Seminary Boy. John Cornwell

myself gazing through a window in the cloister, fascinated by the sight and sound of the blustering winds and the racing clouds. The wild disturbance of the countryside seemed to echo an unfamiliar and troubled excitation in my soul.

      I went for confession and spiritual direction to Father Browne, the bursar, who also acted as parish priest for the small community of Catholic farmers who lived in the locality of Oakamoor. Father Browne saw boys in his sitting room off the church cloister. He was a heavy man, with sleepy eyes, pale flaccid jowls and wiry grey hair. He appeared slow of movement, as if he was weary. He smelled of incense and the bars of soap in his bursar’s shop. There was something gentle and soothing about him, almost motherly. His hands were very white and plump.

      He asked me to sit opposite him on a corresponding chair and began by asking about the family and my home parish. Occasionally, moving his head languidly, he would look out of the window at the valley scene where low clouds were rising, trailing rain squalls over the canopy of the woods.

      An important first step in the pursuit of the devout life, he told me, was the daily, or, better still, twice daily, examination of conscience. ‘I want you to get into the habit of reviewing your behaviour,’ he said gently. ‘Have I thought unkindly of anybody today? Have I thought less of them? Have I envied anybody?’

      He asked me about my spiritual reading. When I told him about The Imitation of Christ, he replied: ‘Yes, a lot of boys here read the Imitation.’ He said that excellent as it was, the work was written for enclosed monks and nuns. Had I not heard, he asked, of the greatest model of parish priests, Saint John Vianney? ‘He was known as the Curè d’Ars,’ went on Father Browne. ‘You’ll find several books about him in the college library.’

      That afternoon I took down from the library shelves a book entitled A Saint in the Making: The Story of the Curé d’Ars. In the frontispiece was an engraved portrait: the saint’s cheeks were hollow and his eyes looked upwards towards the heavens. Sitting in the library with its glowing mahogany shelves and dramatic views down the valley I started to read. The historical setting of the famous priest’s life, I learnt, was France in the years after the Revolution: the persecution of bishops, priests and nuns; the suppression of seminaries. John Vianney inherited a parish sunk in drunkenness and fornication and made it a model of sanctity. He was convinced that the root of evil in his village was dancing, since it led to girls and boys touching and exposing themselves to sexual temptation. He was intent on eliminating ‘occasions of sin’; he even had the apple trees cut down in his orchard to deprive the village boys of the temptation to go scrumping. John Vianney disdained to sleep in a bed; the floor was sufficient for him, without pillows or blankets. He rose in the middle of the night and went to his church to lie full stretch on the stone flags. For food he would cook a pan of potatoes once a week, hang them in a wire basket and eat them till there were none left. The final potatoes were always rotten and wormy. He wore a hair shirt and flogged himself. What seized my imagination far more than his ‘thirst for souls’ were his heroic prayer life and self-mortification.

      I realised that John Vianney’s heroism was impracticable, but I was determined to emulate the saint in so far as I could. Like other more pious boys I had begun to spend regular time in private prayer in church during mid-morning break, and between outdoor activities in the afternoon and first lessons. I had also begun to wear a hairy knitted sleeveless pullover under my vest which chafed my skin – a kind of junior hair shirt. Before going to sleep I pinched myself hard on the legs and on my waist. I was refusing sugar on my porridge at breakfast.