I used to be an altarboy,
as unlikely as that seems to those on here who know me, but yes, I was a sweet faced angelic altar boy. Sort of.

So, the priest at my school parish was an old Irish chap by the name of Father Michael Corry. He was a thoroughly nice person (so no paedo jokes here I'm afraid), although he did used to pat you on the head when he came to visit and nearly crush your skull in doing so. He was quite a large chap also and I don't think he knew his own strength. As Altarboys we used to get paid a small amount of money for serving at funerals. Usually a fiver from the Undertaker, but back then my pocket money was only £1.50 a week, and so it was like Christmas had come early. One of Father Corry's favourite stories was how he had to chastise me and one of the other altar boys when he caught us going through the obituaries section in the local rag to see if anyone had died recently and whether we'd be getting paid that week.

Anyway, that's not the story I wanted to tell. The story I wanted to tell was about the time we were serving one of said funerals, and it got to the Eternal Rest part of the mass.

For all you non-catlick types, the prayer is as follows:

"Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord,
And Let perpetual light shine upon them".

I have already mentioned that Father Corry was rather an old chap, and one of his many quirks (apart from sending schoolchildren to hospital with affection-related cranial injuries) was that he would sometimes get his words mixed up. Sometimes in a spoonerism kind of way, sometimes in a confusing words that sound similar kind of way. It was on a rare occasion such as this that he did both. And thusly:

"Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord,
And let perpetual shite lie upon them".

So I can now rightfully take my place in hell as someone who burst into an uncontrollabe fit of laughter at the funeral of a man I've never met.

We didn't get paid that day :(
( PMGT -Bacon., Thu 19 Mar 2009, 16:03, Reply)