Other Stories

“Fr. McCabe and the Altar Boy”

by Bagún Glic

June 2010.

Fr. McCabe was very old and creaked audibly when he walked. He had served as a chaplain during the war and, for his bravery, was awarded the Military Medal. Perhaps it was the war that was responsible for the creaking. Rumour had it that there was still a bullet or a piece of shrapnel somewhere inside him. On top of that he was as deaf as a door knob, but that was probably just old age − he was very, very old. In spite of these physical deficiencies the parishioners of St. Aidan’s knew him as a good, kind man and a good priest – except when he forgot to turn up for a baptism or a wedding.

The altar boy was young, though not very young, and he knew all Fr. McCabe’s foibles. They made a good team, he thought, though it could be challenging at times. Altar boy training, for example. At that time the Mass was said in Latin and the first task in training an altar boy was to cram his little head with buckets of Latin responses. The beginning of Mass was particularly treacherous as a dozen Latin verses had to be recited alternately by priest and altar boy at breakneck speed. As Fr. McCabe was deaf he couldn’t hear his altar boy’s responses so he just kept going, regardless, and so did the altar boy. The trick, it seems, was to both finish at the same time so that the congregation, if there was one, would be unaware of the jumble.

What beautiful prayers. Of course, Fr. McCabe’s altar boy knew little of their meaning. His job was to say them, not to admire them. Frostbitten fingers were quite common in our altar boy who cycled through the wintry early-morning air to get to St. Aidan’s, while the church itself was really just a large wooden hut with a corrugated-iron roof and no heating of any kind. Such fingers were a serious impediment to his putting on the long black cassock with its two thousand small buttons, so he was thankful for the three hundred which were missing around the knees. The cold must have been an impediment to the parishioners, too, as there was often no congregation. You see, Fr. McCabe and his altar boy preferred the quietude of the weekday Mass which was at 7:30 a.m., a trifle early for everyone – except, on occasion, for Mrs. O’Brien who was almost as old as the priest, who liked to sit at the back next to the organ, and who had once given the incredulous altar boy two silver sixpences which he spent on aniseed balls and liquorice.

Perhaps “exceedingly” was overstating it for this particular altar boy or, indeed, for the vast majority of boys of his age. Still, the Confiteor was a part of the Mass and everyone had to say it. Not only had he to confess to the blessed archangel, but the poor altar boy had also to confess to Fr.McCabe in the confessional.

Are there not three conditions to be fulfilled by the penitent before absolution is given, namely: examination of conscience; an act of contrition; and a firm purpose of amendment? Should not a fourth condition be applied to the priest − that to be allowed to hear confession he should first be able to hear a bomb going off? Perhaps not. Although Fr. McCabe was as deaf as the knob on the door of the confessional, he could see the light streaming in when it opened and, after a suitable pause, would begin to mumble Latin through the grill. Although the altar boy had few sins to confess, he had to be quick about it or he would be given three “Hail Marys” and absolution before he was finished. He always came away a little disappointed on such occasions as he had been taught to value confession. One wonders how Fr. McCabe felt about it. Worse still were the times when the boy heard the chink, chink of coins as Fr. McCabe counted the collection money while he told him of fibbing and answering his mother back. But the altar boy did not condemn the old man. He liked him, even loved him, as a boy might love his granddad. Nor should we condemn him.

Did you ever watch an altar boy squirm as he knelt on the steps of the altar? There were no altar girls in those days but the modern altar girl appears to be squirm-free. Perhaps she, like her mother, is biologically better equipped to endure pain and suffering than her male counterpart. The Latin Mass was a long Mass and there was no sitting down on weekdays. Mrs. O’Brien could kneel, sit, stand, or lie down, but the altar boy had no choice. There were brief moments when he could stand or move around but, mostly, he had to kneel. Hours and hours of kneeling. Sitting on the altar steps was a mortal sin and Fr. McCabe wasn’t blind. All the altar boy could do to relieve the back pain and the cramp in his thighs was to attempt some rather limited aerobics – otherwise known as squirming.

It wasn’t all pain and discomfort, though. There were some plum jobs for our altar boy. One of them was ringing the altar bell, or bells, as there were four small bells that tinkled together when shaken – and he had a lot of ringing to do. The most important bell-ringing occurred at the consecration. The altar boy had to kneel just behind the priest and ring the bells six times while holding up the end of the chasuble as the priest genuflected – to make sure that he didn’t catch his heel in it and fall over, he supposed. Other plum jobs were swinging the thurible so hard that Fr. McCabe disappeared in the fog; dowsing the tall candles high up on the altar; carrying the processional cross at the head of the posse; minding the priest’s biretta; and transferring the big missal.

