Houlihan’s “Duty” for Holy Week
By Mike Houlihan
April 16th, 2025
We’re in the middle of Holy Week and that always brings me back to my Easter Duty story.
“Easter Duty” is the Catholic equivalent a “Get out Of Jail Free” card.
My wife goes to Confession almost every week. Me, not so much. I’m sure the priests are sick of her rattling off her puny sins as an excuse to make conversation with the padres. They know it’s her; they see her every day when she is a Eucharistic Minister or Lector at daily and sometimes even Sunday masses.
While I would argue that the “lovely Mary” is not a big sinner, she’s as close to perfect as I’ll ever encounter. Of course I am a different story. I’ve broken all the commandments on a regular basis for years, but I like the mercy Our Lord shows if we only make it once a year. The Easter Duty is kind of like the bill collector who texts you with a “friendly reminder” that you have not paid up in a good while. Ain’t nothin’ “friendly” about it.
So, I usually wait until Holy Week to hit the confessional box and “make my Easter duty,”
I don‘t go in for any of the modern face to face crap either, I like going into the privacy of the box where it’s dark and mysterious. Also, it’s mandatory to go to confession at a church where they don’t know me. I can sneak in and sneak out with my indulgences and stroll to my car back to my own neighborhood a couple miles away.
I guess that comes from a bad experience I had with a priest back in New York City right after I got married. I hadn’t been to confession in many years and when I saw the Chinese priest enter the confessional box from across the aisles, I knew this was my chance. I thought to myself, “Geesh this Chinaman probably barely speaks English,” I thought as I flopped to my knees in the darkness and started rattling off a lifetime of mortal sins, probably about ten years’ worth for sure. It was at the Church of The Holy Cross in Hell’s Kitchen and right down the street from my favorite Blarney Rock pub on 42nd Street where my old pal Mike Monaghan would crack wise with me while he was bartending. After years of listening to rummies stories at the bar, Mike had probably heard more confessions than this Chinese priest over the years.
So, I spew my decades of debauchery into the darkness and wind up with “and for these sins and all the sins of my past life, I am truly sorry.”
So, I figure a quick Act of Contrition and I’m outta there, but then the Chinaman sez to me, “Where do you live?”
Uh oh. “Whoa whoa whoa, pal. You ain’t supposed to ask stuff like that.”
I’m sitting there thinking, Geesh I can’t lie while I’m IN the confessional box, so I start to back pedal and tell him, “Sorry father I’ve been away from the church for years, but I just got married recently at St. Malachy’s the Actor’s Chapel and have done a full 180. So, ya see…” And he cuts me off.
“Where do you live?”
Finally, I blurted out my address at 400 West 43rd Street.
Now he is yelling, “That’s right across the street! You got married without going to confession first, that’s blasphemy! This is your parish; you must go to confession here!
Now I was pissed off and barked, “Hey are you gonna absolve me or not?’
He mellowed a bit and doled out my penance, a full-on Rosary for cryin’ out loud and reminded me, “You not a parishioner at St. Malachy, you go here Holy Cross, this is your parish!”
Thanks Father, sure I’ll be a regular here for sure.
So fast forward over forty years and my most recent Easter Duty story. Once again it is Easter season but this time in Chicago and I went downtown to St. Peter’s in the Loop on Madison Street.
The place is packed with long lines outside each confessional, everybody making their Easter Duty. I hate waiting but don’t want another Chinese surprise and spy two little old ladies waiting in line at one of the confessional boxes. Slam dunk I figure, it ain’t like they’re gonna be in there long with hardly any sins, so I take up my position behind them with a smile.
Big Mistake! Both were in there gabbing with the priest for over a half hour each. I looked around, it was still the shortest line, but it wasn’t moving very fast, and I had places to be!
Finally, the last little old lady comes out and I hear her sweetly intone, “Thank you father!” with a big smile on her face as I slide past her to the kneeler.
“Bless me father for I have sinned, it’s been about a year since my last confession, I guess I have sinned a lot, but mostly having anger issues, lose my temper a lot.”
Priest sez to me, “Oh you got anger issues? What are you angry about?”
“I’ll tell ya what makes me angry Father, you playing Doctor Phil with those two old ladies before me in line while everybody wants to get in to confess. What the hell, no wonder this place is so crowded, I doubt those old ladies had any big sins to confess!”
And he sez, believe it or not, “Hey, that’s BULLSHIT!” Settle down ya big jerk!” Honest to God, that’s what he said….so now I’m apologizing and back pedaling and asking forgiveness and he finally sez, “for your penance five Hail Mary’s and come back with a better attitude.”
I’m researching churches for my Easter Duty now, hope it’s not too far of a drive. Happy Easter everybody!’
