This image is from a gathering we had to celebrate the praying of the Rosary in the month of October. The idea, borrowed from the lived memory of many, sees chairs around the kitchen fire. Chairs used at the table for the sharing of the family meal and used also to welcome the visitor to the home – “Sit down and rest a while”. In the praying of the Rosary, the chairs became a sort of prayer space, with people kneeling beside them and maybe resting their arms on the chair. All rooted in home and in family, this is the heart of family prayer.
Reminded of this piece – it is entitled “The Trimmins’ Of The Rosary” by John O’Brien from “Around the Boree Log”. It might create a memory or two for some and possibly is a reminder of the central place prayer holds in family life. Maybe we need to hear that again this day ….
Ah! The memories that find me now
My hair is turning grey
Drifting in like painted butterflies,
From paddocks far away.
Dipping dainty wings in fancy
And the pictures fading fast.
Stand again in rose or purple
In the album of the past
There’s the old slab dwelling dreaming
By the wistful, watchful trees,
Where the coolabaks are listening
To the stories of the breeze.
There’s a homely welcome beaming
From it’s big bright friendly eyes
With the Sugarloaf behind it
Blackened in against the skies;
There’s the same dear happy circle
Round the borees cheery blaze.
With a little Irish Mother telling
Tales of other years.
She had one sweet, holy custom,
Which I never can forget
And a gentle benediction crowns
Her memory for it yet.
I can see that little mother
Still and hear her as she pleads.
“Now it’s getting on to bedtime,
all you children get your beads”
There were no steel-bound conventions in that old slab dwelling free;
Only this – each night she lined us up to say the Rosary.
E’en the stranger there, who stayed the night
Upon his journey knew
He must join the little circle, ay, and take his decade too.
I believe she darkly plotted, when a sinner hove in sight,
Who was known to say no prayer at all,
To make him stay the night.
Then we’d softly gather round her, and we’d
Speak in accents low,
And pray like Sainted Dominic so many years ago;
And the little Irish Mothers face was radiant
For she knew
That “where tow or three are gathered”
He is gathered with them too.
O’er the paters and the aves how her
Reverent head would bend!
How she’d kiss the cross devoutly when
She counted to the end!
And the visitor would rise at once and brush his knees –
And then
He’d look very, very foolish as he took the boards again.
She had other prayers to keep him.
They were long, long prayers in truth
And we used to call them “Trimmings” in my disrespectful youth.
She would pray for kith and kin,
And all the friends she’d ever know
Yes, and everyone of us could boast a “trimmin” all his own.
She would pray for all our little needs, and every shade of care
That might darken oe’r The Sugarloaf, she would meet it with a prayer.
She would pray for this ones “sore complaint”, or that one’s “hurted hand”,
Or that someone else might make a deal and get “that bit of land”
Or that dad might sell the cattle well
And seasons good might rule
So that little John, the weakly one might go away to school.
There were “trimmins” too that came and went
But ne’er she’d closed without,
Adding one for something special “none of you must speak about”
Gentle was that little mother, and her wit would sparkle free
But she’d murder him who looked around, while at the Rosary.
And if perchance you lost your beads
Disaster waited you.
For the only one she’d pardon was “himself” because she knew.
He was hopeless and ‘twas sinful what excuse he’d invent.
So she let him have his fingers, and he cracked them as he went.
And bedad, he wasn’t certain if he counted five or ten,
Yet he’d face the crisis bravely
And would start around again.
But she tallied all the decades, and
She’d block him on the spot
With a “Glory Daddah, Glory” and he’d
Glory like a shot.
She would portion out the decades to the company at large.
But when she reached the “trimmins”
She put herself in charge.
And it oft was cause for wonder, how she never once forgot,
But could keep them in their order,
Till she went right through the lot.
For the little Irish mother’s prayers embraced the countrywide,
If a neighbor met with trouble or was taken ill or died.
We could count upon a “trimmin” till in fact it got that way,
That the Rosary was but “trimmins” to the “trimmins” we would say
Then himself would start complaining for the public good, we though,
“Sure you’ll have us here till morning yerra cut them trimmins short”
But she’d take him very gently, till he softened by degrees,
“Well then let us get it over, come all hands to your knees”
So the little Irish Mother kept her trimmins to the last
Ever growing as the shadows o’er the old selection passed.
And she lit our drab existence with her simple faith and love,
And I know the angels lingered near to hear her prayers above,
For her children trod the path she trod, nor did they later spurn,
To impress her wholesome maxims or their children in their turn,
Ay and every sore complaint came right and every “hurted” hand,
And we made a deal from time to time and sold a bit of land.
And dad did sell the cattle well, and little John, her pride,
‘Twas he who said the Mass in Black the morning that she died.
So her gentle spirit triumphed for ‘twas this without a doubt
Was the very special “trimmin” that she kept so dark about.
But the yeas have crowded past us and fledglings all have flown,
And the nest beneath the Sugarloaf no longer is their own.
For a hand has written “Finis” and the book is closed for good.
There’s a stately red tiled mansion where the old slab dwelling stood.
There the stranger has the evening and the formal supper spread:
But I wonder has she “trimmins” now or is the Rosary said.
Ah! These little Irish Mothers are passing from us one by one,
Who will write the noble story of the good that they have done,
All their children may be scattered and their fortunes windward hurled,
But the “trimmins” of the Rosary will bless them round the world.
Wonderful brings back memories