I Swear

Until the late 1990s, Newfoundland had a denominational school system, so my brother, Frank and I attended Catholic school. The faith permeated every aspect of our lives, guided by Presentation sisters and parish priests. My brother was an altar boy and I was in choir. Until I was eleven, we sang Mass in Latin. It was remarkable to us when, in the early 1960s, the priest faced the people and spoke English in Church. 

In school, there was a nun principal and a number of them on staff. The church was on on the main floor of the building and the school upstairs. School revolved around church, first Friday devotions, stations of the cross during Lent, sacramental preparation, morning prayers, confessions, school Masses. We did not have a school bus so Dad dropped us off at school on his way to work and Frank and I attended morning Mass before school.

In class itself, religious instruction was a big part of the day. In Grade 4, our class was tasked with learning all the prayers and some were long. We had to write them at night and memorize them. The principal thought that by strapping those who had not done their homework, she would make us do better for the next day. However, what kind of god was she showing us that way? I know we were scared and hated those prayers.

Another of the prayers we learned was JMJ which we put at the top of each page in our exercise books. This denoted that all of our work was for Jesus, Mary and Joseph. It was second nature to do this and I cannot remember when we finally stopped.

JMJ was a common prayer in those days and Mom said it all the time. If anything happened, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," was her go to phrase. If she cut herself, dropped something, that was what she said.

                                        Dad and Mom

If she was late, Mom said, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I'm going to be late again." I always thought of it as swearing but not Mom. It was a prayer to her. If intent is needed for swearing, then Mom did not swear.  

Our daughter, Claire learned my mother's prayer as well. She heard it as a child but did not repeat it until she was older.

Along came our first granddaughter, Sylvie and by two years old she repeated everything she heard. 

We ignored things which were inappropriate and soon they disappeared. However, the day Sylvie said, "Jesus, Mary and Georgie," we all laughed. Georgie is her dog and she said the phrase when she dropped something.

Was Sylvie swearing?