Actually, looking closer, the Evian water bottle is not in his hand.
Rather it appears to be a shrivelled up chili pepper, or some type of entrails?
It looks to me like the old-fashioned scapulars heavy-duty Catholics used to trade outside the church after Sunday mass. I remember in Ballyer they had a little 'float' or a small wooden structured mobile shop outside the gates of the Assumption church in the middle of our neighbourhood. Sunday mass was an event in Dublin 10: your best newest clothes, shiny shoes, money for the basket, and all these other little trinkets which separated one from another in terms of how 'religious' some were while others weren't quite as rigorous.
Church parlance of the day featured mainly/exclusively male-dominated practices which separated the men from the boys, the conveniently religious from the ultra-religious. Meetings before/after mass included giving positions of authority to men who attended
EVERY meeting, for which they'd be rewarded with positions of authority over the regular church goers. They'd wear their scapulars proudly and usher people into seats either up front close to the altar, or (
if they'd made 'bad' confessions) to the seats down the back. They did this as obviously and theatrically as possible, selecting certain people (
who donated heavily) and dragging them upfront to a good seat or else taking others by the arm and seating them nearer the rear and the doors back out. Shame was a very convincing tool back then.
These men wore the scapulars like badges of authority. Even after mass ended they still had roles to play: the little mobile shop outside sold mass cards, missalettes, fancy little pocket bibles, rosary beads, pins for church-going Gaelic speakers (
who were usually top-tier ushers) like
An Fáinne.
They policed it all and noted who bought trinkets from the shop and who didn't. There was also a system of prayer whereby you could earn heavenly points by repeating certain incantations a certain number of times which in turn would buy you days off in limbo or purgatory. Say the prayer one hundred times a day and you could even trade your incantations to be used to free (
say) a relative or loved one from hell, limbo, or purgatory.
These men were heavily policed by the local parish priest's rules and authority. They had meetings in the church when no mass was being performed and instead they were given their promotions, instructions, and awards (
or sackings/
demotions) and after that they generally knelt down prayed a lot. Like the prayer groups hosted outside actual church locations and events. There were lots of those and I was once tricked into attending one when a school mate said there was a snooker club in the building so I went down with my Dad's cue only to find all these freaks and weirdos down on their knees praying like their lives depended on it. I walked straight in but it took a me a while to get back out again - with my pockets stuffed full of prayer cards, beads, little plastic fridge magnets of Jesus and Mary figures, a bible with added hand-written notes, etc. I dumped the whole lot as soon as I was out of there.
Crazy bastards for sure.
The scapulars were also used to ward off thieves: local burglars who knew you were out at mass with the whole family would break in and rob you blind, sometimes even including the Sunday roast from the oven. People would buy and then sellotape the scapulars to their windows and doors to ward off the robbers, who wouldn't smash your windows and rob you blind because God was watching them (
or something to that effect).
They were also used to keep the wearers in check and in line. At sodalities in the churches outside of mass hours, the bishops and cardinals would come to the meetings and while speaking they would walk sternly up and down the aisle eyeballing some members and smiling benignly at others. This kept the faithful in check and those who had shirked in their duties (
like not bringing a new member into the prayer group, local fete, community/event that week) would know they had fallen out of favour because they wouldn't be awarded a scapular on departure. Instead they'd get the eyeball and were shamed out the door meaning they'd try twice as hard next time. Those who were given a bright new scapular held it out/up to be seen by their peers, some of whom would slink away in total embarrassment and shame at themselves.
There are stock market maneuvers less complicated than the prayers and incantations muttered, whispered, and traded in the pews, which in turn were traded for days out of purgatory. Say such a prayer two hundred times and you could ask for them to be traded with your cousin/sister/uncle's time in hell. Keep too many for yourself and you'd likely commit enough sins of character that hell was inevitable.
These people are fucking crazy. One time they sent a brown-habit wearing Franciscan priest/brother to our classroom at age eleven or so. The guy came in looking like something from a pantomime and wandered around the class muttering about how each class had at least one 'special boy' and how it was his job to find him. He shone his holy light on me for some reason and I was mortified: I had to stand up and when he said the first half of the 'Hail Mary' I had to say the other half. I was more scared than amused but I did bust into a fit of laughing and got a few clatters for it. I went home shamed, all the lads looking at me like I the devil himself. Half an hour after getting home from school and there's a knock on the door: it was your man again in his brown habit asking to see me. My Dad was home, so I told him about the weirdo at the door and out he went to talk to him. He was back in moment and I heard the screech of tyres ringing out. Don't know exactly what he said but that was the last of the brown habits at our house.
What the fuck is going on there? Is he offering some sort of muck, or something he found on the ground, in exchange for a bottle of Evian water?
Catholic hard-core types have some very strange methods and means in going about their beliefs. It's far more complicated than it looks at first, but for those who are suckered in by it, they're eventually blinded by the rules and themes used by their betters to chain a ball to their ankles and have them drag it everywhere they go. Like you're standing at the bus stop and along comes some old man in a shiny suit and bleached out shirt on his way down for the pension. He'd be muttering to himself as he approached and when he took up his position in the queue he'd mutter a bit louder and louder until someone either joined in with the praying or else told him to fuck off. Mad fuckers, really.
