Son of Forty Hours
McCarthy, Abigail
I t I Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy I II ...... II SON OF FORTY HOURS A R~URN TO TOTAL IMMERSION? T HERE are times when I feel that this is where I came in. There was Father David...
...The one-dollar ones got no notices and the offerings were sent away to missionaries...
...Discrimination is called for...
...One could understand the desire for equal time for the Lower School, the Middle School, and the Upper School but it was hard on attending mothers with children in all three levels...
...The line was' not very clear...
...He must have been a de- parted priest-- no one else would have dared...
...You see, the choices in this revival are going to be difficult...
...My grandfather had died the year before and my mother died that year...
...It was only y~ears later when I was studying Dante and his sub- lime concept in the Purgatorio of the Divine Comedy that I was able to come to terms with the idea of delayed bliss at all...
...There was an eco- nomy of exchange...
...But I would stop short of the three statues of Our Lady and the three crownings on the sgme day which was the custom at my daughter's school...
...And there was the little girl who had not helped her mother with the housework and went clanking about with scrub pails after dark in reparation...
...It's wonderful when you get to "spargens sonum," you know...
...Obviously it would be possible to have many more one- dollar Masses offered if helping the soul was the primary objective...
...I knew that Masses were not sold...
...ABIGAIL McCARTHY Commonweal: 712...
...And, in the October U.S...
...Did the Mass really used to be in Latin...
...Yet I thought of them in the terms commonly used by the money-conscious merchants and farm- ers of our little town...
...One, 1 remember, left a charred imprint of a hand on a sacristy door...
...I do, and I do not mean to imply that I will be opposed to the trend even though I was in the forefront of those advocating liturgical change long ago...
...For instance, I think it would be rather nice to have May processions and May altars once again...
...But, as we all know now, there was an excess of zeal in indoctrinating the average Catholic so that he or she would succor the Poor Souls...
...II SON OF FORTY HOURS A R~URN TO TOTAL IMMERSION...
...I find persuasive Father Berrigan's comparison of a lost devotion rediscovered to the poor women's lost coin in the Gospel: "we have every right to rejoice in finding it again...
...If the trend continues, as it well may, because writers on Catholic subjects are as prone to variations on a theme as are their confreres in the Washington press corps, I foresee Francis X. Murphy calling for the return of the parish mission, Andrew Greeley for the restoration of the home wake, Garry Wills for Forty Hours" Devotion, Colman McCarth3/ for the Perpetual Novena, Gary MacEoin for Sunday Benediction and Michael Novak for the churching of women...
...There was Father David O'Rourke's reminder in these pages of the worth and timeliness of the tradi- tional graveside ceremony [Sept...
...In retrospect my great-aunt Nell was right in sending hers away to a priest in Canada who was content with twenty-five cent offerings, although the fam- ily was scandalized at the time...
...October rosary devotions, however, did not lend themselves to any excesses of hyperdulia and gave a pleasant rhythm to the week, and the time of year...
...Do you remember all these...
...As we draw on now to November and the feasts of All Saints and All Souls it comes back to me that I found very little comfort in November being the month of what were known in my youth as the Poor Souls...
...They are apt to seem exotic, shiny and new in revival...
...Then, too, a small literalist might have gotten the impression that there were indeed three mothers of God...
...They could do nothing for themselves, but they could help others...
...When I say "afford," it is not because 1 was not well instructed in the principle of Mass Offerings...
...The five- dollar offerings were for sung Requiems and were announced on Sunday...
...No, I don't really think I would want that devotion renewed...
...My fourth grade teacher excelled at this...
...It was, I suppose, an appropriate choice for that month of bare boughs rubbing against each other, or towering gaunt against the sky--of sharp, cold winds scattering the last fallen leaves...
...But I would like a Chance to sing the Dies lrae again now and then...
...I am convinced with Father O'Rourke that bu- rial rites should not break off before actual burial...
...I learned from my great-aunt Nell that if you addressed yourself to the most abandoned and desperate of the poor souls in Purgatory-- those with no one to offer Masses to help them get out of that thoroughly unpleasant place (just like Hell, we were told, except that there was hope)--and asked for what you wanted in exchange for a mere five Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory Be's, they would almost certainly get it for you...
...My grief and loss was compounded by a very real terror that they might appeal to me for prayers and for Masses 1 could not afford...
...I t I Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy I II...
...If her fail- ure to remember is any indication it will have been twenty years and more--almost a generati0n-- since devotions, like Latin, were warp and woof of the Catholic experience...
...Distressing this might be to Mother X. who struggled to teach her primary class the responses to the Missa Recitata and distressing to me to think that all that singing of "Rorate coeli" and "Veni, veni, Emmanuel" around the advent wreath was for naught, but there you are...
...There was a certain security in knowing that October was rosary month...
...There was one story after another about this or that desperate Poor Soul who appeared to those left behind to describe his or her sufferings and to ask for help...
...T HERE are times when I feel that this is where I came in...
...That seemed more like a ghost than a Poor Soul, I grant, but that is my point...
...When l came upon the advertisement for the Latin Mass in our yellow pages recently I was reminded of my youngest daughter's puzzled query a year or so ago...
...And there was a practical side to the devotion...
...There was a diabolical choice between human respect and real spiritual largesse, I see now...
...It is just that there will be so few ofqs who experienced total immersion in devotional Catholicism and are qualified to be con- suited about its revival...
...Catholic Daniel Berrigan's impassioned case for bringing back the ros- ary...
...All I know is that there was a great local opting for the requiems we school children sang every day at what we called the black Mass--because of the vestments and with no thought of the other kind of which we had never heard...
...There were five-dollar Masses and one-dollar Masses...
Vol. 105 • November 1978 • No. 22