-30-
Known around town as “Houli,” he is former features columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times, Irish American News and currently Chicago correspondent for The Irish Echo. He began his career in 1973 as an apprentice with The American Shakespeare Festival, appearing in the classics there and in regional productions across the nation as well as Off-Broadway, on Broadway, on TV and in major motion pictures. He is a playwright and author of anthologies “Hooliganism Stories” and “More Hooliganism Stories” and the gonzo Mayoral campaign journal “Nothin’s on The Square”. Founder of the Annual Irish American Movie Hooley film festival each Fall at The Wilmette Theatre. He was honored as 2020/2021 “Irishman of the Year” by the Emerald Society, the Irish American Police Association. His Hibernian Radio Hour podcast can be found at hibernianradio.org and streaming worldwide on Sat. nights from 7-8PM on Global Irish Radio, GIR.ie.
His latest book ” Chicago Irish Mythology” is available on Amazon and wherever else you buy your books.
Even more info about Houli is available here, on his latest adventures: hibernianmedia.org
Comments 19
Houli, when I worked downtown years ago I used to duck into St. Peters around noon for one of their quickie twenty-minute masses with a short and sweet but concise homilies. I always said that my parish should send their “windy” orators there for training. On the other hand, because of its location downtown, the priests there have heard every sin from your wife’ indiscretions to murder’s row. I would have given you at least a Rosary.
Ego te Absolvo, Houli!!!!!!!!!!
Done much worse.
Reading that was like reading my life story. Thanks for the memories. Great story.
I like the idea of going to a church other than my own. Thank you, Mike.
I wish I was sitting at a corner pub with a pint in hand while I read this!
I hate to admit it but I lied in the confessional. My friend and I stole beer out of the father’s club cooler in the basement below. I wanted to get that sin off of my resume so I told my parish priest that I had stolen beer. He then floored me when he asked specifically where I had stolen it from. I was trapped like a rat. I stammered and told him I had stolen from my sister. I hope the absolution for that act still counts. I still have to go back and confess that I had lied in confession.
Count your blessings (no pun intended) “Five Hail Marys”?? That guy gave you a break after you criticizing those lonely (not sinful) elderly ladies.
Any kid that grew up Catholic in Chicago can relate. Remember talking on the playground about which priests were easy on the penance they gave out. Each of them had his own box with his name displayed. Oh and there was one for “Fr Visitor” in many parishes. A place of true anonymity if a visiting priest was helping out the next day for a busy Sunday or one of the parish cohort was on vacation. (Ever wonder where they or even in some orders the nuns went?) Fr Visitor would be the place for the “heavy hitters”.
Thanks for the reminder. Better check the schedule today for my yearly visit.
A Deacon friend of mine had a brother who once told the Priest in the hallway “Well, I can’t really think of anything to confess”. At which time the Priest responded “You see those 2 Sisters over there? They come in to confession twice a week. If they can think of something, then…”
Finally, a good column from ya. It’s a stitch! Very good!
I thought only little boys went to confession to tell the Father how he stole a kiss from a neighbor girl. Next time you should probably tell the Father not to believe a guy who married another guy when he tells you you will make a Saint!
Houli,
I always choose the priest that had the sign “Polish” on the confessional at St. Benedicts. St. Pet,s was great and never forget Ash Wednesday at St. Pete’s the individual that stood at the door telling everyone that ashes were in the basement which made sense for those of us that dealt with coal burning furnaces.
Bill Harris
You had me at “chinaman”
Houli, well said. You are Everyman and Everyman is you.
Very funny, thanks.
Takes me back to grade school where everyone avoided the tough priest and looked for the “nice “ guy.
I didn’t grow up here but the story is universal.
Can’t remember the last time I went to confession.
Houli,
At my wedding rehearsal 55-plus years ago. the priest asked for a show of hands of who would be going to communion at the wedding. One in the party, whom you know, did not raise his hand. The priest asked if he was Catholic, and he replied yes. So then the priest asked why he wasn’t going to communion, and he replied because he hadn’t been to confession for a while. The priest said he would be hearing confessions right after the rehearsal. So my friend somewhat reluctantly went into the confessional after the rehearsal. He later told me that the priest refused him absolution, saying he did not seem genuinely contrite.
Nowadays, they seem to figure if you’re in the confessional, then you are contrite.
I was raised Dutch Reformed in Roseland. When I met my spouse of 54 years, started going to a mass now and then. When my kids began and went to St. Ann’s in Prairie Village, Ks, I enjoyed mass because the homily was only about 10 to 15 minutes unlike the 45 min to an hour I had been exposed to. Great piece, loved every word.
Happy Easter.
I went to St. Margaret of Scotland on 99th and Throop, and worked with a lot of Dutch Reformed believers at Monarch Laundry and Dry Cleaners back in the late ’60s. In the 1970s and ’80s my wife and I also lived in Prairie Village and attended St. Ann’s. Small world, ain’t it? Happy Easter!
Our twin boys were in line for their First Confession. As they approached their turn they were goofing off, and my wife asked aren’t you two nervous (especially because they were little hooligans). They said no. When it came their turn to enter, they started to go in together. Of course they did everything together. My wife said, you realize you go in one at a time! That is when the terror struck! Happy Easter, and thanks for my morning laugh.