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  PassionistsGlasgow

father frank's log...

21/12/2018

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FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 16th – 23rd DECEMBER
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There have been lots of recent campaigns encouraging people to donate blood and, as I write, Brother Antony and I are getting ready to celebrate our final Mass of the year at Glasgow Caledonian University, after which he hopes to dander down to Nelson Mandela Place and give blood for the 19th time, according to the form he received, although he had thought it was more. I, myself, used to regularly donate blood, but all that came to a halt back in 1985.
I was based in St. Mungo’s at the time, not too long after my ordination, and I had been invited by the Passionist Contemplative Nuns in Daventry, 80 miles northwest of London, to come down and give them an Advent Retreat. I was very happy to do this and looked forward to it as, at that time, there were a number of young nuns in the community who had joined through a Passion Prayer group that Father Paul Francis and I used to hold in St. Mungo’s, which was in fact a development from the Jesus Evening prayer group that Father Terence, my predecessor as Vocations Director, used to run.
 
The Passionist Nuns in Daventry tried to be self-sufficient in different ways, including bookbinding and carpentry but, more controversially, they kept battery hens and sold the eggs. They were always being “visited” by animal rights groups and, in time, they abandoned this occupation and took up the more acceptable, but not as lucrative occupation, of making Belgian chocolates instead – two of the nuns were Belgian and had a secret recipe. The ethics of keeping hens in battery cages was settled when an EU ban came into force some years ago, although I believe the practice still goes on, but this was well before that. The nuns kept two huts with roughly 10,000 egg-laying hens in each hut, and while I was there conducting the retreat one of the huts was being cleared and cleaned out to make way for a new batch of hens. A distinctive and unpleasant smell hung in the air that I felt I was breathing in the whole time. The retreat finished and, much as I had enjoyed it, and the nuns treated me very well, I was glad to get back to Glasgow and to St. Mungo’s for Christmas.
 
Very soon after my return I began to get carbuncles appearing on various parts of my body, most especially under my armpits and on the back of my neck. No sooner would one clear up than another would appear, and I felt totally drained, and permanently exhausted. Medication didn’t seem to help and eventually I was admitted to the Royal Infirmary to get a carbuncle removed from the back of my neck, and for a swab to be taken for analysis. The legendary Father Ambrose was chaplain at the time and I remember him giving me the Sacrament of the Sick the night before surgery. I went down to theatre next morning and the next thing I remember was waking up out of the anaesthetic with a lovely floating and peaceful feeling, and the realisation that it was all over. It was the weekend, and so I was let home to the Retreat and ordered to rest. The Rector kindly allowed a television to be put into my room and I remember on the Sunday night, 28th April 1985, lying awake watching Dennis Taylor beat Steve Davis on a re-potted black in the last of 35 frames, in an extraordinary and famous World Snooker Championship Final from the Crucible in Sheffield, which at 14 hours and 50 minutes, over two days, remains the longest final ever played. I watched it all from my bed.
 
The swab revealed a blood infection that was treatable by applying a tincture deep into my nostrils when I would feel my nose starting to swell, which apparently was the source, and the first sign of a carbuncle on the way. After a while the whole thing cleared up and, thankfully, it hasn’t returned since, but I was never allowed to donate blood after that. Now, I may be doing those poor hens a terrible disservice, but I have always considered them to be the cause of my lengthy, painful ailment, and of bringing to an end my blood-donor days.
 
The log will take a wee break now for the next few weeks, so let me wish you all a very happy and holy Christmas, with every blessing for the coming year.


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father frank's log...

14/12/2018

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FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 9th – 16th DECEMBER
This weekend in St. Mungo’s we are happily celebrating a Thanksgiving Mass for the Golden Jubilee of Passionist priesthood, of two men who have played a big part in my own journey as a Passionist down the years; Father Jim Sweeney CP, and Father Bernard Lowe CP.
In 2016 at our Provincial Chapter, Father Jim became the first Scot ever to be elected Provincial of the Passionists of St. Patrick’s Province, which is made up of a number of houses in Scotland and Ireland, as well as an English-speaking parish in Paris. Until recently St. Patrick’s Province also included South Africa, Botswana and Zambia, and while restructuring has seen our African Passionists move in the direction of autonomy, our Province still retains a close relationship with them to help and support them on that journey.
 
My first experience of Father Jim was during my working years. In 1969, after leaving St. Mungo’s Secondary School, where Father Jim had just been appointed chaplain, I had started going to the Passionist Retreat House at Coodham in Ayrshire and had become a lay member of the team conducting the retreats. Father Jim had been ordained in December 1968 and, while based in St. Mungo’s, he had also got involved with the Youth and Young Adult Retreats at Coodham. In those exciting times after Vatican II, I always found his inputs and liturgies hugely inspiring, and, without doubt, his inspiration contributed to my decision, made in the summer of 1974, to abandon accountancy and test out a Passionist vocation. Father Jim had also been appointed Vocations Director for the Passionists in Scotland and I remember leaving work in Olivetti one day and getting off the bus at St. Mungo’s to go and make my initial approach. When I got to the Retreat, I discovered that there had been a Provincial Chapter that summer, and that Father Jim had been replaced as Vocations Director by Father Michael Doogan, who had been ordained in December 1970. Those who knew Father Michael will appreciate that I didn’t have a straightforward accompaniment process with him. Always larger than life, Father Michael had me involved in all sorts of things, and it was only after I entered the following year, and heard my classmates talking about their interview experiences, that I realised that I had never actually had an interview. The only thing I remember from that time was a very young and fresh-faced Father Paul Francis, home for a family visit, filling me in on life as a Passionist Postulant and Student. Father Jim was transferred to Coodham after the 1974 Chapter and he continued to be a big influence on me and a great support to me as I prepared to leave for the Graan in Enniskillen, where my postulancy was due to take place, and he has continued to be an inspiration and support down through the years. I was very happy when he was elected Provincial.
 
