I want to tell my father that I hope Sister Brendan likes soldiers who can’t do sums but can speak in Latin. My mother says, Hush … All that talk about soldiers and blood in front of a young boy … Just be patient and wait until I go into Pellegrini’s in George Street and buy your altar clothes.
She bought the altar clothes and I was able to get through serving at Mass without any problems; but altar boys also served at Benediction, a devotion practised by the Catholic Church in order to give adoration to the Blessed Sacrament, and that’s where I ran into trouble. During Benediction, incense is burnt in a thurible, a brass vessel with a lid that’s opened and closed by a chain that the server pulls up, while at the same time the thurible is swung backwards and forwards in a kind of rhythm — one, two, three, swing out. One, two, three, swing in. A piece of hot charcoal is placed into it. Powdered incense is then sprinkled on to the charcoal and pungent fumes are given off. The fumes become thicker as the charcoal burns brighter when the lid is raised and air is let in. The incense is a dried resin and its aroma is so strong that, to the unaccustomed or sensitive nose, the results can be disastrous. It made me sneeze whenever I got a whiff of it. My eyes watered. I couldn’t see properly and, consequently, I mistimed the swing of the thurible more than once. Either that, or I would fail to pull up the lid in time to allow more air to come in and the charcoal would smoulder and extinguish. I’d accidentally bump the priest with it, or one of the other altar boys.
That’s it, Peter, that’s enough, Father Donovan finally ordered. You can stay home for the next Benediction … You’re a poor little sneezin’ fella, that’s what you are. Sure now, with that nose of yours.
That’s enough, Sister Brendan echoed in the sacristy afterwards. You’ve humiliated me again — and Father — and yourself. No more Benediction for you. Mass will do … Now stop your snivelling and dry your eyes. We’re lucky you didn’t set Father on fire now — the way you hit him with the flames rising from the thurible.
When a group of us were caught singing a “sacrilegious” version of Tantum Ergo during Benediction we were threatened with excommunication itself. In a low-keyed tone, Terence Murphy, who liked to clown around in the sacristy before and after Mass and Benediction, would start:
Tantum Ergo — Makes your hair grow,
Sacramentum — Makes you handsome.
Veneremur — Makes it stay more …
and we would follow slowly, hesitatingly, though it’d happened before that Terence got us into trouble but escaped punishment himself. This time, Gregory Hogan was with us.
Heathens! Sister Brendan bellowed. Amadans! The shame of it! And in the sacristy, in God’s own house, within sight of the Dear Lord on the cross above the altar. Himself, hanging there for your sins while you blaspheme. Out, out with you! None of you deserve to be called Catholics. Go, go, and never darken this doorstep again!
Playing with Stefan and Leon in the bushes behind the house afterwards, I told them what had happened. She’s threatened to expel us.
You’re lucky, mate, Stefan replied. I wish she’d expel me.
Then you’d end up in a public school, said Leon.
And go to Hell, I said.
Nah, my Mum and Dad reckon that’s all bull. All of a sudden he sounded wise, very grown-up, like he knew what he was talking about.
How come? My curiosity was aroused.
My Mum reckons that it doesn’t matter what school you go to if you want to get to Heaven. Or even if you don’t go to school at all. The nuns only tell us that to frighten us.
Don’t worry about what she said in the sacristy, said Leon. She’ll take you back. She needs you because you’ve got a bike and can come up in the mornings to serve at Mass … You’re like a relative to her.
From Ireland, said Stefan, where they talk funny and pray all the time and believe in St Patrick driving all the snakes into the sea. I even heard that St Patrick didn’t come from Ireland.
Who cares where he came from, I said. But there are no snakes there, my mother told me. She works for a doctor whose ancestors came from Ireland and he told her. So it must be true.
I reckon that’s baloney, said Leon. Why would anyone want to drown a bunch of snakes? They eat rats and mice and things like that. They’re good for nature.
You’d drop dead if you saw one, I said.
