Forgive Me, Father
A grade school chaplain once heard the confessions of eight-year old pupils. Many of the boys had very minor and almost inconsequential misdeeds so the priest was rather happy. One group of youngsters though confessed similar sin. One said, “Father forgive me, I threw peanuts into the river.” Another admitted, “Father forgive me, I threw peanuts into the river.” The third and the fourth also confessed, “Father forgive me, I threw peanuts into the river.”
The priest was intrigued but a little alarmed so he cautioned the boys not to be too hard on themselves. “Throwing peanuts into the river is not really a sin.” He would have asked one of the nuns in charge of the catechism to find out how they teach the doctrine of venial and mortal sins to these young kids when a sulking and chubby kid approached him. The priest warned him, “Don’t tell me you also threw peanuts into the river?”
The kid was surprised and looked up at him and said, “Father, I AM Peanuts!”
Thank you for supplying the joke-—I didn’t have time, but it did strike me as a possible example of a mortal sin involving the environment. I heard it in a homily a few weeks ago (in rural Ontario), and recalled the first time I heard it, two or three decades ago, also in a homily, in rural Oregon.