The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [424]
“Yes, son,” his mother said anxiously, bending over him, hearing only a weak, grunting sound.
They wanted to torture him. They put him on a bed on the floor, with a hard mattress and heavy quilts over him and they wanted to torture him because they thought he was dying. Again he tried to tell them. It was a big joke. Thought he was dying, did they?
The priest laid a small vessel of holy oil on the table near the bed, where there were two holy candles burning in holders, a cut-glass bowl of water, a small saucer of bread crumbs, a saucer of small cotton balls and an empty saucer, and two clean linen napkins. Doffing his coat, the priest vested himself in his surplice and purple stole. Bending down, he placed a small crucifix on Studs’ lips, and Studs made the gesture of kissing it. Straightening up, the priest dipped his right hand in holy water, and gesturing with it in the sign of the cross, sprayed Studs, the bystanders, the room, sing-songing simultaneously:
“Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor. Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto, Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in scecula saculorum. Amen.”
Studs looked up glassy-eyed when the priest asked if he could talk to confess. It was a joke, and he wasn’t dying, and why was he on the floor? Sleep. A joke. The priest heard only an inaudible sound.
The bystanders knelt after the priest, Mrs. Lonigan and Catherine looking into the white-covered prayer book which Studs had carried the day he had, long ago, made his first Holy Communion.
“Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.”
“Qui fecit ccelum et terram,” Mrs. Lonigan and Catherine read from the prayer book in response, mispronouncing the Latin.
“Dominus vobiscum.”
“Et cum spiritu tuo.”
“Oremus. Introeat, Domine Jesu Christe, domum hanc sub nostrae humilitatis ingressu, aeterna felicitas, divina prosperitas, serene laetitia, caritas fructuosa, sanitas sempiterna: effugiat ex hoc loco accessus daemonum: adsint Angeli pacis, domumque hanc deserat omnis maligna discordia. Magnifica, Domine, super nos nomen sanctum tuum; et bene—” the priest gestured in the sign of the cross with his right hand,—”die nostrae conversationi: sanctifica nostrae humilitatis ingressum, qui sanctus et qui Pius es, et permanes cum Patre et Spiritu Sancto in scecula sceculorum.”
“Amen.”
“Oremus, et deprecemur Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, ut benedicendo bene,”—the priest again made the sign of the cross with his right hand,—”Dicat hoc tabernaculum, et omnes habitantes in eo, et det eis Angelum bonum custodem, et faciat eos sibi servire, ad considerandum mirabilia de lege sua: avertat ab eis omnes contrarias potestates: eripiat eos ab omni formidine, et ab omni perturbatione, ac sanos in hoc tabernaculo custodire dignetur: Qui cum Patre et Spiritu Sancto vivit et regnat Deus in scecula sceculorum.”
“Amen.”
Catherine’s attention strayed from the prayer book to the priest kneeling at the bedside, her gaze concentrating on his dark curly hair, and she thought that he was a handsome young priest, and he was strong and healthy and he was bringing strength and the grace of God to her poor, sick Bill, his dying body stirring on the bed. Her glance turned to the flame of the holy candles on the table at the priest’s right, then back to his purple stole. She heard the continuous half-sung words of the Latin prayer, a prayer which lifted and flew on wings to heaven, a prayer to restore his