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  PassionistsGlasgow

father frank's log...

28/1/2021

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FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 24th – 31st JANUARY 2021
​

During a lockdown, any excuse for a celebration will do, and so, last Monday, we decided to have a Burns’ night in Bishopbriggs. This simply meant that the four of us; Father Justinian; Father Gareth; Father Antony and myself, would all sit down to haggis, neeps and tatties. The last time we did this was on St. Andrew’s Day last year. On that occasion Father Gareth and Father Antony went to one of the local chippies and asked for four haggis suppers. They were looked upon in amazement until they explained that it was to celebrate St. Andrew, at which the proprietor decided he must be more aware of such occasions in the future. In anyways, four fresh haggis were put into the deep fat firer and they were delicious. Father Gareth enjoyed his so much that now, on a regular Friday night, when the rest of us are having fish and chips, he opts for a haggis supper. On this occasion, however, we decided to get haggis from the local supermarket and cook it ourselves. This proved easier said than done as the shelves of the nearest supermarket were empty of haggis and we had to search further afield. Thankfully we found some and, later that night, enjoyed our celebratory meal. In preparation I had put on Dougie McLean’s tribute album to Burns which has some beautiful interpretations of his songs, and later I listened to part of a concert that included the amazing Eddi Reader, and the wonderful Karen Mathieson, also singing beautiful versions of Burns songs.
 
On Radio Scotland that morning I had listened to a discussion on the merits, or demerits, of tinned haggis which, I must confess, I have never tasted. Of the four of us, Father Antony was the only one who had tasted it, during his younger days in the Connelly household, and quite often at that. He said it was very good. In the first log of this new year, I sparked of a bit of a debate on whether or not sausages should be included in a steak pie. The responses that came back to me were about two to one against sausages. So now I am inviting a debate on haggis – boiled, deep fried, tinned, or whatever? What is the best haggis you have tasted, and what do you wash it down with? Tradition seems to suggest it must be washed down with a nice single malt, which suits me, thanks to one or two very kind Christmas gifts. For the non- drinkers, a nice glass of Irn Bru may be the best tipple. What do you think?
 
My most memorable Burns night celebration, as I have mentioned before, was when I was studying in Rome, and on January 25th, 1983, while the new code of Canon Law was being promulgated at St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, the date chosen because it is also the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle; I was taking up an invitation to attend a traditional Burns night celebration at the Scots’ College, where I had come to know a lot of the students through attending the Gregorian University, where they were very distinct because of their purple cassocks. It was a great night of poetry and song that I will long remember.
 
However, I would have to say that the best haggis I ever tasted was when I was parish priest in Prestonpans, and I was invited to be the keynote speaker at a very prestigious St. Andrew’s night dinner at the Royal Musselburgh Golf Club. It was one of those engagements which, at the time I was asked, seemed like a good idea, and I imagined I could speak about St. Andrew as well as anyone. The nearer it got, however, I was hitting my head against the wall, and wondering how I could have been so foolish, and perhaps so egotistic, to take this on. I spent many an hour with my forehead bleeding, staring at a blank page, before I eventually came up with a talk that would just have to be good enough. In the end, it seemed to go down quite well, and the agony was worth it because the whole meal, and especially the haggis, was absolutely beautiful. No doubt Father Gareth will be tucking into the deep-fried variety again this Friday night. As for me, I’ve a notion to try the tinned variety to see what it’s like.
As ever, protect yourselves, your loved ones, and others, and protect Christ in your lives.

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father frank's log...

22/1/2021

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FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 17th – 24th JANUARY 2021
​

One of the things that doesn’t seem to have diminished during lockdown is administration. Priesthood, as with most other professions, especially for those in leadership roles, can get overloaded with paperwork, and January is a prime example of that, for the simple reason that at the beginning of a new year, a leader’s stewardship of the year gone by, has to be accounted for in a whole variety of areas. One of the tasks in the past few days was to complete a statistical return for the Archdiocese, providing information with regard to how many Baptisms; how many Confirmations; how many First Communions; how many Marriages; how many Adult Initiations; and how many Deaths, were recorded in the parish in 2020. This entailed going through the various registers that are kept for each of those occurrences. The year gone by, of course, has been a year like no other, and so all of those numbers were significantly down from previous years, and in some cases wiped out completely, with the exception of deaths, which had significantly risen. A new question had been added to the form, asking how many deaths, so far as we knew, were from Covid-19.

Keeping registers is an important responsibility, especially as the information contained will be requested and required from time to time. This is especially true of the Baptism register as people will always need to provide details of their Baptism when they are preparing for First Communion; Confirmation; Marriage; and Holy Orders. Baptism details are often requested, too, when children are applying for admission into Catholic schools, or even when people are trying to trace their family tree. Nowadays, of course, data protection rules require a number of checks before such information would be provided. Also, when a request is made for information from a register of any kind from years back, I am always hoping that the priest who filled in the register had legible handwriting which, believe me, is not always the case.

