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  PassionistsGlasgow

father frank's log...

26/10/2019

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FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 20th – 27th OCTOBER
​
On a few occasions in this Log I have mentioned the five years I spent, from 1970-1975, working in the Accounts Department at the Olivetti factory in Queenslie, before leaving to enter the Passionists. I was blessed with good work companions and good bosses and, for the most part, I enjoyed my work, even though that particular period involved a time of high inflation, leading to miners’ strikes, resulting in the imposition of a three-day working week to conserve electricity, and the enforced redundancies of friends and colleagues, the sorrow of which I feel to this day.
 
A few weeks ago, I unexpectedly received a phone call from one of my old Olivetti bosses. He had come across a selection of my Logs in the Flourish and decided he would make contact with St. Mungo’s and try to meet up with me, which I was very happy to do as I remembered him as a very kind, helpful, humorous and humble man. After one or two failed attempts we eventually met for lunch this week. Not having seen each other for more than forty years, I actually walked past him twice without recognising him, before tentatively approaching him. He had been looking at me with uncertainty as well, eventually telling me that my photograph in the Flourish suggested I had more hair than I actually had, so, not the most auspicious of starts to our reunion.
 
Naturally, we reminisced about those turbulent times and circumstances, and about the people we remembered, he coming up with names I had forgotten about, and me coming up with names that he had forgotten about, as is natural. We filled each other in on how our own lives’ journeys had developed and in the course of that he recounted for me a serious health scare he endured some years ago, a heart episode during which his heart actually stopped twice and, to cut a long story short, he could not have been more effusive in his praise of the paramedics, the ambulance crew and the NHS, to the point that he later wrote to a couple of newspapers and to the NHS, at a time when the NHS was under fire, to express his deep gratitude. The only ones that responded were the NHS. One of the things that helped him was that he had kept himself fit over the years and that stood him in good stead for the surgery.
 
However, even more so, my old boss attributed his recovery to the power of prayer. He was always a man of faith and a man of prayer, involved in parish life, offering his time and his talents, but he and his wife had also become part of an international network of prayer, and so he knew that prayers were being said for his recovery in different parts of the world and, for him, this was the key to his recovery. In fact, when we met that day, he handed me a card from him and his good wife to give to my younger brother, whom they have never met, but whose health struggles they had also read about in my Logs, to assure him that he was now being prayed for by them, and by this network, this community of intercessory prayer. I was deeply moved by this and very grateful, and I gave the card to my brother that same day.
 
Here is St. Mungo’s, while we are celebrating Mass in the hall during major refurbishment in the church, and so unable to burn votive candles for health and safety reasons, we have a prayer tree, whereby people write their intention on a leaf and hang it on the tree. When remembering these intentions, I always say that the prayer of each one of us becomes the prayer of all of us, because we are a community, a family of faith. The prayer of intercession is such an important part of our lives of faith, but how much more powerful it is when it is not just the prayer of one, but of many people, mindful of each other before our loving God.
 
We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in His plan for the answer. If we are true intercessors, we must be ready to take part in God’s work on behalf of the people for whom we pray. (Corrie Ten Boom)


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father frank's log...

20/10/2019

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FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 13th – 20th OCTOBER
​
After another hectic week I had almost decided I wouldn’t manage to write the Log this week, but then yesterday, as I was leaving Carfin after the AGM of the Conference of Religious in Scotland, I got chatting to an elderly Mill Hill priest who asked me my name; when I told him he asked me, “are you the man that writes the Logs?”      “I am,” I said. He then went on to say he enjoyed them and so I began to feel guilty about reneging. I decided that the following day I would somehow find the time to get something down, and so here I am.
 
It had been a good day in Carfin. The morning time was given over to a talk by a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Andrew’s and Edinburgh, Fr. Anthony Lappin, who gave a summary of the six chapters of Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si”, leading to round table discussions and feedback. In his encyclical Pope Francis has a critique of what he calls the technological paradigm, in other words how our use of technology affects our way of living and affects the planet, our earthly home. Ironically, the opening part of the meeting was hampered by a failure in technology. Fr. Lappin couldn’t get his laptop to connect with the overhead projector for his PowerPoint presentation. I imagined God, and Pope Francis, smiling. This meant that the first three chapters of Laudato Si were summarised in a simple talk without PowerPoint. The technology was sorted for the summary of the next three chapters, using the PowerPoint, and I must confess I found it much easier to listen without the PowerPoint, but then I’m just an old Luddite. Either way, the talk was very good and I enjoyed the round table discussions with Religious who had lived and worked in every corner of the globe and had a great variety of experiences and wisdom to bring to the table. 
 
After Mass we had some lunch; which was a reminder to us of the recent closure of the cafeteria in Carfin. At previous meetings we would have had a hot meal option provided by the catering staff, but this time it was sandwiches, sausage rolls and cakes, but everyone was happy enough and well satisfied. I think that St. Mungo’s was one of the last big groups to make use of the cafeteria as, in this jubilee year of the 150th anniversary of our church, we brought a bus load to Carfin for a pilgrimage day and thoroughly enjoyed soup, steak pie and apple tart for our lunch. Hopefully Carfin will find a good way forward as it really is a lovely pilgrim place to visit, but it’s always nice to be able to feed the body as well as the soul.
 
