Blog Archives

father frank's log...

30/4/2021

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 25th APRIL – 2nd MAY

There are times when I am very conscious of how many different roles I carry, both for the Parish and the Passionists, and on occasion, such as is happening now, they all seem to make demands on me at one and the same time, and life becomes a bit hectic and stressful. One of the areas of demand at present concerns the Passionist Provincial Chapter which had been scheduled for last June, then postponed because of the pandemic; rescheduled for October; postponed again because of the pandemic; then rescheduled again for next July. At present it looks as if it will go ahead, and so much work has to be done. As the coordinator of the group responsible for preparing the Chapter I have the task of liaising with all the members of the Province on the discussions that have to take place beforehand. As the chair of a number of boards in the Province for different areas of our lives, I have to prepare reports on each of these areas as part of the Chapter package of materials that need to be considered. When I put these tasks together with all the other present demands, I feel like a juggler trying to keep a whole lot of balls, or plates, in the air at one time, but expecting them to crash to the ground at any moment. Hopefully, they won’t.
A Provincial Chapter is a gathering of the members to review crucial areas of our Passionist life and ministry, and to make decisions about our priorities going forward. The Chapter used to take place every 3 years but, since 1992, it takes place every 4 years. I was trying to count how many Chapters I have participated in since joining the Congregation 1n 1975. I reckon I have now taken part in 12 Provincial Chapters. The first of these was in 1977 while I was still a Postulant. It took place in the retreat house that the Passionists used to have at Coodham in Ayrshire. Our role as Postulants was mainly in the background, helping with practical things at meal times, and also in the evenings, when there was some kind of recreation after the day’s work was complete. One of my memories was that a number of our men, being of a certain age, were very dependent upon their All Bran for breakfast. It just so happened that in 1977 there was a shortage of supply of All Bran, not just in Scotland, but in many places, due to an underestimation of demand on the part of Kellogg’s. Myself and a fellow Postulant, yet another Scot, had the task of driving all around the locality, within a substantial radius, to try and locate any supermarkets; corner shops, grocers and the like, that might have a spare packet or two to sell. This task was arguably the most crucial one of the Chapter. For the most part we were successful and, so grateful were the men, that either one of us could have been elected Provincial, even though we were hardly in the door.
The other thing I remember about that year, 1977, was that after the Chapter we made our way down to Leeds, where we would spend the rest of the summer working in a homeless project that had been set up by a fellow Passionist. There were different aspects to the project, and our student body was divided into different locations, for work purposes, but we were all staying in a Retreat House in Ilkley that was run by the Passionists in England and Wales, a place called Middleton Lodge, that later became a pastoral centre for the Diocese of Leeds. It was a beautiful place, close to Ilkley Moor, and we spent a very happy month or more there, commuting into Leeds and back again each day, a journey of roughly an hour. The work was tiring, but the retreat centre was a relaxing place to retire to in the evenings. I had a cousin living in Headingly at the time, near the famous cricket ground, and it just so happened there was an Ashes tour at the time and the Headingly Test took place while were there. Not being a great cricket fan, I discovered a new understanding of the passion that people in that part of the country hold for, what to me, had seemed a very boring sport. My final memory of that summer was that, on coming down to breakfast on our final day, ready to begin the journey back to Glasgow to spend a couple of weeks with my family, we heard the news that Elvis Pressley had died the day before. I was as much of an Elvis fan as I was a cricket fan, but I still felt sad and shocked, and will always remember where I was when I heard the news.
So,as ever, protect yourselves, your loved ones and others, and protect Christ in your lives.

0 Comments

father frank's log...

24/4/2021

0 Comments

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 18th – 25th APRIL

As I write today, I am preparing to head over to the local Primary School to have a chat with the children who will be making their 1st Reconciliation next Monday. Father Gareth will call over to the other local Primary School to do the same tomorrow. Over the next couple of months, we will also be celebrating 1st Communions and Confirmations. While there are still some restrictions in place, it’s good to be celebrating these Sacraments once again.

I celebrated all of these sacraments in St. Simon’s in Partick, while I was attending St. Peter’s Primary School. Some memories still remain. For 1st Confession, as we called it then, I can remember hoping that it would be the young curate who would hear my 1st Confession. We had three priests at that time, all of them good, holy men, but the parish priest and the senior curate could be a bit stern, while the junior curate was cheerful and gentle. We had prepared and practiced well. On the day, when we were lined up outside the confessionals, and my turn came, it was the senior curate who became free and my heart sank. As it turned out, he could not have been more helpful, and I left the box feeling well cleansed of my sins, and even looking forward to the next time, not minding who the priest would be.