There are also what we refer to as Sacristy registers, or Mass registers. Every Mass requested has to be recorded and accounted for when it has been celebrated. Here in St. Mungo’s, we are also committed to celebrating Mass once a week for the Holy Souls, and once a week for those enrolled in our Passionist Mass Guild, and so, at the beginning of the year, I had to prepare a diary, so that each of those could be signed for when celebrated as well. I had to do the same for the Masses that a parish priest is required to say every Sunday for the people of the parish, and also for the Masses that, as Rector of the Passionist Community, I have to say on major feast days for the members of my community in Bishopbriggs, and also each month for living and deceased Passionists; and living and deceased parents and benefactors of the Passionists. Sometime during the year, the Passionist Provincial will formally visit each community and inspect all these Mass registers to ensure we are fulfilling our obligations.

A few years ago, while I was still parish priest in Mount Argus, a lady in her senior years came from Australia to live in Dublin for a time. While she was there, she asked to participate in the RCIA programme with the intention of becoming a Catholic. Her late husband had been a Catholic, and her grown-up children were Catholic, and she had felt drawn to the faith as well. The necessary permissions were obtained and she was received into the church at the Easter Vigil. Shortly afterwards I was approached by this lady, and the Dublin man who had been her sponsor, asking if I would marry them. Again, after all the permissions were obtained, I celebrated the Sacrament of Marriage with them in a very simple ceremony. Not long afterwards they left for Australia and settled there. All of this was recorded in registers and, as a result, this set off a chain of events whereby the groom in question, who had been adopted as a child, was traced by a sister that he never knew he had, and they were able to be brought together with great joy for all concerned, thanks to registers.
​

As ever, protect yourselves, your loved ones, and others - and protect Christ in your lives.
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father frank's log...

14/1/2021

1 Comment

 
FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 10th - 17th JANUARY 2021
​

I am writing this log the day after the sad and unexpected death of our Archbishop, Philip Tartaglia. I was in the car heading up to my brother’s house, earlier than usual, as I had a Zoom meeting to attend that afternoon, and a streamed Lectio Divina Service to attend from the oratory at Bishopbriggs in the evening. It was my brother’s birthday so I wanted to spend a little time with him. The parish phone had been transferred through to Father Gareth and, shortly before my arrival at my brother’s house, I saw a call coming in on the blue tooth in my car from Father Gareth. It was he who told me the news, having just been notified by the Archdiocese, and I felt an immediate sense of shock and sadness. Since my return to Glasgow in 2016, I have always experienced Archbishop Tartaglia as a thoroughly nice and decent man, doing an immensely difficult job. He was forever a friend to St. Mungo’s and in recent times had presided over the 150th Anniversary celebrations of the church, and also celebrated the ordination of Father Antony. We reminisced at times on how we were born in the same year, and began secondary school at St. Mungo’s Academy at the same time, although he quickly moved on to seminary at Blairs. I suppose part of my shock at his sudden death was the realisation that we were ages with each other, and that our time on this earth is limited, and can come to an end at any time. Mainly, though, I am saddened at his death and my thoughts and prayers are with his family and those brother priests who were closest to him.
 
When I left the house today there was a few centimetres of snow on the ground. Last Friday I had enjoyed a beautiful walk in the snow. I left the house and made my way into the woods at the back of our estate. As mentioned before, there is a pond there which is home to a rare breed of frogs, thereby protecting that area from further development, but the pond that day was completely frozen over. I wondered what the frogs did in such a circumstance, but there was no sight or sound of them. I continued through the woods and out the other side, then made my way to the fen at Low Moss. I walked through the fen as far as I could but I was conscious that I had to be back in time to celebrate the 12.15 p.m. Mass from the oratory. I decided that, rather than walk further and risk getting lost in the woods behind the prison, as I had done before, I would just stand for a while, observe the beauty, and listen to the birdsong.
I looked contemplatively to my left, and then after a while turned to my right. Just as I turned, I saw two young deer leaping towards me across the fen. Becoming aware of my presence, they immediately stopped and stood absolutely still, as did I. For a couple of minutes there was a stand-off. Who would blink first? The deer, in fact, blinked first and bounded off in
another direction, disappearing completely as deer seem able to do. No matter how long I stood and looked they never came back into view again. It has always been my experience that, in places where deer are purported to be, whenever I look out for them, I never see them, and that I only catch glimpses of them in sudden and unexpected moments. My experiences of God can be a bit like that as well, but the sudden and unexpected glimpses are like gold.
The return journey through the woods near home had a slightly scary moment when I lost track of the path and found my left foot going through the ice at the edge of the pond.
 