After 4 years of postulancy and studies I was more than ready to go to the Passionist Novitiate in Crossgar, County Down. It was 1979 and myself and my classmates had waited on in Dublin for the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland before heading north. The Novice Master was Father Bernard Lowe, who had prepared for this ministry by spending some time in America. Father Bernard is a very gentle, quiet man; but with a breadth of wisdom and knowledge that is hard to match, and an edge of steel that only comes into play when it has to. I look back on my Novitiate as one of the best and most formative years of my life, as indeed it is meant to be, and a lot of that was down to Father Bernard. In later years when I was also made Novice Master, I had a very good role model to look back on. I also served on the Provincial Council when Father Bernard was the Provincial, and we worked together for a number of years in Mount Argus when he succeeded me as Rector and I continued on as Parish Priest. He is a genuinely good and holy man. I could not do justice to these two good and gifted men in such a few words, but I congratulate them and wish them every blessing.
 
May God’s love and grace be on Father Jim and Father Bernard, in thanks for all they have given of themselves in the service of God these past 50 years as Passionist Priests. Amen.

​
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father frank's log...

8/12/2018

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FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 2nd – 9th DECEMBER
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I’ve lost count of the number of storms we have encountered over the past few months, but as Storm Diane raged recently, my thoughts drifted back exactly 36 years to a storm I experienced on a mountaintop in Italy that was the closest thing I have come to feeling I was in the presence of El Shaddai – one of the names given to the God of Israel - usually translated as God Almighty, but which can also be understood as the God of the Mountain.
 
After my final profession of vows as a Passionist in September 1982, I travelled to Rome to study pastoral theology at the Gregorian University before returning to Glasgow for priestly ordination the following June. As a prior step I was to be ordained a transitional deacon in our Passionist Monastery of Saints John and Paul in Rome, in December 1982. Towards the end of November that year I had taken and passed my faculty exams at St. John Lateran and I was to make a retreat in preparation for my diaconate ordination.
 
I knew I would never get an opportunity like this again, so I asked the rector of Saints John and Paul if I could make my retreat in the Passionist monastery on Monte Argentario, the first ever retreat established by St. Paul of the Cross, set on a mountaintop, and named after the Presentation of Our Lady, a feast of Mary that was close to the heart of our founder. I was readily given permission and so, almost immediately after my faculty exams, I made my way to the coast, north-west of Rome, and ascended the mountain to the Retreat.
 
On the fourth day of the retreat, I had been praying and reflecting on the story of Abraham and Isaac, in which Abraham ascends the mountain with his son, thinking that he was to sacrifice his only son to God, only for God to stay his hand at the last minute. The reflection was intended to instil in me a sense that ordination meant putting God and God’s purposes before all else, and making God, in obedience to His word, my ultimate concern.
 
As I stepped out on to the mountain after evening meal that night, into the darkness, an almighty storm was raging, torrential rain, a mighty wind, thunder and lightning – the works. And even though one of my favourite scripture texts, from the 1st Book of the Kings, is where Elijah goes out on the mountain and does not experience God in any of these things, but rather in a gentle breeze, still I felt there was something of the divine presence that night.
 
Further up the mountain there was some kind of electrical power installation that was set in the form of a cross. It was discretely lit up at night, but when, every now and again, there was a flash of lightning, it lit up all the more. It was all very dramatic. I know it sounds mad, and it was mad, but I felt compelled to walk up the mountain towards the cross. I was well wrapped up and the mountain path was good underfoot, although steep and winding, and I had to walk against a mighty wind, Passionist habit flapping against my legs, two steps forward, one step back, but eventually I reached the cross. I stood there for a while thinking of Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah; Moses ascending Mount Sinai to receive the 10 commandments; Elijah experiencing God in the gentle breeze, also on Mount Sinai; Jesus transfigured on Mount Tabor; Jesus carrying his cross up Mount Calvary to be Crucified, and finally the Ascension of Jesus from Mount Olivet.
 
Like the disciples coming down from Tabor, I eventually, and a little reluctantly, descended into ordinary life, which is where God must be encountered most of all, but I knew I had experienced something I would never forget, something, the power of which, seems to touch me again and again, whenever there is a storm, or whenever I ascend a mountain to pray.
 
During those days, Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and He spent all night in prayer to God. (Luke 6:12)


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    FATHER FRANK KEEVINS C.P.

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