It is possible to be thankful every moment, every
day. It is possible to be thankful every moment,
every day. It takes practice and humility. Hi,
and welcome to Tell Me What Happened, the podcast
that features real people talking about real
events from their childhood and how those events
impacted their lives. I'm your host, Jay Rehech,
and like you, I've had a lot of experiences in
my childhood that still resonate with me today.
I have as my guest today Eileen O 'Farrell Smith,
a woman I have known for more than two decades.
Eileen is someone that I met at Old St. Pat's
in Chicago after she had helped organize a group
of Catholic and Jewish parents who were trying
to raise their children, both Catholic and Jewish.
with an appreciation for both faiths. I feel
Eileen's pain as she tells us her story. Welcome,
Eileen. Hi, Jay. What a treat to be with you.
It's a delight. Just a delight. It's good to
reconnect. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm sorry
we're still in the middle of a corona, but it's
good to be able to see your face on Zoom anyway.
Absolutely, I'm grateful for the technology,
for sure. Well, Eileen, are you ready to tell
your story? I think I am. I think I am. I'm grateful
for the opportunity. All right, I'm going to
try to kick back and not say a word. My wife
tells me I talk too much, so I'm going to put
my hand over my mouth and just listen to your
story. So take it away. Sounds great. Well, and
I have to say that when I first became aware
of this opportunity, I knew immediately what
I wanted to talk about. And so here's the way
the story goes. And that I was raised, I grew
up not here in Chicago, but on Long Island in
a very typical Irish Catholic middle class suburban
family in the 1950s. So I'm dating myself. I
lived with my mother and father. One older brother,
15 months, almost Irish twins, two dogs, large
extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins,
two sets of grandparents, and everybody really
lived within driving distance from the house.
My childhood was idyllic. Well, I take that back.
There was one major force that dominated my childhood
with memories that really were fearful and shameful
and humiliation. And that source was the Roman
Catholic Church. I went to public school in my
elementary years, kindergarten through sixth
grade, because in seventh and eighth grade I
went to Catholic high school. My parents made
a commitment to engage in a CCD program, which
CCD stands for the Confraternity of Christian
Doctrine. And once that decision was made, it
was going to be a rocky journey. Every Saturday
morning, starting probably about the age of six,
I was bundled into the car with my brother off
to the local church where I was schooled and
drilled with the Baltimore catechism. I remember
the basement space was dark, it was dank, and
I recall it being scary. We didn't linger there.
We moved through that space through to the classroom.
It took the entire morning of Saturday, every
Saturday, and once home, after a lunch of a cream
cheese and jelly sandwich, which really was my
favorite, no peanut butter in our family, we
all headed back to church for the weekly experience
of penance. Again, it was a time that I really
dreaded. Did it year round. I remember being
dragged, not dragged, but encouraged to get out
of the pool on a hot summer day. And I remember
fearing the dark space, that box, knowing that
I had spent some time discerning the difference
between what was being a sin versus a mortal
sin and hoping that I had gotten it right. I
was six, seven, eight. And I remember lying about
confessing how many times I might have hit my
brother. And that is... True. Was it two? Was
it six? Was it 20? That was Saturday. Sundays
began with Mass at 10 a .m. and back in those
days there was no breakfast because you had to
fast. I think it was either the night before
or three hours before, but you had to fast. The
Mass was in Latin, which felt mysterious and
very foreign. The highlight of the morning, ironically,
aka the reward, was the visit to the local Jewish
bakery, Flackowitz's, on the way home, which
was so glorious and so delicious. We would buy
just a bounty of crumb cakes and pralas and black
and white cookies and jelly donuts, and it was
wonderful. No surprise I married a Jewish man.
That afternoon, fresh from Mass, I usually would
sit with my dad and review the memorization from
the day before of the Baltimore Catechism. And
I remember that being very tender, very tender
experience, sitting with my dad in an easy chair.
He was a gentle teacher. There was no aspect
of it feeling punishing at all. But at the same
time, to this day, I laugh that I can remember
the basic lessons of why God made me. And of
course, we all know the answer was to know, to
love, and to serve Him. And that's Him with capital
letters. All of these rituals and practices were
leading me to my first Holy Communion in second
grade. When at last the preparation was complete,
the dress and the veil and the gloves were all
purchased and they fit right, the day finally
arrived. I don't remember how I was feeling the
morning of the event. I probably was excited
and looking forward to look. That's what we were
supposed to look like in these glorious little
gowns and veils. They really made a point of
it. I might have been scared. And again, I think
because at the time my take on God was it was
an angry guy seeing everything from heaven. Not
to be confused with Santa Claus. at the same
time declaring me to be worthy, only if he decided
to give me his grace. There was nothing I could
do to merit it. I was taught mea maxima culpa,
of course meaning through my most grievous fault.
