Redemption - Leon Uris [101]
After a time it became more and more difficult to remember what Myles even looked like. She all but forgot the sweet sensations that flooded through her when she dashed over the bridge into his arms at their secret meeting place by the Norman keep. As the years passed it was as though Myles never really existed, because the pain of his loss was gone as well. As Myles faded, hatred for her mother faded.
Brigid Larkin became resigned to spinsterhood, being able neither to love nor hate anymore with any notable passion.
At this very moment she felt a twinge as she remembered that Dary was going to be ordained Sunday!
Dary becoming a priest was the centerpiece of Finola’s life since his birth. Now, Finola was being cheated from the great moment. Was it God’s vindication? Brigid would be in her mother’s place and her mother would be looking down with bitter envy.
Eight miles out of Derry where the bridge crossed the river Burntollet, a side road wound up onto a wooded crest to the walled confines of the Sacred Heart Seminary of the Holy Order of the Fathers of St. Columba.
“He’s so tiny,” Finola had wept, “so tiny and frail.”
Dary Larkin was among eight novices passing through forbidden gates. For the most part they were smooth of cheek and soft of hand, indicating they had been lorded over by their adoring mothers. Some, like Dary, had come eagerly to begin a twelve-year road to priesthood.
Dary gave up all his possessions save his rosary beads and was assigned to an eight-by-eleven-foot cell in an isolated building that housed twenty other novices. It would be his home for the next four years: stone floor and musty odor, with only the crucifix on the wall and a faded picture of the Sacred Heart as his companions.
On the novices’ first day they met the consecrated brothers who were teachers from the Christian Brothers Order. They were issued a terse command to genuflect as the wizened old monsignor entered the assembly room. In uninspired monotone, he told them why they were there and what would be expected of them, never really seeing the faces that held an august glow or were frozen with apprehension. Dogmas of poverty, chastity, and obedience were imparted, equally void of passion, stringent rules clipped out, and a chronicle of long hours and complete devotion tolled.
The machinery that moved the seminary operated on few spoken words, and these spoken in hushed tones. The nod and the beckon gave all movement in the place a sense of flotation.
The rosary was recited with fervent ejaculations; the menu varied by season, not much, always bad; the hours of classical education were an endurance battle and humility incarnate. God was beseeched in states of barefooted prostration with limitless prayer.
The young lieutenants of Christ were being exquisitely cloned and honed in ancient tradition. While traditional, accepted, and unchallenged knowledge was being poured in, at the same time the desire for inquiry beyond Church teachings was being masked off. Once the mind was completely trained to be obedient within the framework of the teachings, and curiosity outside the framework shut down, the image of the priest began to be created.
Evil thoughts are no less a sin than evil deeds. The good priest must know the line where dogma forbids questioning and never cross it. When approaching that line, the mind must automatically switch off further adventuring. Thought control imposed so that one controls one’s own thoughts…aye…that’s the game….
At first Dary Larkin’s small size caused both novices and the Brothers to attempt intimidation. The lad had Larkin steel and was soon singled out as the strongest among them.
Dary had told Conor that he could never be a Conor, to wade through life’s battles slashing and fighting the republican cause. Yet, he was a Larkin and had to find the way to help alleviate the misery of the people with his own kind of strength.
Why, Dary wondered, does part of the family consider it a tragedy when one enters the priesthood?
“There are no locks on the seminary gate,” he told