“CONSIDER THIS wisp of humanity;” the little bishop said, “called Socra Marie Coyne, whom the Church welcomes today with noisy and indeed solemn high celebration.”
Our daughter shifted her gaze, which had been focused on Cardinal Sean Cronin in his crimson robes to this unobtrusive little priest.
“She is examining us very carefully, as if to make up her mind whether we really deserve her attention or she should apply for another venue. All babies do that, you know. They don’t make up their minds about those of us who welcome them until we have proved that we deserve them. Fortunately for the continuity of our species they generally decide that those standing around the baptismal font with them are on the whole no worse than other prospects.”
Nelliecoyne giggled, as she usually does when she encounters the little bishop.
“A tiresome English poet thought that the glow in a baby’s eyes when she comes into the world is a hint of her contact with God, a memory of which never fades away. My own feeling is that the child is smirking because she knows that she’s God’s hedge on the future of the Church and indeed of the species. In the ordinary course of human events she will still be alive when all of us are dead. She will see to the continuation of the Church after our own efforts have become superfluous. We can face that lamentable if inevitable fact with some confidence because we know that life is stronger than death, not only in the resurrection, but also in the birth of a new child, an event which is a cognate, a hint, a promise of the resurrection. Because of people like Socra Marie and because of the God who sent her to us to delight our lives, we know that death finally will have no power over us and we even cry out with St. Paul, if we are in such a mood, ‘O death where is thy victory! O death where is thy sting!’
“Small wonder that the tired, weary old church goes crazy with joy on a baptismal day. We may have lost many times and we still continue to lose. However, as long as there are small children like Socra Marie whom we can eagerly welcome into our band, then we will never lose completely.
“Therefore the Church makes exuberant promises today. It tells us that the waters of baptism are a down payment on resurrection. It assures Socra Marie that we will never let her go, and that we will always be around to help and support her, at the risk of on occasion seeming pushy, even obnoxious. Small child, I repeat, we will never let you go.”
George the Priest, with a touch of impatience, continued the baptismal ceremony. However, my daughter continued to stare at the funny little priest (whose staff had found him a clerical collar and his lovely silver St. Brigid pectoral cross). Perhaps, like all little kids, she already had found him cute.
It was a solemn high Baptism, though not in the old sense of the word, even if we had three priests (and a fourth if one included the pastor who observed from a distance, intimidated as he was by the presence of a cardinal and a bishop). However, the solemnity of the event was not created by the three priests, however impressive the cardinal’s robes might have been. Rather it was created by the mother of the “wisp of humanity,” who had arranged for Marie-Bernadette and Jacque-Yves to provide violin and viola music, had led the singing of the music from Liam Lawton’s “Mass for Celtic Saints,” and who herself had interjected several lullabies mostly in Irish.
Her parents had showed up at O’Hare the night before as had some of her American nieces, siblings, and cousins. All of my siblings were present as well as their own broods, many of whom actually did not run around the church during the ceremony, as did Micheal Dermod. My sister Cindy and her husband were the sponsors. However, the most careful watcher at the ceremony, squeezed in between the two godparents, was Nelliecoyne, who didn’t miss a thing.
I was a supernumerary, of course, which is my role in such events, the big lug whom Nuala and the children tolerate. Grood enough for me!
SELF-PITY.
Shut up.
Socra Marie seemed quite relaxed through the ceremony, almost as though she were enjoying the entertainment. However she had been restless and irritable (for her) during the last couple of days. The polite and plaintive little cry with which she demanded food and wiping in the middle of the night sounded more frequently. Nuala was feeding her every two hours. If she didn’t wake up to meet this schedule, our daughter registered strong displeasure.
It is an interesting kind of epiphany to open your eyes and see your naked wife, whom you have only an hour or two ago pleasured, nursing a frowning little kid.
I don’t resent the child all that much anymore, yet I have not been able to capture that epiphany in a poem. Can’t find the key metaphor.
I also worried because Nuala had reported to me that Socra Marie had not gained a “single ounce” since she had come home from the hospital. So I stewed too. The doctors had told us that it was most unlikely that she would show signs of cerebral palsy, but what did they know?
George the Priest summoned the little kids to touch the baby gently on the forehead to welcome her into the Church. They did this with great reverence and awe—under the gimlet-eyed supervision of the baby’s big sister.
Then the moment everyone was waiting for. With the kids peering eagerly, George the Priest poured an inordinate amount of water on my daughter’s head and informed the world in a loud voice, “Socra Marie, if you have not already been baptized, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
The daughter blinked at the water, but didn’t seem greatly displeased.
Then, after George had wiped her with oil and put on her long white robe and offered Nuala Anne a candle, he held her up to the crowed, which cheered lustily.
“Don’t drop her,” I muttered sotto voce so Nuala wouldn’t hear me.
Like a reigning monarch, the daughter accepted this acclamation as if it were a matter of right.
I sought out the pastor in the sacristy.
“A bid of a crowd, Father.”
He smiled. “At least you didn’t bring the dogs.”
“I won that fight at the last minute.”
I slipped a thousand-dollar bill into his hand, and said, “For the remodeling fund.”
“There was a time,” my mother said when I responded to her question about whether I had given anything to the pastor, “when a dollar or ten at the most would have been enough for a priest.”
“Inflation.”
“Didn’t his rivirence do a wonderful job?” my wife gushed as we walked across Southport.
“The nurse at the hospital did it when it counted.”
“Och, Dermot Michael Coyne, give over. For a poet, you sometimes have no soul, at all, at all.”
At the end of the party, which went on for hours with no regard for our daughter sleeping upstairs (guarded by Fiona and Nellie), George handed my wife a slim, dusty volume. The faded label on the cover said simply, “Haymarket 1886.”
“The least he could have done,” I observed, “would have been to clean off the dust.”
Then I added, “Good job today, George.”
“Thanks, little bro. It’s kind of hard not to be upstaged by those two successors of the apostles.”
“Why would anyone want to call themselves successors of the apostles?” my wife demanded. “And themselves liars and cowards and thieves.”