At the time of writing we are preparing for another event to celebrate our jubilee year. Tonight (Friday) we are holding a dinner dance in the National Piping Centre. It’s an opportunity to come together and enjoy some social time together as friends and lovers of St. Mungo’s. I think the last time I was at a dinner dance I was working in Olivetti and the annual dinner dance used to take place in the Eagle Lodge in Bishopbriggs, which of course is just a few minutes’ walk from where the Passionist community now lives. This dinner dance has been planned to take place on the eve of the Feast of St. Paul of the Cross, the founder of the Passionists and, once we have finished celebrating our 150th anniversary of the church, we will be moving on to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Passionists next year, 2020; 1720 being the year that St. Paul of the Cross first put on the Passionist habit, revealed to him in a vision by Our Lady, and then began a 40-day retreat, during which he wrote the first Passionist Rule, in preparation for gathering companions to join him in this venture, and who would later on become the Congregation of the Passion – the Passionists.
 
Christ Crucified is a work of love. The miracle of miracles of love. The most stupendous work of the love of God. The bottomless sea of the love of God, where virtues are found, where one can lose oneself in love and sorrow. A sea and a fire or a sea of fire. The most beneficial means of abandoning sin and growing in virtue, and so in holiness.
(St. Paul of the Cross)

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father frank's log...

13/10/2019

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FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 6th – 13th OCTOBER
​
In an earlier Log I mentioned an Australian Passionist, Chris, with whom I studied in Rome, and who unexpectedly, and delightfully, surprised me by turning up at my ordination in St. Mungo’s in June 1983. I had no idea he was coming. Not having seen Chris for many years, I was working in the office at St. Mungo’s a couple of weeks ago when, out of the blue, I received a phone call. Lo and behold it was him, the man of surprises. “I’m in Amsterdam”, says he, “and I’ll be arriving in Glasgow later tonight”. This was the first I’d heard of it, so I was a bit torn between delight and panic. My life is very scattered at the moment between church refurbishment; jubilee celebrations, my brother’s illness, Parish and Passionist commitments, and just keeping the ordinary day to day stuff going so, on the one hand, this was going to be one more thing to try and make time for in an already crazy schedule. On the other hand, and this was far more important, how good it would be to see Chris again, reminisce about our time in Rome; and have a right old catch-up with each other.
 
Of course, there was still the problem of accommodation to be sorted out. As you may know, our St. Mungo’s Passionist community consists of 5 members living in a 4-bedroom house in Bishopbriggs. Where were we going to put number 6? On the night of his arrival Chris had booked into a B&B near St. Mungo’s so, on the following morning, while drinking coffee after the 10 o’clock Mass, we had a brain-storming session to find a resolution. Brexit seemed less complicated than this. Being very fit and adventurous, Chris had come equipped with all kinds of camping gear. It turns out he is on a 3-month sabbatical from his very demanding job as a college president, as well as being a member of the Provincial Council of the Passionists in Australia. His sabbatical is very open-ended and fluid in terms of his plans, other than that he hopes to re-connect with old friends and acquaintances, of which I was happily one. At first, in our deliberations, he was eyeing the floor of the office in St. Mungo’s as the likely place to lay down his sleeping mat. I had done this myself when we were snow-bound a couple of winters ago but, while it was okay for a night or two, it wouldn’t have been suitable for any longer as washing and cooking facilities are extremely limited. In the end, we decided that the best thing was for Chris to pitch his sleeping mat on the floor of our sitting room in Bishopbriggs, and so it came to pass. Welcomed by the community, Chris gratefully bedded down in our midst for a week before heading to Pluscarden for a few days retreat; after which he came back to Bishopbriggs for a couple more nights, before heading off to Dublin, where he was due to give some lectures to seminarians as a favour to another old friend, before continuing his adventure to who knows where. At this moment he is probably camped beside some billabong in the West of Ireland. May he journey on safely.
 
While Chris was in Pluscarden, I had to attend a Safeguarding Conference in Heriot Watt University. I had never been there before but, thanks to Google, I discovered that there was a train station called Curriehill within walking distance. I decided I would get the train early Saturday morning from Glasgow Central to Curriehill, find somewhere for breakfast, and then have a leisurely walk to my destination. However, Curriehill train station turned out to be in the middle of nowhere. All I could see were fields on all sides, and I started to wish I had brought Chris’s camping gear. Finding breakfast was a non-starter, and I had absolutely no idea what direction to head in, a bit like Chris’s sabbatical. Taking the advice of St. Francis of Assisi, I spun on the spot and then started heading the way I was facing, which turned out to be the wrong way. Thankfully I met an early morning dog-walker who pointed me back in the direction from which I had come, and eventually I arrived at Herriot Watt.
 
Lord, help me to live this day, quietly, easily. To lean upon Thy great strength, trustfully, restfully. To wait for the unfolding of Thy will, patiently, serenely. To meet others, peacefully, joyously. To face tomorrow, confidently, courageously. (St. Francis of Assisi)


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    FATHER FRANK KEEVINS C.P.

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