I think it's hard to be a theologian when you're
six years old. Being the tallest in the class,
I was always, I'm tall now, I was tall then,
I was the last in procession to approach the
church altar. I imagine my anxiety grew a bit
as I got closer to kneeling at the altar. Remember,
this is the fifties. To be served the body of
Christ, the blood and body of our Lord by the
priest, assisted by his altar server. I was probably
thinking, will I do it right? Will I be able
to swallow it without choking? Oh my gosh, can
my family see me? What's going on? Where are
they? I imagine, and I feel even as I'm calling
this, that I was roiling with the fear of failure.
And so, by the time I returned to my pew after
receiving the host, I was in such a frenzy that
I vomited. Oh no, I couldn't swallow it. We were
taught, don't let it touch your teeth. Don't
let it touch the roof of your mouth. My throat,
I panicked. And so it came. I threw up. Peace
landing on the floor, a peace landing on the
back of the pew in front of me. What do I do?
What do I do? Do I hide it? Do I step on it?
Oh no! You can't do that! That's the body of
Christ! I couldn't do that! That was Jesus! And
from what I remember, before I could make a decision,
it happened so quickly. I was surrounded by what
felt like a platoon of the Sisters of Mercy,
cleaning, praying and here's the kicker because
in a heartbeat I was marched back up to the altar
again to receive surrounded by the murmurs and
whispers about what had happened throughout the
church and truthfully I don't remember the rest
really it was traumatic though the cloak of personal
shame has followed me and colored my entire life
And, Jay, that's the story. So, thank you. And
it's so sad that poor little Eileen, that poor
little six -year -old Eileen, or seven -year
-old Eileen on it, poor little girl. Oh, my God.
And yet I know, Eileen, because I've known you
for a million years, that you are a woman of
deep faith. And so that event, it's the question
that I ask all my guests. As you look back on
that event and you ask yourself, or I ask you,
how has that event impacted your perspective
on the world, or who you are today, or who you
have been throughout your life? So if you could
just give us a little bit of how you think that
moment impacted you, because I won't speak for
you, but I... I know you didn't just quit the
church that day. Tell us how it impacted you
and I again I will get out of the way here. Yeah,
thanks Jerry. You know I have to say that this
memory has continued to play out in my life.
As you just jokingly said, no, we continued the
same practices for many years, for actually all
of my life. I went on to Catholic high school
and then a Catholic college. And I think the
lessons of Catholicism, not so much this experience
of being humiliated, was alive. And I think after
college, My career path followed as being a servant
to social justice. I joined the Peace Corps.
When I came home, I joined VISTA, worked in a
job corps in Cave City, Kentucky, went on to
get a bunch of other degrees. And I think in
some distorted way, all of that work, the jobs
I held, they all were emblematic of me atoning.
That if... If I did one more thing, I would discover
God's grace. And I think playing out the story
in its entirety to this day, how it shaped my
life. I think marrying a Jewish man. and exposing
me fully and deeply to this day, I belong to
a Jewish community, that some of those foundational
lessons, like there is no savage, the one true
story, that I realized that that might not be
my truth, could be their truth, but it wasn't
mine. And that there was another way. to be,
to see things, and to begin that journey of forgiving
myself for not catching on faster. It's a sense,
I mean as we're talking, it makes me feel so
sad and yet at the same time grateful that I
get it now. I get it. Grateful for what I had
been taught and The irony isn't lost on me that
I was just smitten with the work of a Jewish
man. And it wasn't the canons and the creeds
and all of that followed, but rather his core
teachings of love one another, love one another,
serve one another, reach to the margins. And
it wasn't those lessons. of the Baltimore Catechism.
And again, it's a mixed blessing in that I'm
grateful and yet sorry that it took me 50 years
to figure it out. Well, that was a very powerful
story and I think to a certain extent the world
benefited by the fact it took you 50 years to
work it out because you want all that cool stuff
for people. Maybe it's been inspiring you to
do all the wonderful things you did to help people.
So that's our show. Thank you so much Eileen
O 'Farrill Smith for telling us your story. I'd
like to invite everybody who listens in to consider
coming on to tell me what happened and telling
us your story, your childhood memory, your formative
event. Also, just want you to know that Sidelining
Publishing will be publishing these stories,
some of these stories. in a book, tell me what
happened in the spring of 2021. And I invite
all the listeners to send us a copy of their
story if they would prefer not to speak it out
loud. You can send it to sideliningpublishing
at gmail .com. We're going to end the show with
the full version of Susan Saladon's Every Moment,
Every Day, available on Spotify, BTW. Until next
time, this is Jay Rehaq asking you all to stay
safe out there and try not to hurt anybody. It
is possible to be thankful every moment, every
day. It is possible to be thankful every moment,
every day. It takes practice and humility. It
takes vision and civility. It takes beauty and
the wisdom to see it everywhere. It takes practice
and humility. It takes vision and civility. It
is possible to be thankful every moment, every
day. It takes practice. It takes practice and
humility It takes vision and civility It takes
beauty and the wisdom To see it everywhere It
takes practice and humility It takes vision and
civility It takes beauty and the wisdom To see
it everywhere It is possible to be thankful Every
moment, every day