PassionistsGlasgow
  • Welcome To Saint Mungo's
  • Parish Newsletter
  • Parish Office / Visiting Saint Mungo's
  • Passionists Young Team
  • Universalis Mass Readings for Today
  • Website Links
  • St.Paul of the Cross
  • St. Paul of the Cross for Children
  • St.Charles of Mount Argus
  • St Mungo Patron Saint of Glasgow
  • St. Mungo's Parish
  • Photo Album
  • Safeguarding (Updated Oct 2022)
  • Archdiocese Privacy Notice
  • Father Franks Log
  • Fr Thomas Berry CP and the Environment
  • Synodal Path
  • Welcome To Saint Mungo's
  • Parish Newsletter
  • Parish Office / Visiting Saint Mungo's
  • Passionists Young Team
  • Universalis Mass Readings for Today
  • Website Links
  • St.Paul of the Cross
  • St. Paul of the Cross for Children
  • St.Charles of Mount Argus
  • St Mungo Patron Saint of Glasgow
  • St. Mungo's Parish
  • Photo Album
  • Safeguarding (Updated Oct 2022)
  • Archdiocese Privacy Notice
  • Father Franks Log
  • Fr Thomas Berry CP and the Environment
  • Synodal Path
  PassionistsGlasgow

father frank's log...

19/12/2020

0 Comments

 
FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 13th – 20th DECEMBER
​

It’s strange how, sometimes, when you are very busy, that you find yourself turning to tasks that you could easily have done at a time when you were less busy. I think it may have something to do with the flow of adrenalin. Ask a busy man, as the saying goes. Anyway, last Saturday, in the midst of a hectic schedule, I decided to renew my passport. It was due to expire at the end of next March, and I had thought about doing this a number of times recently. With Brexit looming I had pondered at one stage whether I should apply for an Irish passport, as Father Lawrence had done, God rest his soul. The process, however, of proving my Irish ancestry, faltered with the lack of being able to trace records from remote parts of Connemara and the Sligo-Donegal border, and so I never proceeded down this road. My last two passports, European Union of course, had been issued at the British Embassy in Dublin, where I was residing on each occasion. I Googled how best I might renew it this time, and settled on a service offered by the Post Office called Check and Send.
 
So it was that, last Saturday, with the rain bucketing down, I headed into West Nile Street Post Office. Busy as they were, so near to Christmas, the staff member who dealt with me could not have been more helpful, more courteous, or more efficient. I had debated with myself what glasses to wear for my photograph. I recently acquired new glasses but they are for distance sight only and I felt that, if I was going to be required to read and sign anything, I might be better wearing my old varifocals. In the end, I wore my varifocals, but had my other glasses in my bag so that I could change them for the photo. Standing in the photo booth next to the post office counter, I provided all the necessary information and handed over my old passport. When it came time for my photo to be taken, I was advised to take my glasses off as they weren’t allowed now for digital photos, so all my discernment about which glasses to wear was pointless. I’m not sure if this is simply to avoid glare or if it’s because, when you pass through the e-gates at airports, glasses have to be removed before facing the camera.
 
I had read, and had also been advised at the counter, not to use this Check and Send method of renewal if I was hoping to travel within the next 4 to 6 weeks. I didn’t expect that this would be a problem for me. I don’t expect to be going anywhere any time soon. I also paid a small fee to get my old passport sent back to me by registered post, just in case. I was surprised then that, no sooner had I stepped out into West Nile Street, I received a text and email to say my application was in process; on Monday I received another text and email to say they had received my old passport and then another to say it was being returned as promised; on Tuesday I received another text and email to say my renewal application had been approved, and on Wednesday I received another text and email to say that my new passport was in the post. Then today (Thursday) I had another text and email to tell me to sign the new passport with a black ballpoint pen before I use it. How efficient is that? So, I await my new, blue, UK passport – but I am still a bit saddened and annoyed by Brexit.
 
