Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

The Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi gives the memoir a small but persistent point of continuity: it links the naming of Francis to the adult Frank’s recollection of the saints and places he may be leaving behind. Its importance is less as a narrated feast-day celebration than as a personal marker carried across family ritual, religious reading, and emigration.

A saint in the family’s naming

Francis is baptized in late December and named after his father’s father and Saint Francis of Assisi. Angela wants to add Munchin, the patron saint of Limerick, as a middle name, but Malachy rejects the suggestion, objecting both to a Limerick name and to the practice of giving a child a second name. The naming therefore places Saint Francis within a family disagreement about local identity and naming custom, while making the saint part of the child’s given name.

The baptism itself is marked by disorder: the intended godfather is absent, Malachy quarrels with the priest, and Angela accidentally lets the infant slip into the font before the altar boy retrieves him. The ceremony does not become a quiet expression of devotion; it ends with Malachy being expelled from the church. Against this turmoil, the name Francis remains a lasting religious connection established at the child’s entry into the Church.

A date retained through reading

Years later, Frank reads about the lives of saints in the library. Among the virgin martyrs, he singles out Saint Christina the Astonishing as a favorite, and decides to keep her feast day, July 24, for himself, along with the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi on October 4. The calendar becomes something he chooses and remembers for himself, rather than merely a date supplied by family or church practice.

The librarian’s note to Mrs. McCourt remarks on Frank’s absorption in the saints’ lives and suggests that he might have a future as a priest. The scene connects his interest in the feast day to a larger period of religious reading, but the evidence establishes an act of private remembrance, not a vocation or a formal observance of the feast.

Carried into the farewell

As Frank prepares to leave Limerick, he walks through places where the family has lived, visits the graves of Oliver and Eugene and of Theresa Carmody, and looks again at churches associated with his life. He sits in St. Joseph’s Church and the Redemptorist church, telling himself to take a good look in case he never sees them again. He also walks down Henry Street to say goodbye to Saint Francis, while believing he will still be able to speak to him in America.

This farewell gives the remembered feast day a broader significance. The October 4 date belongs to a devotional calendar Frank has kept in mind; the saint himself becomes a figure he imagines remaining accessible across the Atlantic. The memoir does not describe a celebration of the feast before his departure. Instead, it places Saint Francis among the people, graves, churches, and memories Frank gathers up as he prepares to leave, making the saint a spiritual connection between Limerick and his anticipated life in America.