The missal job was the plummiest job of all, and the most perilous. At that time the priest said Mass facing the high altar with his back to the congregation. Immediately before the gospel, the altar boy had to walk up the altar steps, pick up the big missal complete with brass stand, walk back down the steps, genuflect, and walk up the steps again to deposit the missal and stand on the other side of the altar, thus transferring them from the “epistle” side to the “gospel” side – something that the priest could do himself in two seconds. After Communion, they had to be transferred back where they came from.

The combination of missal and stand weighed a ton-and-a-half so that the altar boy had his work cut out just to carry them, never mind do pirouettes with them. But it all added to the spectacle. In addition, the same altar boy couldn’t see over the top of the missal but had to try to peer around it. His moment of true glory came when, staggering under the missal and unable to see where he was going, he kicked the undeserving altar bells from the top step down through the altar rails and into the aisle. Fortunately, Mrs. O’Brien was absent so the church was empty save for Fr. McCabe, who heard and saw nothing, and the tearful altar boy, who never told anyone.

The job that was the second favourite of the unfortunate altar boy was carrying the processional cross − the crucifix mounted at the top of a longish pole. Whenever there was a procession out and around the church and back, or when the priest and whoever else were to be led on and off the altar, the proud little altar boy would be there in the van, carrying his cross. A plum job all right, but pride goes before a fall, and how great was his fall. He dozed off during Benediction. The priest’s footsteps woke him with a start and he jumped up immediately, took up his cross, and made a bee-line down the aisle through a sea of smiling faces. But the priest had merely stepped into the pulpit while the altar boy had stepped outside into the rain. What to do now? He wanted to go straight home but didn’t relish cycling in his cassock and cotta armed with the processional cross, like a knight on horseback. He did the only thing he could do and walked ignominiously back up the long aisle, his glowing ears lighting the way, to his place on the altar, with eyes riveted to the floor.

At that time there was a terrible lot of bowing, genuflecting, kissing of cruets, inclining towards the priest or the crucifix, bowing low during the Confiteor, and so on, which our altar boy was careful to learn by heart. He was very careful, also, to avoid touching the chalice or the ciborium. That was a special kind of sin that was neither mortal nor venial. It did not “kill the soul and deserve hell” but it severely wounded it and deserved a severe chastisement from Fr. Crowe, the parish priest, who was very sticky about that kind of thing. Fr. McCabe was too old to worry about such sacrileges, which was just as well for his shaking hand was the cause of a moral crisis in the conscience of his altar boy when the chalice he was offering him touched the boy’s thumb. Now, the thumb had not touched the chalice – it was the shaking chalice that had touched the thumb, or so the boy reasoned. There was no need, therefore, to genuflect, bow his head to the floor, and turn a cartwheel, or so he reasoned. So he did none of those. But he did not sleep well that night.

Holy Communion was a different affair in those days. There was no receiving the body of Christ in the hand but only on the tongue, and everyone knelt down at the altar rails. What of the altar boy? His job was to go before the priest with the paten or communion plate which he held under the chin of each communicant in turn, in case the host or some particles of it might fall. If that were to happen he would be unlikely to catch them for his attention was invariably on the different sizes and shapes of mouths, tongues, and teeth that were presented. That was on a Sunday when there were lots of tongues. They were a constant source of amusement for him and he was sometimes tempted to poke a finger into a gaping mouth – but he never did, or so he claimed.

The end of Communion signalled the approach of the end of Mass and the end of squirming for the weary altar boy. There was only the reading from St. John’s gospel, the last Gospel, to get through and a few short prayers and then Mass would be over. At Sunday Mass this was the time of the quick getaway when those who had affairs that couldn’t wait caused a minor commotion at the back of the church. Of course, Fr. McCabe couldn’t hear it, but he new it was going on and he would creak round and glower at the backs of the faithful departing, to the delight of the faithful remaining. At midweek Mass it was a quiet time when our altar boy could reflect on his performance with satisfaction or regret.

At last, Fr. McCabe and his altar boy would stand side by side at the foot of the altar and bless themselves. The boy would genuflect and hand the biretta to the priest. The priest would perform a genuflection of desire and follow the boy off the altar. One day, Fr. McCabe didn’t comes back to his altar and, one day, neither did the altar boy.

