Must I be "educated"?

Fr. Murphy's compliment surprised me, "I could tell you were educated when you read the reading at mass today".

Fr. O'Hare had asked me to do the readings at Friday masses saying that while my pronunciation wasn't perfect, at least I would enunciate clearly - an improvement over some of our dear brothers and sisters here in Banica. I thought to myself, "Great... I enunciate well, so every fractured vowel sound and each butchered consonant pairing would be all the more clearly heard by all."

Despite my overgrown sense of pride/fear of failure, I told Father that I'd give it a try. So every week, I spend 1 to 2 hours practicing for a short 5 minute reading. After so much practice, I continue to amaze myself with my innate ability to completely mangle harmless looking letters juxtaposed so peacefully next to one another as my mouth screams out to me, "You want me to do what?!!"

I had been thinking I was doing better as the weeks went on. So as we sat about the table, Fr. Murphy, Samantha and I, I was surprised, but pleased, to be receiving a compliment from Fr. Murphy. He is pastor of the nearby parish of San Jose but was saying mass at San Francisco in Banica while Fr. O'Hare was making a visit home to Virginia.

My mind wandered a bit. "Educated". Not exactly what I would have expected as something that would come to mind when hearing someone hesitantly reading in a language they were not fluent in. Not exactly the compliment I would have most desired. But a compliment is a compliment and I was very pleased.

I faded back into the conversation to hear Fr. Murphy explaining: "Educated...like one of my professors teaching class in Rome. In Italian (silently commenting in my mind: well clearly, it would be in Italian. And clearly this professor would be highly educated. I probably puffed my chest a little bit as Father's continuing words sunk in)... In Italian.... with a very strong.... Australian accent...

I must say his rendition of someone speaking Italian with a strong Australian brogue was very convincing, most impressive, extremely hilarious, and (sigh) completely unnecessary. I surely preferred the short version of the compliment. The one that ended about the time Father first said, "educated".