Bet’cha I wouldn’t, said Leon. I wouldn’t be scared of a black snake. I’d jump on it and break its back. I’d grab it by the neck and snap it with a flick of my wrist like this … See! And he demonstrated just how to kill a black snake with a flick of his wrist. The way Tarzan does.
Leon put his hands up to his mouth, threw back his head and made a Tarzan call above the heads of paperbarks and gum trees, just as if he’d been in an African jungle surrounded by vines and tropical plants and was announcing to all the animals that he was King of the Apes or that he’d just killed a lion with his bare hands or a crocodile by ripping its jaws apart under water and drowning it. Suddenly, as if it was expected of us, Stefan and I did the same. Three Tarzans, yelling at the top of their voices. Each one’s cry became shorter and more hoarse the longer they tried to outdo each other. They beat their chests and ran their fingers through non-existent long hair. They all knew the picture on the tube of Tarzan’s Grip where a long-haired Tarzan is sitting on the back of a lion, forcing its head back, ripping its jaws apart, its open claws useless against the strength of Tarzan. The three boy Tarzans knew this picture and three of them tried to imitate it.
Now the talk of Ireland, school and getting expelled from St Peter Chanel’s is forgotten. There are trees to be climbed, birds to be frightened, a creek to be crossed. As we tear off across Jensen Oval to a large gum tree where we know a peewit’s nest has eggs in it, a devil-may-care attitude comes over me and I no longer care about being scared of a teacher. I only wish that Terence Murphy and Gregory Hogan were here to play with us. I run as fast as I can, catch up with Stefan and Leon, and the three of us race in line, charging through paspalums and into the afternoon light. We are laughing like we’ve heard something funny. I wish that Donny could be here also, even though he doesn’t belong to the gang that lives in Mary Street — but we could make him a blood brother like they do in the movies when cowboys and indians cut their wrists and put them together so that the blood mixes. Donny can really laugh when he wants to and it’d be great to hear him right now as we’re running through the grass into the sun that’s burning so hard I think it will burn us up, but it doesn’t matter because we are so happy and I don’t care if we all just disappear into the light.
Next day, Terence, Gregory and I are called up before Father Donovan and made to apologise by Sister Brendan for blaspheming in God’s house. She marches us through the playground and up to the presbytery door.
Father Donovan seems taken aback and asks, Who is it, who is it — what? He is shielding his eyes and sounds confused. He is wearing black trousers, white braces, a singlet and no shoes. He has red hair on his arms and chest, and on his head it’s very thick. His nose has a sharp edge and looks like it could cut through wood. He must have been asleep.
Sister explains why she is here and we’re about to say sorry, although Terence doesn’t look in the least sorry and I think he’s going to burst out laughing at any moment. He keeps turning his head to the side as if he doesn’t want Sister or Father to see his face.
Now, the three of you, apologise.
The three of us say “sorry” in unison but Terence is still trying hard to keep a straight face. He is playing the fool and hoping to get out of trouble again.
I am sorry, Father — that I am, that I am, he says. He is trying to sound Irish by speaking like that instead of just saying “I am”.
Father pats Terence on the head and says, Now, now, Sister, let’s not be too harsh on the lads. He comes forward and puts an arm on each of our shoulders. Off you go, back to your classes. Father Donovan is scratching his head, yawning, probably wondering what he’s done to
deserve this interruption to his morning.
Thank you, Father, we call out. Turning on our heels, we run, each trying to outpace the other.
Sister Brendan is speechless, I can see it in her face. As we draw away from her, Terence calls out, See, it works every time!
Father Cornelius Donovan, BA, was born in Araglin, County Waterford, and ordained at All Hallows’, Dublin. He was appointed Parish Priest of Berala in 1938. He replaced Father Maurice Carmody who had retired because of ill-health. This tall man with a deep voice, red hair, broad shoulders and a nose like an eagle’s would remain as Parish Priest until 1975. During my years at the school — which was originally called Blessed Peter Chanel’s — he was the One Who Ran the Parish in Every Respect, whether it had to do with the Parents’ and Friends’ Association, the Holy Name Society, the Legion of Mary, the Sacred Heart Sodality or the St Vincent de Paul Society. He was the leader of the parish, the social organiser, the accountant, the arbitrator. Even after I’d left the school, I would hear stories about the continued growth of St Peter Chanel’s and it was all because of Father Donovan. He’d become a legend in his own time.
