In a new story, Frank McCourtresponds to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as part of a series in association with Amnesty International to mark the 60th anniversary of the declaration
WITH THE FIRST Angelus bell bong, our teacher, Mr O'Dea, dragged his rosary beads from his trouser pocket and rushed through the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a decade of the beads in Irish.
You could see it was pure rote, that his heart wasn't in it and he did it in case the school administrator, the Rev Dr Cowpar or his curate, Father O'Donnell might drop in for a little inspection.
After the Litany and the rosary he made The Speech. It was five minutes of vituperation and insult in Irish and we loved it. He told us we were the most useless confirmation class he ever had, that he saw no hope, that we'd be better off in the back streets of Liverpool where they wouldn't know a sin from a monsoon.
Oh, what's the use? he said, and sat at his desk with his face in his hands.
This allowed us to smile at one another, exchange delighted nudges.
Then one day he stood, glared at us, slammed his desk with his stick and told us he had a way of saving us.
Friday, he said, is Good Friday and here is what ye are going to do. Ye are to meditate on one of the wounds of Our Lord. Ye
will think of a wounded hand or foot or side or the head itself. I will now ask ye what wound ye want.
He started with the right hand and when there were only two volunteers he roared at us that he didn't know what was wrong with us, that we had this golden opportunity to meditate on the hand that so often was raised in benediction, that hand that healed lepers the length and breadth of the Holy Land.
His eloquence moved another couple of boys to volunteer for the right hand. He said they were good boys and they'd surely get a bed in heaven. Now, he said, who wants the left hand?
No volunteers.
Well, he said, that's what I'd expect from this class, this gang of spineless laners and backstreet hooligans.
He slammed his stick on the desk again. I'll tell ye what I'm going to do now. I'm going to ask each of ye what wound ye want and then I'll assign them. Hands up for the wound in the side, the Roman lance.
Five boys were lucky enough to get the wound in the side. Then he asked how many boys would like to meditate on the head, the poor tormented head pierced by the crown of thorns.
When every hand in the room seemed to go up, he roared at the four right hand boys and the five wound-in-the-side boys that they were hypocrites and they would not have hand, act or part in the crown of thorns.
Hands up again for the poor head of Our Lord who died for us.
Now he went around the room pointing at boys, assigning feet, hands, side and, for the lucky ones, the crown of thorns.
I was one of the lucky ones and as soon as I knew my assignment I began to picture the crown on my own head. I could feel it hurting already and I must have made a face because Mr O'Dea roared at me and asked if I wasn't satisfied with the crown.
Oh, no, sir. I'm satisfied. I'm happy with the crown of thorns.
Happy? Is it happy you are?
Oh, no, sir. I have the suffering. I have the pain.
He explained meditation. We were to think only of the one wound, assigned or chosen. Think of that wound morning, noon and night. Go to a quiet place and clear our minds of filth. We were to stop thinking of food, robbing orchards, and all the rotten films at the Lyric Cinema and the Coliseum Cinema, the cowboys, the gangsters and, God help us, the dancing girls.
As soon as he said dancing girls I lost my image of the crown of thorns and dreamt of Rita Hayworth.
Mr O'Dea said that in a few days it would be Good Friday
and sincere boys who wanted to go to heaven would go to one or more churches on that holy day, follow the Stations of the Cross and attend the three hour Adoration.
Go to the chapel. Kneel there till yeer knees are numb and that will give ye some idea of the sufferings of Our Lord. A numb knee isn't much but it's a beginning.
When we returned to school after Holy Week we would sit in that classroom and write a 200-word composition on our meditation. If there was any blather in our compositions we'd know what it was like to suffer at the end of a stick.
Every year in our lane the mothers discussed what was the best church to attend on Good Friday and, except for a few holdouts loyal to the Franciscans, it was agreed you couldn't get better value than the three-hour Adoration at the Jesuits. They were champions in explaining the excruciating details of each wound, the significance of each wound, the miracle and wonder of each wound. Besides, the Jesuits were the only order to lay a great lifesize cross at the top of the middle aisle outside the altar rail and on that cross, His arms spread to the world, lay Our Lord Himself.
