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The Sign of The Cross - A Native Son
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great-grandfathers owned a public house on the Island Road in this town
- I have a glass with the name of the pub inscribed on it. Another had a
stone-cutting buisness near the cathedral. Another had a small holding
outside the town. Another came from a farm thirty miles away. There are
certain things I know about them, or can imagine, but before them I can
imagine nothing and I know nothing. The Cathedral is the beginning of
real, imaginable time.
*
In the evening at home we knelt down to say the Rosary, and each adult
had a different way of giving out the Mysteries, as each had a different
shaped handwriting: some recited the Hail Mary slowly, in a dreamy sort
of way, others were brisk, making it clear that they meant business.
Sometimes I could let myself go with it, forget myself and say the prayers,
but most of the time it was,like being in the cathedral, pure boredom,
broken only by the possibility that my father would be discovered shaking
with laughter while continuing to kneel there with his hands joined and his
beads in his hands. It did not happen often but when it did he would leave
the room. When he came back and the Rosary resumed there would be a really
good chance that the solemnity of the family praying together would be too
much for him once more and he would convulse again with nervous laughter
while the family prayed. After the Rosary there was the Hail Holy Queen
and odd prayers known as trimmings including a call on God to spare us
from a sudden and unprovided for death. Then it was over and you could put
your beads back in the first press in the kitchen.
If you wanted to pass an exam you prayed to St Joseph of Cupertino, but you
had to study as well. If you lost something you prayed to St Anthony, but you
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