I can also remember the first time I heard a Confession as a priest. I had only been ordained in St. Mungo’s two days before by Cardinal Winning. At some time on the Monday after, the doorbell of the Retreat rang and was answered by the receptionist. She announced that there was a priest looking for Confession and, the then parish priest of St. Mungo’s, the late Father Michael, asked me to look after it. I panicked immediately and protested that I didn’t even have faculties yet, to which Father Michael replied that he had called Cardinal Winning that morning, and it was all sorted. As I entered the priests’ Confessional room in the Retreat it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t yet know by heart the words of absolution, and so I had to excuse myself for a minute, and run up to my room to find a little card that had the words printed on it, and then come back down to do the needful. I can tell you, hand on heart, that from that moment on, the words of absolution, long and short form, have been indelibly printed on my brain. I wonder how many Confessions I have heard since.

What I remember most about my 1st Communion, apart from receiving the body of Christ, of course, was the black blazer, grey trousers, white shirt, blue tie, and shiny black patent shoes, that were probably the nicest clothes I’d ever worn. There was also a lovely, pale blue sash draped perfectly from my left shoulder to my right hip. Afterwards we went to St. Simon’s Hall for a Communion breakfast, which seemed to consist of stone-cold sausage and egg, with some hot toast smothered in butter, and milky tea. Unlike today, there were no stacks of pound notes being pressed into my, or any other child’s hand, but still, I remember it as a very special day, a day when I felt very holy, and very close to Jesus. After making my 1st Communion, I became an altar server in St. Simon’s, and very quickly was being asked to train other altar servers, so I must have been reasonably good at it. The Mass was still in Latin then, of course. The same three priests were in the parish, and when I would be waiting in the sacristy for the priest celebrant to arrive, I still hoped it would be the young curate. My memories of Confirmation are not quite as strong. I remember the clothes were different, and the tie and the sash were red. Shortly afterwards my family would be leaving Partick and moving out to Drumchapel. I still commuted from Drumchapel to Partick to finish Primary School before accepting a bursary to move on to St. Mungo’s Secondary, an even longer commute, but I never did become an altar server in my new parish of St. Lawrence. However, something deep had been planted by the Holy Spirit, and here I am today. Come June, when the Confirmations will be celebrated, and, as we still await a successor to the late Archbishop Tartaglia to be appointed, I will have the privilege of conferring the Sacrament in his stead. So, as ever, protect yourself, your loved ones and others, and protect Christ in your lives.

0 Comments

father frank's log...

15/4/2021

0 Comments

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 11th – 18th APRIL
On Monday of this week, I performed a rather sobering task. I had to go into a Government website to apply for my over 70’s driving licence. I haven’t actually turned 70 yet, that’s not until June, but, as many of you will probably know, the licence can be applied for within 90 days of the actual birthday. After my application was submitted, I had to cut my old licence in half, and send it to the DVLC in Swansea. I always have a certain, anxious, unease, going into Government websites. It’s the warning about it being a criminal offence to provide wrong information that gets me. Being a fan of TV crime dramas, I always imagine our house being surrounded by armed police, and being told to come out with my hands up, because I have put in my wrong date of birth. Anyway, it was the first time that it really struck me that I will be turning 70 this year, and that gave me pause for reflection.

I also started thinking back to my last two birthdays ending in “0” during this millennium. In 2001, I was due to turn 50. In January of that year, I was transferred from St. Gabriel’s in Prestonpans, to St. Paul of the Cross, at Mount Argus in Dublin. Knowing that I was a raving introvert, and that I would find a big, surprise bash, my worst nightmare; my family had been looking to organise something more modest for when I would be home in the summer. Sadly, just a few weeks before my 50th birthday, my mother died, and so, all celebrations were, not just put on hold, but cancelled. I came back and celebrated the funeral, staying at home with my younger brother, who had been totally dedicated to looking after my mother in her later years. We were concerned about how he would move on, but, after a couple of weeks, he said to me that it was time for him to go back to work, and time for me to go back to Dublin, and that was it. He facilitated the way for us all to move on, so now it’s my turn to look after him.

