, achieved critical prominence and a wide and appreciative readership on the strength of his short stories, realistic and often comic narratives that reflect the joys and sorrows of Ireland’s working class.

Seven-year-old Jackie is preparing, as all Catholic children his age do, for the sacrament of First Communion. After dutifully studying and struggling to memorize the complex theology behind the sacrament, the child receives the body of Christ for the first time in the form of a wafer offered during Mass. Before receiving First Communion, however, the child must make First Confession by visiting a priest in a tiny closet-like room in a church and revealing any sins the child has committed.

This act of confession is what Jackie faces and fears.