Jesus & the Weather

An excerpt from Frank McCourt’s classic study of weather on the west coast of Ireland, “Angela’s Ashes”.

Transcript

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Jesus in the weather an excerpt from Frank McCourt's classic study of weather on the west coast of Ireland, Angela's Ashes. In class the next day, Mr. O'Day, our teacher, says Alright, McCourt, read your composition. The name of my composition is the title of McCourt. The title The title of my composition is Jesus and the Weather, sir. What? Jesus and the Weather, sir. Alright, read it. This is my composition. I don't think Jesus, who's our Lord, would have liked the weather in Limerick, because it's always raining and the Shannon keeps the whole city damp. My father says the Shannon is a killer river because it killed my two brothers. When you look at pictures of Jesus, he's always wandering around ancient Israel in a sheet. Never rains there. You never hear of anyone coughing or getting consumption or anything like that. And no one has a job there because all they do is stand around, eat manna, and shake their fists and go to crucifixions. Anytime Jesus got hungry, all he had to do was go up the road to a fig tree or an orange tree and have his fill. If he wanted a pint, he would just wave his hand over a big glass, and there was the pint. Or you could visit Mary Magdalene and her sister Martha, and they'd give him his dinner, no questions asked. And he'd get his feet washed and dried with Mary Magdalene's hair while Martha washed the dishes, which I don't think is fair. Why should she have to wash the dishes while her sister sits out there chatting away with our Lord? It's a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place, because if he was born in Limerick, he'd catch the consumption, be dead in a month, and there wouldn't be any Catholic church, and there wouldn't be any communion or confirmation, and we wouldn't have to learn the catechism and write compositions about him. The end. Mr O'Daya's quiet and gives me a strange look, and I'm worried because when he's quiet like that, it means something's going to suffer. He says McCourt, who wrote that composition? Oh he did, sir. Did your father write that composition? He didn't, sir. Come here, McCourt. I follow him out the door along the hall to the headmaster's room. Mr O'Day shows him my composition. Mr. O'Hallor Halloran gives me the strange look too. Did you write this composition? I did, sir. I'm taken out of the fifth class and put into Mr O'Halloran's sixth class with all the boys I know. When school is over that day I have to go back down to the statue of Saint Francis of Assisi to thank him, even if my legs are still weak. And I have to sit on the steps and hold on to the walls, and I wonder was it something good I said in that composition? Or something bad?