We all had the famous prayers off-by-heart, of course. The
Hail Marys and Our Fathers were embedded in there by decades of rosaries (sorry
for repeating the word ’decade’ so soon but that’s what rosaries are called… decades). But
there were also the ‘harder’ prayers, the ones that you started off quite boldly
reciting but, by the middle, an uncertainly about how it actually went. These
prayers, ones like ‘The Memorare’ or ‘Hail Holy Queen’ are still belted
out today, more often than not at the end of a good funeral. They contain phrases
like ‘Despise not my petitions’ and ‘Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine
eyes of mercy toward us.’ Good stuff like that.
Both of these prayers, and others like them, subscribed to a view
of Mary, the mother of Jesus as a sort of a holy intermediary. She is often
called on the step-in or ‘intercede’ when a good prayer does not seem to be
hitting the mark. The idea, for my Mum at least, was that Jesus and God were often
tied up with the big stuff and sometimes didn’t catch the littler pleas. But a
word to Mary, who seemed to have time on her hands for this kind of thing,
could often bring a solid result. Mary could catch Jesus on a little down-time
and gently ‘nudge’ him a bit. “Did you notice that Josephine was asking if her son could do okay in his Junior Cert Exams? I know, I know, it’s manic, but
maybe a little something for her? B-Minus, maybe?"
I mention these ‘hard’ prayers because something reminded me
of them but, more particularly, something reminded of how I misunderstood one
line in one of them when I was small. Although I now know that right words, the
old misheard words seem to almost mean more to me, even now.
In 'Hail Holy Queen' the often quoted phrase ‘Valley of Tears’
or ‘Vale of Tears’ pops up. But that’s not it. Right before that phrase, the prayer
confirms to Mary that it is indeed, “To thee do we send up our sighs.” When I
was small, I clearly understood this line as being ‘To thee do we send up our
size.” This was not even a mystery to me. We were sending our measurements up
to Mary so that, when we inevitably arrived in heaven, we would have a fine set
of afterlife garments all ready-made for us. Maybe even, if we were very good, a
pair of wings, made to measure.
If these words ever come up, at a funeral, as they more
increasingly do, I always think about scribbling down my inside leg measurement, on a post-in note, and sending
it up the chimney and into the waiting arms of Holy Mary. It tends to lighten the
severity of the moment, if only temporarily.
Rereading those old prayers for this piece, and looking more
carefully at the words, I am reminded of how we reeled off the prayers without
really thinking too hard about what we were saying in them. It’s been instructive
to read them slowly and to consider the import of the words. One of them asks to be ‘delivered
from present evils’ and, God knows, who doesn’t want that? And, of course, if
God doesn’t know, a word in Mary’s ear probably won’t go amiss.
It’s like that with Shakespeare too, I find. You can read
the words, learn them, and recite them, but if every word doesn’t mean
something, if every sentence doesn’t bind together into a coherent thought in
your own head, then your reading of them won’t mean anything to anyone who
hears you do it.
The same thing with music. I played the accordion when I was a child
and I could read the notes of the page and play them in the time required. But,
sometimes, I couldn’t actually hear the tune I was playing. It was just a jumble
of correctly followed notes. There’s a middle bit in The Blue Danube that was
like that for me. Dah dump dah, daaaah da dump dah dah dah. I played it right
but it made no sense to me or to anybody else. Then I heard it played right and
then I knew what it was and then, when I played it, I could hear it and other
people knew it too.
When a good actor performs or reads Shakespeare, and they understand
what they are saying (they sometimes don’t) then I have a much increased chance of
understanding it too.
So it is with Music and Shakespeare…
And with Prayers…
And with the News…
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