Holy water is another commodity that can be sourced and traded with fellow catholic neighbours. If one of them heads off to Lourdes or some other 'holy place' they'd bring home a 2L Coke plastic bottle of holy water from the churches they visited. An eggcup full of the murky grey water was considered high quality barter material. Your little holy water well in the hallway had a sponge in it to stop the holy water fading into nothingness, and you dipped your index finger in and then blessed yourself with it before leaving the house. You did
NOT use it on arrival back home: that was taboo. No idea why, mind you.
The black-dressed gypsy woman who came to see my Mam once every few weeks always had loads of holy water, prayers, books with incantations you could use for eternal trading on the souls of others you loved or were obliged to. My Mam was always very kind to the old gypsy woman and while she wouldn't bring her in (
Dad's rules) she'd give her tea and sandwiches in the hallway. They'd talk about this and that, and the old woman had a baby wrapped in swaddling around her chest. She'd drop holy water on the thresh-hold, touch me on the forehead while muttering, and then do the same for the baby in my Mam's arms. If Dad was home, she fling some holy water on the VW Beetle too. But not while he was looking - he had no time for the religious, my Old Man.
Our neighbours thought Mam was weird for entertaining the gypsy woman at all, they mostly wanted no truck with 'de knackers'. My Mam grew up in the tenements and lost her own Mam at age six and her Dad at age eleven. They both died of tuberculosis, which was rife at the time. She and her sisters were raised 'Auntie Rosy' who was actually a childless friend of her Dad. She took the girls in and raised them well. Religion wasn't enforced but mass attendance definitely was. It was a sort of fashion show too: new clothes were worn and showed off in the church grounds after mass. The girls all learned how to darn, knit, and use a pedal driven Singer sewing machine. Hand-me-downs were at a premium back then. After the post-mass fashion show it was time for the visiting of the graves, and after that the visiting of old friends for afternoon tea.
They had us every which way, and there weren't too many ways out without getting caught and shamed.
In school, on the streets, in the church, in the confessional, in the prayer groups, in the sodalities, and in the awarding or stripping of the scapulars.
It was a fucking crazy time and the priests were more like rock-stars. We had the chain-smoking, fast-talking, and slightly demented Father Michael Cleary. The father of illegitimate Ross Hamilton (
a very troubled man who I've known for a few decades). Father Anthony Walsh - Ireland's worst violent rapist priest ever. Many of his victims were friends of mine in school. There were other fucked-up characters time hasn't been good to. Father Joe Connolly, the alcoholic priest who said mass in about fifteen minutes flat was popular but his said mass at seven in the morning. Midday mass was a social event, so it was usually some more popular and admired 'cool' priest for that one. That took over an hour with all the added festivities. I was forced to by the school to audition for the Peace Corps church group/mass band, but I was too loud (
I deliberately thrashed their shitty little drum-set to make sure I wasn't asked twice) but like everyone else, I mutely mouthed the words of the prayers put to music.
Confirmations, funerals, weddings, First Holy Communion, Easter, Lent, Palm Sunday, the psalms, the decades of the rosary, the prayer groups, the secret societies, the fast cars, the access to your home address, your teachers, your christian brothers. This was of course the way all the working class estates were built to function: all roads lead to the church, which is built smack dab in the centre of it all. They ran our lives, they knew all the gossip before you did, and they often used it to trap you into things you wouldn't otherwise consider - like roping your nieces and nephews into prayer groups without their own parents finding out.
When you're a kid and all this is new, it becomes very much the centre of your own life. Guilt, shame, sins, forgiveness, prayer rituals, morning prayer, matins, decades of the rosary, dozens of Our Father's. The picture of John Paul II next to the holy water fountain in your hallway by the door. The bible on your book shelf. The Good Room out front where the parish priest was brought when he called by to visit to talk about god and religion. The good biscuits, the freshly made little cakes, the proper tea-set with the pretty spoons and fancy/posh condiment holders, instead of the usual bag of sugar with the folded down ridge and a sticky spoon stuck in it. A bag of used clothes for the poor, a cake for the priest to take home, and if he was present at 1800, then the telly was turned off to the cartoons and Blue Peter to The Angelus - and the
bong-bong-bong would see him start the prayers and me and my siblings trying not to laugh when we joined in for the decades of the Hail Mary.
These same men knew everyone's secrets - they had things arranged in such a way that there wasn't any escape. No matter who you were, what you believed, where you worked, where you drank, how you lived, what you earned, if you were fond of a wager, and if you were/weren't charitable. If you attended mass or not, confession too, and if you could drop some hard cash money to have a decent and sober priest for your wedding/funeral event. They knew everything. Every fucking thing that went on.
These days it all seems like a dull and distant dream. Fear. Fear of death, of sin, of bothering God with your bad habits, guilt about everything you did and didn't do, your life measured by your prayer quota and your charity unto others, blah, blah, fucking blah. But, and this is the point: we have no one but ourselves to blame for being led up the graveyard path like that. We allowed ourselves to be suckered into the whole charade. We acted out our bit-parts and we took pride in getting things right - and shame and guilt in failing for getting them wrong.
Our grandchildren are going to have some belly-laugh at our expense, mind you - so prepare yourself for some guffawing and finger pointing.
No amount of prayers can save souls as black as ours.
brings a reminder of exactly what a useless jackass you really are, Jimmy.
