tery, which means impure thoughts, impure words, impure deeds, and
thats 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 Lords 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 cant stop interfering with myself. I pray to the Virgin Mary and
tell her Im sorry I put her Son back on the cross and Ill never do it
again but I cant help myself and swear Ill go to confession and after
that, surely after that, Ill never never do it again. I dont 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 Im not in a proper spirit of repentance,
that if I were Id give up this hideous sin. I go from church to church
looking for an easy priest till Paddy Clohessy tells me theres one in the
Dominican church whos ninety years old and deaf as a turnip. Every
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