In 2011, I was due to turn 60. I was still parish priest in Mount Argus, and this time there was to be no escaping the big, surprise bash, in what we called the upper room. It wasn’t really a surprise as some people, knowing how much I would recoil against it, thought it best to give me warning, so that I could prepare myself. It was a good celebration of food, wine and song, which left me utterly exhausted, but I appreciated the kindness of it all. The collective gift I was given was a Kindle. I had always said I would never buy a Kindle as, being a lover of books, I did not want to surrender the feeling of holding a good book in my hands and turning the pages in anticipation of what was to come. However, I have to confess that the Kindle has been a real blessing, even though, for certain books, I still buy hard copy, to have and to hold. For that special birthday my family came over to Ireland and took a big cottage in County Wicklow to house 3 generations of the clan for a week. They arrived on a Saturday and came to Mass in Mount Argus on the Sunday. It just so happened that an actor called Niall Tobin was at Mass that day. One of the roles he was famous for was Father Mac in Ballykissangel.
It turned out that my niece and grandniece were big fans of the series, and they were thrilled to see Niall talking to me outside after Mass. He was, in fact, a parishioner, and, when not on his travels, lived in one of the streets opposite the church, the same street that the singer Mary Black, and the actor Lorcan Cranitch, also lived. Ballykissangel was filmed in the village of Avoca in County Wicklow, not far from where my clan had taken their cottage, and so, later that day, we went for lunch in the pub that featured in the series, where the walls were totally covered in photographs taken from the show. It was a good start to the week. Later in the week, myself and my niece’s husband paid what remains my one and only visit to the famous Guinness Brewery in Dublin, thanks to two free tickets provided by Brother Martin Denny, who, before joining the Passionists, had been a cooper in Guinness, as had his father and his grandfather before him. We finished the tour looking out over panoramic views of the city from the penthouse bar, holding delicious pints of black stuff in our hands – very enjoyable.
So, now it’s onwards to my 70th. Hopefully, in these times, it will be nice and subdued. So, as always, protect yourself, protect your loved ones and others, and protect Christ in your lives.

0 Comments

father frank's log...

8/4/2021

0 Comments

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 4th – 11th APRIL
Over Holy Week and Easter I had occasion to share both joy and sorrow with three families. With regard to two of the families, there was news of a new baby on the way, the cause of great delight, but at the same time, there had been the recent bereavement of a loved one; there had also been the recent bereavement of a loved one in the third family, but alongside, for one of them, the successful completion of a long and difficult course of medical treatment which had been accompanied by the customary round of applause from hospital staff. These experiences of light and darkness seemed to tie in poignantly with the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord, and also made me think of the scripture text from the Book of Job, which is always part of the Morning Prayer of the Church of Wednesdays in Week Three: The Lord gave; the Lord has taken back; if we take happiness from God’s hand, must we not take sorrow too? My thoughts and prayers will remain with those families at this time.

Even today, as I write, there would seem to be an appropriateness about that text from Job. This is Father Justinian’s 90th birthday. In Psalm 90 – which also seems appropriate - it says that the normal span of a person’s life is 70 years, but 80 for those who are strong; so, what are we to say about someone who reaches 90? He is keeping extraordinarily well at this time, and we are looking forward to a community celebration this evening, with nice Italian food, his favourite, and, without a doubt, endless teasing from Father Gareth and Father Antony who, between them, don’t even get close to 90. I’ll say nothing about my own age. At the same time, today is also my own father’s anniversary. He died on this date, 8th April, in 1960, a day etched in my memory, and at the time he was only 40 years of age, which seems far too young. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away – Blessed be the name of the Lord!

The Easter Ceremonies seemed to go well. How very different from last year when myself and Father Antony celebrated them in an empty church, Father Gareth being at home in Wales at the time. So, even without the Washing of the Feet; the Veneration of the Cross; the Lighting of the Paschal Fire, and the Service of Light; still it was good to be with people in these, the most important liturgical services of our Christian Year, and to be able to acclaim an Alleluia together, giving thanks to the Risen Lord. Please God, next year, no restrictions.

