Ultimate Sacrifice

In what has often been dubbed the poorest city in Rhode Island,

we lived only two blocks away from the best Fish and Chips restaurant anywhere.

We dutifully observed the no meat on Friday rule every single week.

Our routine weekly sacrifice was eating a large order of Fish and Chips every week,

without exception

Nothing makes you appreciate the agony of hanging on a cross 

nor the resurrection of the body

more than fresh haddock deep fried in lard.

This was true even

though my single parent father no longer attended Catholic Mass,

and perhaps had not in years, except for funerals and weddings.

My older siblings and I would leave the third story tenement

to walk to Holy Family or Sacred Heart,

and then they would take to the woods to smoke cigarette,

their weekly ritual,

This left this six year old me alone in the pew with the assignment

of paying rapt attention

and remembering every word

of every reading and being prepared

to at least explain in simple terms the mysteries of Jesus Christ, the Almighty

that were explained from the pulpit. 

This so they could convince Dad that they actually went.

I cried when the rule changed to ONLY having to abstaining from meat on Fridays

during lent.

The uncertainty of what we would eat on Friday

was just one more thing

for my anxiety-ridden young self.

I could not think of another significant thing to do

to show my ever-developing devotion to my faith,

that would taste anywhere near as delicious.