We have always been warned of the dangers of the
Christmas season. Stress, rushing around
shopping and meeting others, trying to keep pace with the relentless joy and
well wishing of the season, wrapping, planning, spending too much money on too
many people.
For many the
experience of depression intensifies during the holidays. For some, sadness emerges from having too
little face-to-face contact with those we care most about. For others, the challenge is dealing with an
excess of personal interaction among those near and dear. But for almost everyone, everything we know
about this season of birth points us toward family. No group of people has more power to affirm
and sustain us. However, family
relations also have the capacity to excoriate and explode.
My family
Christmas in the late 70s remains frozen in time as the single worst Christmas
ever. For weeks after the event, my wife
would periodically intone an adapted carol of her own creation. “Have Yourself A Ghastly Little
Christmas.” The episode involved my
wife Anita, my older sister Mary, and my mother. The four of us gathered in my sister’s
residence in Rogers Park. Anita and I
were living in Oak Park. My mother flew
in from California.
Invective, harsh
words and angry feelings constituted the main course of our bitter banquet.
When I taught Irish Literature courses, I used
this personal anecdote to help students grasp some of the elements of the
Christmas dinner scene in Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. That’s a famous donnybrook in modern
fiction. A major bone of contention in
it is the divisive impact of opposing views on religion.
I feel free to
set this down in written form now since my mother and sister are deceased. Some
of my living relatives may be hearing about this for the first time. To the possible objection, “Don’t air your
dirty laundry in public,” I reply, “Bah, Humbug!” Christmas is far too fraught with
expectations of sweetness and light. No
season of the year cries out more for a bit of besmirching. I loved my mother and sister deeply and I
believe that their flare-up shows them in fascinating weakness and strength.
We opened
presents on Christmas eve. Talk then
turned to plans for Christmas morning.
While Anita roamed with her camera, snapping pictures, Mom inquired
about the schedule of Masses nearby. I
thought to myself “Oh Crap.” I knew that my sister had left the church (as
had I). My mother was directing her
questions to Mary. I exhaled when Mary
explained that she would take Mom to the 10:00 AM Mass at the local Catholic church. But then she stated, “I’ll take you inside
and get you settled, but I won’t stay.
I’ll come back later and pick you up.”
I thought, OK Mary, now make the excuse, the sick friend you have to
visit, the earlier Mass you’ll have attended.
Just tell the lie well. But she
didn’t lie at all. She said, "I’ve left the Church.
I don’t go to Mass any more.”
Mom was
aghast. “What? You’re not going to Mass?” A stunned pause. And then she screeched: “The blackest atheist
would go to Mass on Christmas Day!” Mary
turned away. “I can’t stay here, I can’t
stay here--not in this house!” my mother ranted. Chaos ensued. Coats and luggage were
collected. My mother’s outburst had
deeply offended Mary.
I was oddly
puzzled by the particular words my mother had used. I could not shake the thought, “I’ve heard
that condemnation before.” Later of
course I remembered. In Joyce’s
Christmas dinner scene, Mr. Casey (no relation) and Dante have a ferocious
quarrel over the subjects of God, priests and religion in Ireland. Dante attacks Casey’s credentials as a
Catholic. “--Catholic indeed! repeated
Dante . . . The blackest protestant in the land would not speak the language I
have heard this evening.” Joyce
published those words in his novel in 1916. My mother was a ten year old in
County Galway at the time. I guarantee
she did not read the new book then or during any of the years that
followed. But through a kind of osmosis,
she absorbed useful expressions from the cultural storehouse of epithets and
imprecations that were part and parcel of Irish common parlance during the
first half of the twentieth century.
The curse itself
is both illogical and bigoted. No
atheist of any stripe would feel obliged to go to Mass on Christmas Day. And black and “blackest” are gradations of
“evil” color symbology that persisted for some time in catechetical
instruction. Even as late as the 1950s I
remember being taught that sin was a “black mark” on the soul. The sin-free soul was pure white.
Anita and I
ferried Mom from Rogers Park to Oak Park. She stayed with us. We took her to
Mass saying nothing about our apostate status or lack of same. She did not
press the matter. She knew there was no
more family lodging available in the Chicago area. But when my mother was upset about an issue
that involved a personal connection, she was like a dog with a bone. She could never let it go. For days we were forced to hear her rehash
and repeat the outrage of her firstborn’s shocking candor.
A fear my
mother always had was that one or more of her children would lose the faith.
Even worse, that we would “fall away” and go public with the scandal. These
fears were real for many Irish Catholic immigrants in the early decades of the
20th century. My mother's generation were
strangers in a strange land, and religion provided an important foundational
component of identity. It also served as
a way to identify or espy potential allies.
The Irish, Italians and Poles could relax somewhat despite ethnic
difference because they knew the other folks also held tight to the "one
true faith."
To be a fallen
away Catholic was a family disaster.
Spiritual prognosis: terminal.
Amazingly, in our case, recovery occurred. My mother and sister were eventually
reconciled. Mary became an exemplum of
the progressive Catholic, and a mentor for me on how to "fall back"
as a Catholic revert. Our mother did not
live to witness all these happenings.
Now that I have blogged the whole affair and the "dirty
laundry" is flapping in the breeze, hell may well await me, I know. But I will be at Mass on Christmas Day. I don’t want anyone dubbing me “the blackest
atheist.” I’ll have my phone in my
pocket with text on the screen. If the homily is awful, my head will be down
and--you guessed it--I’ll be re-reading Joyce’s Christmas dinner scene.
Nollaig Shona
Dhaoibh!