Entering into Holy Week, I was relieved and delighted to get a paschal haircut from Father Antony. I was beginning to look like one of these aging hippies who had not yet learned to let go of the 1960’s which, when I come to think of it, seems to describe me well enough. All of my favourite music belongs to the 60’s, and of course the 60’s was the decade of Vatican II. It was also the decade when a certain Scottish football team became the first British club to win the European Cup and so, while I hope I have let go of many unnecessary things, and managed to mature in the most important areas of my life, there are some things I just don’t want to let go of, and probably never will. Hair continued to be a theme over the period. On Palm Sunday morning, one of our church volunteers told me that Radio Clyde had tweeted a picture of my older brother, the doyen of Scottish soccer journalism, sporting a perm. When I got a colleague to find this for me, not being a tweeter myself, I could remember this picture well, back in the 1970’s, when he and his long-suffering wife had identical hairstyles, very curly perms, and I have little doubt he would not have wanted those photos to see the light of day ever again. I don’t know whether it has anything to do with the perms, but they will be happily celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary later this year. Then, on the first day of the barber shops re-opening, 5th April, Father Gareth, not having been willing, for some reason, to trust himself to Father Antony’s clippers, and with a mass of thick, dark curls, that had him compared to Rod Steiger as Pontius Pilate in Jesus of Nazareth, went off to queue up at the local hairdressers, and return with a short back and sides. He is now a new man. So, as ever,
protect yourselves, protect your loved ones and others, and protect Christ in your lives.

0 Comments

father frank's log...

1/4/2021

0 Comments

FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 28th MARCH – 4th APRIL

Last Saturday we opened the church for the first time since Christmas, funerals excepted. We could have opened on Friday, and even on Thursday after the court ruling, but we had already designated Friday as an intense cleaning day in preparation for the start of Holy Week. We were due to open at 3.00 p.m. for Prayer; Adoration and Confessions, but with people already gathering outside, we began hearing Confessions at around 2.40 p.m. Despite being unable to use the Confessionals, we managed to find three places, so that Father Gareth, Father Antony and myself, could all be available for the celebration of the Sacrament. It became one of the most joyful experiences of the Sacrament that I have encountered in all of my 38 years of priesthood. The joy of people to be back in the church, to be able to pray before the Blessed Eucharist, to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and to experience the joy of being forgiven, was very palpable. At 5.00 p.m. we closed up again to do the necessary sanitization before admitting those who had booked in for the Vigil Mass of Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, as it is now called. We distributed palms as people came in, and we discovered that one of our volunteers had a real talent for making crosses from the palms, a skill that many people had either forgotten, or never possessed in the first place, so she ended up with a steady stream of people asking her to do the needful for them, to which she duly obliged.

The instruction in these Covid times was to use the short reading of the Passion to lessen the length of the Mass but, as Passionists, we felt it was more appropriate that we should read the full text, especially as this year we were using the Passion from St. Mark’s Gospel, which is the shortest of all the accounts. As the principal celebrant, Father Gareth took the part of Christ; Father Antony was the Narrator, and that left me with the Other Voices. It struck me that, having been a parish priest in various locations for the past 25 years, I had never actually spoken the part of the Other Voices, I had always taken the part of Christ, and I found it, very much, a different experience. I found myself really getting into it, confronting in myself the various emotions of the different characters in the Passion story, one moment being on the side of Jesus, taking his part, the next moment turning against him; then, one moment being his defender, and the next his accuser. It would have been a real, Oscar-winning performance, except that it didn’t feel like a performance, the emotions felt all too real.

After Mass it was good to greet the people outside of the Church, but I slipped away quite quickly, leaving the young men to lock up, so as to attend to my caring duties for my young brother. It turned into a prime example of the old adage – more haste, less speed. I, far too quickly, grabbed the shopping I had gotten for him earlier, took a few things out of the freezer in the office for his dinner, threw my own bag over my shoulder, and headed out to the car. Half way home I realised that, in all the mad rush, I had left my mobile phone in the office. It wasn’t lost, I knew exactly where it was, but I also knew I would need it later that night. When I got to my brother’s I told him I would make his dinner, but that I would then need to go back into the church to get my phone, so I wouldn’t be staying too long. When the dinner was almost ready, I asked him what he would like to drink with it and, true to form, he opted for Irn Bru. I poured the Irn Bru and brought it into him but, as I set it down on his tray, I inadvertently put it on top of a pen, and the whole glass spilled over the tray, creating about half an inch of Irn Bru, and soaking his reading glasses, as well as the remote controls for his TV and video recorder. I spent the next 10 minutes mopping up and drying off. Thankfully, everything still worked and, eventually, his dinner was put down in front of him too. Later than expected, I went back into the church, got my phone, and headed home. Needless to say, the emotions I felt were quite different to those experienced when reading the Passion. So, now for the celebration of the Sacred Triduum, and then, next Thursday, a very different kind of celebration, when we will mark the 90th birthday of Father Justinian, who is keeping well.
So, as ever, protect yourselves, your loved ones and others, and protect Christ in your lives.

0 Comments

father frank's log...

father frank's log...

father frank's log...

father frank's log...

father frank's log...

FATHER FRANK KEEVINS C.P.

Archives

Categories