He then rapidly ran through the party line on chastity, how long a kiss could be sustained before it went from a venial sin to a mortal sin. The time was calculated from billiards, and the interval allowed was the duration of a canon shot, not long if you were a keen kisser. Oh, those Passionists hated kissing. Of course, they knew nothing of the fancy stuff they did in France. Or if they did, they didn’t let on. (Location 1058)
After all, I had been raised in considerable poverty. Most of the people I knew were poor. In a sense we gloried in it: ‘Blessed are the poor; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ You see for us being poor was a blessing, poverty was the key, it was the pass into eternal life. The rich just could not grasp this simple fact. We felt sorry for the rich, we prayed for them. ‘We are so fortunate to be poor,’ my mother used to say. ‘We may be sinful,’ said Mrs McHale next door, ‘but at least we’re not rich.’ If someone died in agony having lost two legs in an accident at the docks, there would always be the comfort of: ‘Well, at least he wasn’t rich.’ This was an amazing state of mind. All suffering was understandable to us. All pain was a blessing because it was the will of God. There was no fear because faith banishes fear. Fear itself is afraid of faith. So you see I joined the rest of the labourers in the vineyard and really looked forward to being poor and staying poor. The paradox of all this is that if the church needs anything, such as money, why then the poor provide it. That’s what keeps them poor. And preventing the poor from being rich was a good deed for which God blessed his sheep. Neat, eh? God keep me poor I prayed; and He did. He’s so good in that way, He never once let me down. Then there was chastity. Yes. ‘Good morning, Brother, how’s your chastity?’ ‘Oh, can’t complain, cock, how’s yours?’ It has to be admitted that purity is a bit of a bugger. Whichever way you look at it you’re on slippery ground. Even to think about it is a sin. A hard heart is an obstacle to getting to heaven, but so is a hard cock because a forty-five-degree throbber is a real scrambler of (Location 1068)