Father Justinian had his cataract removed last Monday, thus bringing to an end his period of self-isolation. Everything went very smoothly, but he wasn’t offered the Covid-19 vaccine as we thought might happen. Still, I’m sure he will get it before too long, and before any of the rest of us get it. Father Gareth is keeping a careful eye on how bad things seem to getting in Wales with Covid-19, but, to his great relief, his mum received good test results recently. Father Antony is preparing for another Covid test as he will be celebrating Mass, accompanied by Deacon Joe, on a ship on Christmas Day. This will be the last log for a couple of weeks as I will take a wee break from it now until the Christmas period is over. So, my thanks to all of you who read the log. I wish you a very happy and holy Christmas with every blessing for the coming year, which please God will be different from this year. As always, and especially at this blessed time, protect yourselves, protect others, and protect Christ in your lives
.
0 Comments

father frank's log...

10/12/2020

0 Comments

 
FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 6th – 13th DECEMBER

Last Tuesday I was at a well-known Supermarket, near to Saint Mungo’s, doing some food shopping for my brother, but I also needed to get ink cartridges for my printer in the office. I usually know exactly where to find them, but I was taken by surprise to see that they weren’t in their usual place, and that the space reserved for them was taken up with more Christmassy things. I searched the store high and low without success until I eventually sought out an
assistant to help me. I was told by a young lad that all the printing accessories had been stored in the back for the time being but that, if I knew the make and number I was looking for, he would go and seek one out for me. That was no problem, so, off he went on his search. It took him quite a while. In fact, I was approached twice by other assistants in the time I was waiting, standing like a statue, instead of zooming up and down the aisles, to ask if I was okay, but eventually he emerged from the storeroom with a multi-pack of what I required. I continued with my shopping and, only requiring a basketful, I made for the self-checkout to pay for my goods. After paying for them, and bagging them, I headed for the exit, only for the alarm to sound, and I then had the acute embarrassment of being called back into the check-out area. In all the palaver of getting the cartridges, I had completely forgotten that there was a security tab on them which I should have asked an assistant to remove. Feeling like a thief, and imagining half the store recognizing me and thinking that the Rector of Saint Mungo’s was being done for shoplifting, I frantically searched for my receipt which, of course, had found its way to the very bottom of my shopping bag, somewhere between the frozen chips and the fish fingers. At last, I found it and presented it to yet another assistant, who hardly looked at it before sending me on my way with a cheerful greeting for Christmas.
 
This wasn’t my first such experience. Any of you who know Dublin will remember the
famous Bewley’s Oriental Café on Grafton Street. It was a great place to go and spend a half hour or more, just to have a beverage, and engage in people watching, in the most quaint and magnificent Olde-Worlde surroundings. During my many years in Mount Argus, it was something I loved to do, if ever I had occasion to go into the city. On one particular visit I picked up a huge slice of carrot cake, my favourite, and the biggest mug of coffee on offer. These had to be paid for before finding a table, and this I did. Bewley’s was very busy that day, as it often was, and I had to weave in and out of the many nooks and crannies in search of a place to sit, which I eventually did. Just as I was enjoying my coffee and carrot cake, I was approached by an assistant who told me I hadn’t paid. People at other nearby tables were watching the exchange. In those days, when holding on to receipts didn’t seem to be as
essential as it is now, I would have had the habit of crumpling up the receipt and throwing it in a bin on my way to a table. Fortunately, on this occasion, I had crumpled up the receipt but, not passing a bin, I had put it in my pocket, and was, with great relief, able to produce it as proof of my payment. After profuse apologies, and the offer of a free, extra slice of carrot cake, which of course I accepted, I was able to continue my elevenses in peace. The moral of these stories is, hold on to your receipts until you are absolutely certain you won’t need them.
 
