tery, which means impure thoughts, impure words, impure deeds, and that’s what adultery is, Dirty Things in General. One Redemptorist priest barks at us all the time about the Sixth Commandment. He  says  impurity  is  so  grave  a  sin  the Virgin  Mary turns her face away and weeps. And why does she weep, boys? She weeps because of you and what you are doing to her Beloved Son. She weeps when she looks down the long dreary vista of time and beholds in horror the spectacle of Limer- ick  boys  defiling  themselves,  polluting  themselves,  interfering  with themselves, abusing themselves, soiling their young bodies, which are the  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost. Our  Lady  weeps  over  these  abom- inations knowing that every time you interfere with yourself you nail to the cross her Beloved Son, that once more you hammer into His dear head the crown of thorns, that you reopen those ghastly wounds. In an agony of thirst He hangs on the cross and what is He offered by those perfidious  Romans?  A  lavatory  sponge  plunged  into  vinegar  and gall  and  thrust  into  His  poor  mouth,  a  mouth  that  moves  rarely except to pray, to pray even for you, boys, even for you who nailed Him to  that  cross. Consider  Our  Lord’s  suffering. Consider  the  crown  of thorns. Consider a small pin driven into your skull, the agony of the piercing. Consider then twenty thorns driven into your head. Reflect, meditate on the nails tearing His hands, His feet. Could you endure a fraction of that agony? Take that pin again, that mere pin. Force it into your side. Enlarge that sensation a hundredfold and you are penetrated by that awful lance. Oh, boys, the devil wants your souls. He wants you with him in hell and know this,that every time you interfere with your- self, every time you succumb to the vile sin of self-abuse you not only nail Christ to the cross you take another step closer to hell itself.Retreat from the abyss, boys. Resist the devil and keep your hands to yourself. I can’t stop interfering with myself. I pray to the Virgin Mary and tell her I’m sorry I put her Son back on the cross and I’ll never do it again but I can’t help myself and swear I’ll go to confession and after that, surely after that, I’ll never never do it again. I don’t want to go to hell with devils chasing me for eternity jabbing me with hot pitchforks. The priests of Limerick have no patience with the likes of me. I go to confession and they hiss that I’m not in a proper spirit of repentance, that if I were I’d give up this hideous sin. I go from church to church looking for an easy priest till Paddy Clohessy tells me there’s one in the Dominican church who’s ninety years old and deaf as a turnip. Every 292