Other Stories

“Neddy Murphy”

by Bob Rockett

June 2010.

[ This story of Neddy Murphy was specially written for this web site. In the story the author recalls an event of nearly eighty years ago as though it were yesterday. – Comms Team. ]

Sombre and Silent.

A parish community is an institution involving many personalities from within its confines, each one doing his or her best to personalise the portrayal of their role. The subject of my contribution is Neddy Murphy, the grave digger from about 1910 to 1935. Grave digger Neddy Murphy was a low sized man of slight build, with a pleasant disposition. He portrayed the personality of the man for the job of burying the dead − he was sombre and silent. For celebratory events where his services were required, he had the appropriate ornamentation. He also assisted his wife, Maggie, who was the sacristan. His duties also included attending to the upkeep of the cemetery, cutting the grass just once a year at hay cutting time.

They had a family of two girls and three boys, the oldest a girl, born about 1917, the youngest a boy born in 1922. Members of the family occasionally stood in for either parent as the situation warranted. All are now deceased, both girls and one boy died in England. The oldest girl, who had married a local man, had a family of a girl and a boy, still living somewhere in England. Two of the males married local girls and their families and live in the locality. The youngest male continued as official gravedigger almost up to his death some years ago.

I have noticed, when walking a little distance behind his grandson on the odd occasion, the resemblance to Neddy as he swings his right leg, just as Neddy did, as we walked behind him on our way to school in the early nineteen thirties.

Oh for the Memory.

The family resided in a thatched cottage (now gone) a short distance from the church as tenants of a seven or eight acre holding. They kept a cow and produced their own milk and butter. Neddy was a resourceful man who grew his own vegetables and feed for the cow and the two asses that were used in cultivating the crops. It was unique to have trained the asses and disciplined them as one would do with horses − it called for exemplary patience.

Neddy played a role in the fight for independence. He demonstrated his allegiance to de Valera’s policy of self sufficiency by growing a small patch of tobacco in 1933. The venture was not a success.

Going to or coming from school, we would surely meet Neddy going about his business as small farmer, grave digger and, on Sundays, bell ringer and offertory collector. His Sunday morning church duties routine began when he walked to the church (he didn’t own a bike) to ring the bell at eight o clock or thereabouts − a reminder to parishioners that it was Sunday and that Mass would begin at 9:15. Then, he went home and ate breakfast. He was back again before nine o’clock to take up duty as offertory collector, standing inside the church door with a little wooden box held in his hand or placed on a stool in front of him, and into which the pennies and halfpennies were dropped.

The cemetery, back then, differed totally from that of today. There were about a dozen trees of different varieties growing here and there in no particular order. An imposing sycamore tree stood just to the right inside the gate. In summer its leafy branches afforded much shade but, in autumn, its discarded leaves caused a problem. Following an engineer’s report in 1955 on the church buildings recommending that the trees be removed due to leaf shedding clogging the gutters, the trees were all cut down. But that is another story.

Sunday Tragedy.

The congregation assembled devotedly for Sunday Mass; seldom was there change. That is, until a warm Sunday morning in early July 1934. As my younger brother and I drew near the church there was considerable commotion. The movement of people coming and going around the area under the big sycamore tree was most unusual. Drawing nearer, one perceived a sense shock and drama in every face. Getting closer to the scene, we too were shocked on seeing Neddy Murphy laid down on the grass, divested of his shoes and socks for anointing. Some of his family, who had just come upon the scene, were crying and totally in shock.

He had performed his earlier duties as usual and taken up his stance at the door when he collapsed and was dead before he fell. There was only one elderly spinster who made it her business to be in church before Neddy took up duty and it was she who is supposed to have called the priest who was in the vicinity near the alter. The priest anointed him and summoned a few others, men and women, who were arriving − the women to console Mrs Murphy, the men to arrange to take his body to his home. This was done by procuring a door from the pub near by, placing his body on it and a relay of men carrying him to his home.

Mass was started later than usual that day. There was constant whispering as worshipers could not resist the temptation of referring to the drama that had disturbed the tranquillity of that Sunday morning. The doctor was notified and confirmed that, as he put it, he had been dying for the last week. He would have been in his early sixties and was never known to have complained of any illness but his family recalled that, for some days previously, he had been in poor humour, a bit contrary without reason. The drama of that Sunday morning is still remembered by the few survivors who were witness to the sudden passing of grave digger Neddy Murphy.