He was the one to whom I made my First Confession and from whom I received my First Holy Communion on 25 May 1952. My certificate shows a painting of Jesus giving a communion host to a small boy who has his hands joined and is kneeling on a cushion at an altar inside a church that has red and white marble pillars and floors, as well as a red carpet. There are lilies and small flowers that appear to be roses in the foreground and background, and a lit candle. Rays of light are beaming from an invisible source, illuminating the space between Jesus and the little boy. An angel is kneeling close to the side of Jesus and is holding a ciborium. The angel has no shoes. The printing below the picture says, “Remembrance of First Holy Communion at Bl. Peter Chanel’s Church, Berala”. My surname has been misspelt, with the “y” left out. The certificate is signed by Rev. C. Donovan in blue ink in copperplate.
Today, the Rev. C. Donovan lies buried in Rookwood Cemetery, near the Chapel of St Michael the Archangel, in the lawn section reserved for priests, under large brushbox trees, surrounded by a hawthorn hedge. Over the years, my mother would recount a conversation she once had with Father Donovan about their names — his being Cornelius, hers being Kornelia. Just like the encounter with the woman interviewing my father before we became Australian citizens, this memory concerning Father Donovan bothered her. Apparently he insisted that his name was the “true name”, whatever he meant by that or whatever she thought he might have meant. There was a similarity, he agreed, but his was the true Catholic version. After all, wasn’t it mentioned in the Mass, in the Invocation of the Saints? So what’s wrong with her name? Well, he insisted, it wasn’t a “true” name. He said that he was a man and that the Lord himself chose a man’s form to live in upon the earth. He would point to himself, vigorously tapping his chest to emphasise the point. This absurd logic wasn’t lost on my mother who, though not a trained theologian, was no fool either. Was he saying that because God chose a man’s form, a masculine version of a name was a truer form? Not necessarily so, Father, she told him. God also chose a woman’s body to carry Him and give Him birth. Wouldn’t that make a woman, whatever her name, just as important as a man, if not more so? Maybe not, Mrs Kornelia, he replied. Who else could carry a child? Anyway, it’s up to the Lord, who did choose a man’s body, after all, to make Himself known to the world … And so it went on. His was the “true” name and therefore must be the better — or more important — name. Was he also implying that because God chose a man’s form to make himself known on earth, men must be somehow more important than women?
As the number of Polish immigrants in the western suburbs of Sydney grew, the arrival and influence of Polish priests became established in suburbs like Bankstown, Ashfield, Cabra-matta and Blacktown. Slowly, but evidently, the number attending Polish Mass grew. Priests of the Order of Jesus lived in Bankstown but travelled to these other suburbs to celebrate Mass.
These services were held in the parish church of the particular suburb every Sunday at a specially allocated time. Most of the time my parents chose to go to the midday Mass at the Church of St Felix of Valois, in Bankstown, at the intersection of Chapel Road and the Hume Highway, opposite the Three Swallows Hotel. These Masses were solemn, grand occasions, with as much social panoply attached to them as to their religious significance. Everyone, men, women, children, were dressed in their best clothes. Hymns were numerous. The sermon always included a plea to the rodaki — the compatriots, the countrymen and countrywomen — who were present never to forget the burden under which those living in Poland still laboured. This referred to the Communist regime that occupied Poland after World War II. Prayers were offered to God and to Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Black Madonna, for the liberation of Poland. I used to watch my father’s face and the faces of other Polish men and women at such times and saw how transfixed they were as the priest’s voice rose in tone and how emotional they became as the priest denounced the Communists — as he exhorted people to pray, pray, pray, never to forget what an evil this Communism is and how it had enslaved a freedom-loving people, virtually making them prisoners in their own homeland. The White Eagle on the Polish flag had its crown removed by the Communists because it symbolised the monarchy. Let us pray that one day the crown will be restored, the priest would plea — not because the monarchy will be returned, but because when that day is born, that will be the day that Communism dies. Democracy will rule in Poland. It was like listening and watching a call to arms, a cry to rally in prayers and hymns. After the Mass we would walk to the railway station and often travel to whichever family’s home we’d been invited to for lunch. If it was at Bankstown or a nearby suburb, we would walk; if it was in another suburb, we would walk to the railway station and travel by train, then walk.