Yesterday, of course, was the Feast of Saint Mungo. Fr Antony and Fr Gareth celebrated the Mass from the Oratory while I celebrated a solitary Mass in the church itself, uniting myself with our parishioners who weren’t able to be in their own sacred space to celebrate the feast of the patron of our church, our school and our city. It’s moments like these that increase the longing for life to return to some kind of normal. How good it would have been to celebrate the feast together, people and priests, as normal. In the evening we had a nice meal prepared by Father Justinian - Marsala chicken, new potatoes and peas. Fr Justinian will get the Covid Vaccine on Saturday. He has been keeping well, thank God, as have we all. Our thoughts and prayers remain with you who have continued to encourage and support us during this time. So, as ever, protect yourselves, your loved ones, and others, and protect Christ in your lives
1 Comment

father frank's log...

7/1/2021

1 Comment

 
FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 3rd – 10th JANUARY 2021
​

Welcome to the first Log of 2021, after a two-week break for a Covid Christmas and New Year. I hope that, despite restrictions and limitations, it was a blessed time for all of you. For the first time in living memory, I didn’t stay up for the bells. Normally, on Hogmanay
evening, I would have collected my younger brother, and we would have made our way to the home of one of our nieces. There, we would have enjoyed a late-night steak pie dinner with all the Keevins clan, and toasted each other at the bells, along with Jackie Bird on BBC
Scotland. I would then have brought my brother home and bedded down on his couch, before rising early to come into the church for the first Mass of a new year. Sadly, because of Covid, there was no gathering of the clan. I had an early evening dinner with my younger brother, came back home to Bishopbriggs, watched the last ever Only an Excuse with Father Antony, then went to bed. Father Gareth and Father Justinian were already in bed. While I missed
seeing in the year with the family, I have to confess that I slept better and felt more refreshed when celebrating on Ne’erday morning. I first-footed my brother on New Year’s Day, but my two nieces were going to appear later with his dinner. By that stage I had made it back home to Bishopbriggs where the community sat down to, yes, a steak pie dinner, the steak pies (two of them) having been donated by one of our volunteers who promised that they would be the best steak pies we ever tasted. I have to confess they were really lovely, although they did
initiate a debate on whether or not a steak pie should include sausages, which these one’s did.
 
Here in Scotland, we were straight into the celebration of the Epiphany with the Vigil Mass the following evening, as we are one of a few countries who have moved this great Solemnity to the nearest Sunday. It doesn’t seem right not to celebrate on the 6th and then take down the decorations on 12th night. It was also confusing for those people who join us for the streamed Masses from Ireland, north and south, who still hold the Epiphany on the proper day. On Monday the 4th, it was confirmed by the First Minister that we were going into a tier 4 enhanced lockdown, and that public worship would be suspended from Friday the 8th of January. We made plans on that basis, but then, on the following night, the Archdiocese advised that the Government had come back to them and said there was no exemption for any form of public worship, from the regulation not to leave home except for essential purposes. It was a bit   confusing and contradictory, but it meant that the last Mass before lockdown was the Mass for the Feast of Saint Charles of Mount Argus. So, for the time being, we are back to streamed Masses from Monday to Saturday at 12.15pm, and on Sunday at 7pm. You are also invited to Lectio Divina with the Passionist Young Team on Wednesday evenings at 7pm.
 
On Wednesday morning I made my way into the church to put up notices at the gates. I did a bit of office work, then returned to Bishopbriggs for Mass. On the way I had to go to the post office to send an A4 envelope containing some documents to our Provincial Office in Dublin and, for the first time since Brexit, I had to fill in a customs declaration form.  Afterwards, I did a bit of shopping and went out to Drumchapel again to make a sibling meal. As I drove the back roads home to Bishopbriggs, with their peaks and troughs and beautiful views of the Campsies, there was the most amazing sunset. The setting sun was a huge orange ball with streaks of pink and orange penetrating the clouds. But there was also a thick fog rolling in that gave the sky a rather eerie effect. On my car radio at present, I only seem to be able to get Absolute Rock or BBC Gael, so I was tuned to BBC Gael, even though I don’t have a word of Gaelic. I did however recognise the name of Philip Stopford, an Anglican composer of Sacred Music. After listening to a stunning choral piece, Ave Maris Stella, they played an even more stunning choral piece, Do Not Be Afraid, based on 4 verses from Isaiah 43. The combination of the beautiful sky and the stunning music made me feel, for the first time that day, and for the first time this new year, that there is no need to be afraid, all will be well.
As ever, protect yourselves, your loved ones, and others, and protect Christ in your lives.

1 Comment
    Picture

    FATHER FRANK KEEVINS C.P.

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