That Good Friday one Jesuit priest after another mounted the pulpit and prayed and breathed heavily and confused anyone with a limited vocabulary. One priest after another pointed to the crucifix and said, Behold. I was only 10 but I wondered why they had to be so obvious. Didn't they know that this cross with Our Lord on it was the centre of attention, that we couldn't take our eyes off it? Didn't they know that even if you wanted to dream of Rita Hayworth you'd be distracted by the tragedy before your very eyes especially when you were there to meditate on the crown of thorns? They all used words so big I began to understand why people in the lanes preferred the gentleness of the Franciscans or the roaring of the Redemptorists who terrified you with visions of hell.
At three o'clock Our Lord died and the priest told us He was taken by His mother to a tomb supplied by Joseph of Arimathea. The priest said, No, not St Joseph, husband of Mary, but another Joseph and I wondered where was St Joseph when his stepson was being crucified. You'd think he might at least offer to make a coffin, carpenter that he was.
When the last priest left the pulpit, grownups stayed at their seats and sighed and snuffled in sympathy with the figure on the cross. I moved closer to the cross and stared at the crown of thorns, hoping I might think of something to write for Mr O'Dea.
Now some grownups knelt on the floor by the cross. Some kissed one or more wounds. They prayed and wept and slavered all over the wounds. I wanted to tell them stay away from the crown of thorns, that I didn't want snot and tears all over the head of my crucified Redeemer.
But I didn't because I was only 10 and, even if this was a church and we were in the middle of Good Friday, they'd tell me bugger off.
If there was a competition then for which grownups seemed to be the most pious or the most suffering it was surely Mrs Reidy who carried the day. She sold newspapers down at the corner of William Street and St Patrick's Street and spent a good bit of her money on sherry at Bowles's pub on St Joseph Street. She once gave me sixpence for helping her after a fall and I always had a soft feeling for her.
Now here she was limping up the aisle, moaning and praying, her head and body under her usual black shawl. She saw me and said, Is that yourself, Frankie McCourt? and I said it was.
Like a bat unfolding she stretched out her shawl on both sides, knelt at the foot of the cross and somehow slid all the way up till her face rested on Our Lord's.
The moaning and praying in the church stopped. We listened to Mrs Reidy sobbing and hacking over the tormented face of Our Lord. She tried to caress his head but dropped her hands when she came to the crown of thorns. One of the thorns must have hurt her because she said, Ah, Jasus.
I observed that because it was my business and I thought Ah, Jasus was surely the right response under the circumstances. I also thought that if one thorn could be so painful what must it be like to have . . . to have . . .? How many? I decided . . . 33, one for each year of his life, and surely Mr O'Dea will think I'm a genius for making this discovery.
Mrs Reidy might have extended her visit on the body of Our Lord to a three-hour Adoration except that a Jesuit brother came from the sacristy and helped her to her feet. He whispered to her that she should go home now, that Our Lord would be waiting for her tomorrow and if she missed Him tomorrow He'd be back next year.
He led her down the aisle to the door of the church and I thought, If she could do it why couldn't I?
I thought He'd be longer. Grownups were always telling us how Jesus was the only man who ever lived that was exactly six feet tall and here I was, only 10, almost as tall.
I slithered to the crown of thorns and it was hard being in the neighbourhood of His face with all that stuff from tears and nose and mouths, especially the stale smell of sherry left by Mrs Reidy. I tried to find a dry spot where I could kiss the man who had saved the world, but a hand dragged me to my feet and it was the Jesuit brother telling me to get out before he reported me to the proper authorities for committing the greatest sacrilege you could think of. I wanted to ask him why it wasn't a sacrilege for Mrs Reidy or the other grownups who had been slobbering over Our Lord, but he heaved me out on the street and then disappeared inside.
Mr O'Dea said he'd read the five best wound reports to the class. He chose my crown of thorns composition. He said it was very good, especially my discovery of the number of thorns, but there was something about my remarks, about my general attitude, my miserable cheap inquisitiveness that would someday get me in trouble. He said it was a good composition and admired the way I put myself out spending all that time in a three-hour Adoration, but there was something in my story that needed to be confessed and if I knew what was good for my eternal soul I'd go to confession at the first possible opportunity.
You never know, he said. You never know.
I was only 10 but I wondered even then how a composition could be good and yet a cause of confession and I wondered, even later, if that was the beginning of my drift away from the church.
ARTICLE 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change their religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest their religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
•This is one of a series of 30 stories and essays by leading writers marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The series was created by Sean Love for Amnesty International and continues next Saturday