These were happy times, always special, and times when all the mothers went to extraordinary lengths with cooking and food preparations, as well as showing off new chenille bedspreads, lace curtains, chandeliers and Axminster carpets that had been acquired since the last visit. Children played outside, becoming friends and hopefully starting to fulfill their parents’ dreams of growing up in Australia to a far better life than their parents had left behind in Europe. Once when I chased Irene Budzinski through the rose bushes at 10 Mary Street, she tore her First Communion dress. Years afterwards, I learnt that she managed to get home and hang it up in her wardrobe without her mother noticing. Fathers smoked, drank spirits and poured beer from brown bottles. They reminisced about life in Poland or the Ukraine or Russia, or wherever their origins lay. Sometimes they became drunk and were noisy. Sometimes one would fall asleep and be left lying in one of the bedrooms, allowed to sleep before going home. Among others, we visited the Budzinski family in Brunker Road, Yagoona, the Truchnowskis in Bankstown and the Glicza family in Lidcombe.
When the long day finished, often well into darkness, our long trek home would begin, back through the suburb and its streets that led to the railway station, then sitting in semi-darkness, the waiting room lit by a single light globe, waiting for the train. We’d travel through the dark suburbs, changing trains at Lidcombe or going straight through to Regents Park, get off and walk up those planks of wooden steps, turn right at the top of the overpass, walk across Park Road, and then left, past a handful of shops where the owners eked out a living, over the pipeline bridge and down Clapham Road, turn right into Mary Street and open the gate at Number 10 — my mother and I waiting, listening, in the darkness while my father opened the back door, and then hearing the plastic “click” of the switch as the light was turned on in the kitchen and squinting in the brightness. In our home. Finally. Tired, footsore, but strangely pleased.
Sunday Visits
1
We visited friends on Sundays after Mass
in Lidcombe, Bankstown or Doonside —
one of those western suburbs of the 1950s
where m
igrants like us had settled.
We travelled by train, then on foot,
from railway barrier to squeaky front gate:
the trio walking like a model family
dressed in best clothes because it was Sunday.
Met at the front door we were treated like royalty
to a sumptuous meal prepared beforehand
with other guests who had arrived for the day.
2
Children played in backyard vegetable gardens
while parents sat around dining tables
and talked of Europe and their exiles —
cursing Hitler, Stalin and how “the war years”
had forced them to emigrate to Australia.
Clouds of blue cigarette smoke filled the house.
Vodka and beer filled glasses and stomachs
as toasts were raised to absent friends, relatives —
or the “little ones” running around outside
in their discovery of the New World.
Oblivious to most of it we were climbing trees,
searching through neighbouring creeks
and uncleared bushland settings like pioneers —
setting dogs onto chooks and imaginary foes
who lurked in tall grasses, behind work sheds.
Girls played with dolls, prams, teddy bears.
Boys showed off on 24-inch bikes or scooters.
If anyone hurt anybody else you had to apologise
or be prepared to suffer the consequences
from one of the adults when they came outside.
3
Going home in the chill evenings, saying goodnight
at the front gate among the scent of roses,
the sound of a piano accordion or violin music
trailed in the air with its poignant European melody.
Worn out by the end of the day we were glad
to be on our way — though we smelt of sticky
paspalum weeds and the dust from the road on our shoes.
The Sparrow Garden Page 13