Out at the Passionist community house in Bishopbriggs, Father Justinian is self-isolating in preparation for a cataract removal next Monday. He will have a Covid test beforehand, and we are wondering if he might be offered the vaccine while there for his appointment. If so, he will gratefully accept it. My molar was successfully removed last Thursday although, as
expected, it took two dentists to make the extraction, with the senior dentist talking the junior dentist through a lesson on where to place her finger for leverage while making figure-8 movements with the extraction forceps, pliers to you and me, to remove the infected tooth. Anyway, I have had no problems since, so they must have, thankfully done a good job. Father
Antony and Father Gareth are fine, and still the biggest wind-up merchants you could find.

Anyway, as ever, protect yourselves, protect others, and protect Christ in your lives.

0 Comments

FAther frank's log...

4/12/2020

0 Comments

 
FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 29th NOVEMBER – 6th DECEMBER

This morning, for the first time this year, I awoke to snow outside and had to scrape snow from the car before coming into the church. I’m not sure how bad it will get, but it got me to
thinking about my worst, and perhaps best experiences of snow over the years.
 
On the Feast of the Epiphany, 1982, while I was a senior student at Mount Argus in Dublin, I had to bring one of the Passionist Community, Brother Paul, to the Passionist Retreat Centre at Crossgar in County Down, to which he had just been transferred. At the same time, one of our Passionist Postulants was finishing a post-Christmas retreat in Crossgar. The idea was that I would bring Brother Paul, with all his meagre belongings, to his new abode; stay
overnight, and then bring our postulant back to Dublin. On the morning of January 7th, we awoke to 3 feet of snow after a heavy overnight fall. The postulant was keen to get back to Dublin as there was to be a family gathering that night to bid farewell to his brother, who was leaving to take up a new job in America the following day. I phoned the AA who advised that, if I drove slowly and carefully, I should get back to Dublin safely, and so off we set.
 
We hadn’t gone too far when a snow blizzard started. This blizzard was to last for the next 36 hours. I had set out on a route through a place called Hilltown in County Down, taking us through Newry to Dundalk and then on to Dublin. Hilltown is appropriately named as the road is a series of peaks and troughs which became more and more treacherous the further we travelled. At one stage I became aware that there was a line of traffic behind me, and that I was the lead car they were all following in the hope that I would lead them safely. I had no notion at this stage whether I was on the left, the centre, or the right of the road; and each time I cam to the brow of a hill I wondered what I would encounter coming towards me. Eventually we got to Newry, but then decided we would try and get over the border into Dundalk and review the situation. When we reached Dundalk, with nerves frayed, we opted to stay the night and see how things were the following morning. My colleague would miss the family gathering but hopefully still be home to wave his brother off. Next day, slowly and carefully, we set out again. The blizzard wasn’t as bad and the roads were better, although we passed a number of cars that had been abandoned in snow drifts. At Balbriggan we were told that the Dublin Road would be closed until the next day, but then we heard that they were
letting people through and we took the chance. Finally, we made it back in one piece.
 
Later that same year I had moved to Rome for my diaconate year in preparation for
Ordination. There was a Passionist General Chapter on at the time with participants from all over the world. On one of the free days there was a trip to the Shrine of St. Gabriel at Isola del Gran Sasso. I went with them and as we came out of a newly constructed tunnel through the Gran Sasso mountain the snow was deep on the ground. It looked stunningly beautiful, and I remember there were some Filipino Passionists who had never experienced snow, who asked that the bus would stop so that they could get out and touch the snow and feel it in their hands, which they did with the excitement and wonder of children.
 
Another memory was in the early noughties when I attended a meeting at a Passionist
Monastery in Austria, which was situated next to a ski slope. With no intention of skiing I ascended the mountain in a chair lift. To this day it remains my most profound experience of silence, and it was also my first and only experience of dry snow, as I waded knee deep to a small war time chapel on the mountain, and never got wet.  My most recent encounter with heavy snow was in 2017, not long after my return to Saint Mungo’s, when, you may
Remember, I was stranded here at the church and had to sleep in the office for two nights
because I was unable to make it home to Bishopbriggs.

What will this pandemic year’s snow bring? Who knows? Just keep protecting yourselves, others, and Christ in your lives.

0 Comments
    Picture

    FATHER FRANK KEEVINS C.P.

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed