Ireland vs. The Netherlands, Round 1

Or; Vomiting up the Lord

Okay, stay with me.

So I’ve been reading Frank McCourt’s ‘Angela’s Ashes’ because it’s famous and he just died and it’s a good thing to read in Ireland, even if working at the Starbucks at Dundrum shopping centre gives me a VERY different experience of Ireland than McCourt and his brother having to pick pieces of coal off the cobblestone streets. Whatever. It’s brilliant. McCourt really managed to capture the voice of a child. I’ve been reading it on and off though, because there’s only so much of the tragedy you can take. (In between, I’ve picked up Rupert Everett’s memoir of a much different kind of life.)

One of my favourite parts of ‘Ashes’ was about little Francis’s first communion, which was a BIG DEAL in Limerick in the 1930s. The children became official Catholics then (one of his peers, because he couldn’t physically bring himself to swallow the Communion wafer, for his entire life never thought of himself as part of the Church), but more importantly, it meant they could big out on sweets and go see a James Cagney film at the cinema! Unfortunately, had the sweets and food made little Francis sick and he threw up in his grandmother’s back garden. Because it was the day of his first communion, in which one swallows, via a wafer, the body of Christ, grandma became furious that Christ was now splashed around her backyard. She sends Francis back to the Church, having only done his first confession earlier that day, to confess for this new sin and ask the Father what she should wash away Christ with. When Francis reports back that the priest replied water, grandma sends him a third time to ask if he meant Holy Water or regular water.

“Forgive me, Father, I have sinned. It has been five minutes since my last confession.”
“Were you the boy who just visited me?”
“Yes, Father. My Grandma wants to know if you meant Holy Water or regular water.”
“Regular water will do, son, and tell your grandma to not send you back again.”

I thought that whole situation was hilarious, especially capped off by the frustration of the priest. Who cares if it really happened to McCourt or not; stranger things have happened.
For instance, in preparation for my trip to Amsterdam I have been reading a Lonely Planet book on the city for inspiration. Rembrandt and sex shops, what’s not to love? On one page a little box is titled ‘Vomiting the Host’:

“The Miracle of Amsterdam had a rather unappetising start. In 1345 the final sacrament was administered to a dying man, but he was unable to keep down the Host (communion wafer) and—there’s no way to put this delicately—vomited it up. Here’s the miracle part: when the vomit was thrown in the fire, the Host would not burn. Shortly thereafter, a chapel was built on the site and it soon became a pilgrimage area...”

It goes on to described how “the Host” was kept in a wooden box, and allegedly sick orphans would be cured if they sat on it.

So there you go. When confronted with Holy vomit, the practical Dutch turn it into a miracle while the superstitious Irish are more concerned with cleaning it up. Okay, that’s not far; the Dutch people in the story are Medieval versus 20th century Irish, but still, you don’t hear stories like that every day.

UPDATE: After finishing this, I went back to Rupert Everett's autobiography. He is at Catholic prep school and, mostly because he figured out he was gay, ended up in the theatre club. He didn't think he could act, but cast as Titania, Queen of the Fairies, in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', he pulled out a campy, burlesque performace that brought down the house. His second major role was Mary Stuart in the play of the same title. When she is being administered her final communion before being executed, the man who was supposed to sign her death warrant couldn't find his plume and used a ballpoint pen instead, which made all the actors break character and laugh. Then this happened,

"I managed to stop myself giggling but as the priest put the host in my mouth, the image of Wadham signing my death warrant with the biro flashed upon me, and I sputtered with suppressed laughter. The Host shot out of my mouth onto the floor. There was a huge collective gasp. None of us knew whether to pick it up or what, because, remember, in the Catholic Church the host IS Jesus' body and there are all sorts of rules concerning it, and one is that you are not allowed to touch it under any circumstances. Only with your tongue, which raised the question: would Mary lick it up off the ground at this point? Our audience was well versed in Catholic ritual, so they understood my dilema and started to laugh. I was literally crying. My false eyelashes were halfway down my cheeks on a river of mascara and I'm afraid to say that Mary went to her death on the wave of a huge round of applause."

No vomiting, but still! Incredible!