FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 8th – 15th DECEMBER 2024
I ended last week’s log by lamenting that I had a really bad head cold which may or may not have been connected to the winter vaccines I had received at the beginning of that week. As I write this week, my cold lingers on despite my best efforts to dose myself with paracetamol; suck endless Strepsils; take plenty of fluids, and get to bed as early as possible. As usual, the common cold will stubbornly take its own time, no matter what I do. There was one day, mind you, when I woke up feeling quite good, but then made the mistake of deciding to change all my bedding, at the end of which I was totally exhausted and back to square one. So, my sincere apologies to all those good people in St Mungo’s and St Roch’s who have had to listen to me croaking and sniffling my way through Mass each day.
Last Friday, being driven back from a funeral in the hearse, the driver asked me if I was going home to write my sermon for Sunday. It turned out that his father is a deacon who regularly sits down and writes out his sermons for the following Sunday. I was reminded that this was something I used to do in my diaconate and in the early years of my priesthood. I would sit down and write out, longhand, every word of my homilies, sometimes taking great care to use just the right word if there were a variation of terms that could be used. I would try to ensure I had a beginning, a middle, and an end, and then I would learn the whole thing off by heart before preaching it. The challenge was to try and make it come across very naturally, and not as something learned and repeated by rote. I even used to do this with retreat talks, mission sermons, and lectures, which were all much longer than homilies. I came near to fitting the image of the priest in the Paul McCartney song, Eleanor Rigby - Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear - no one comes near. In those days of course, lots of people came near and would hear, with very healthy attendances in both Scotland and Ireland. I still have a folder of retreat talks I gave to Passionists in Botswana on my first trip to Africa. It took ages to write them out in longhand, and I can see now how neat and legible my handwriting was then – but not now!
For a long time now, I approach homilies in a very different way, and I seldom write a single word down, except for funerals, when there may be details of a person’s life that I don’t want to get wrong. Usually, I peruse the Sunday readings on the previous Monday, and then I mull them over in my mind throughout the week, even in my bed. One of my favourite scripture texts is from Psalm 69 – on my bed I remember you, on you I muse through the night – and so I do just that, I muse through the night, drifting in and out of sleep, while asking the grace of the Holy Spirit to help me form some thoughts that would be helpful, both to me, and to those who might listen. Sometimes the Holy Spirit acts quickly. Most times the Holy Spirit keeps me waiting, and often it’s quite late in the week when I feel I have received a word.
You might think that this is not a very good formula for having a good night’s sleep. However, I think the opposite. If I wasn’t remembering the Lord on my bed, musing through the night, or pondering on my pillow, I would no doubt be thinking of a host of other things to keep me awake. There is no shortage of issues, whether as a parish priest, a bursar, a family member, or just as a human being, to preoccupy oneself, and to create, what is sometimes referred to as a monkey-mind, random thoughts and worries, swinging from one branch to another, and going nowhere. Most times in my musing, I end up with a good night’s sleep, depending on how many times, as a 73-year-old man, I have to get up through the night. But usually, when I wake up in the morning, there is some holy and wholesome thought or idea in my mind, that wasn’t there when I first lay down, thanks to the Holy Spirit.
As ever, protect yourself, your loved ones and others, and protect Christ in your lives.
I ended last week’s log by lamenting that I had a really bad head cold which may or may not have been connected to the winter vaccines I had received at the beginning of that week. As I write this week, my cold lingers on despite my best efforts to dose myself with paracetamol; suck endless Strepsils; take plenty of fluids, and get to bed as early as possible. As usual, the common cold will stubbornly take its own time, no matter what I do. There was one day, mind you, when I woke up feeling quite good, but then made the mistake of deciding to change all my bedding, at the end of which I was totally exhausted and back to square one. So, my sincere apologies to all those good people in St Mungo’s and St Roch’s who have had to listen to me croaking and sniffling my way through Mass each day.
Last Friday, being driven back from a funeral in the hearse, the driver asked me if I was going home to write my sermon for Sunday. It turned out that his father is a deacon who regularly sits down and writes out his sermons for the following Sunday. I was reminded that this was something I used to do in my diaconate and in the early years of my priesthood. I would sit down and write out, longhand, every word of my homilies, sometimes taking great care to use just the right word if there were a variation of terms that could be used. I would try to ensure I had a beginning, a middle, and an end, and then I would learn the whole thing off by heart before preaching it. The challenge was to try and make it come across very naturally, and not as something learned and repeated by rote. I even used to do this with retreat talks, mission sermons, and lectures, which were all much longer than homilies. I came near to fitting the image of the priest in the Paul McCartney song, Eleanor Rigby - Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear - no one comes near. In those days of course, lots of people came near and would hear, with very healthy attendances in both Scotland and Ireland. I still have a folder of retreat talks I gave to Passionists in Botswana on my first trip to Africa. It took ages to write them out in longhand, and I can see now how neat and legible my handwriting was then – but not now!
For a long time now, I approach homilies in a very different way, and I seldom write a single word down, except for funerals, when there may be details of a person’s life that I don’t want to get wrong. Usually, I peruse the Sunday readings on the previous Monday, and then I mull them over in my mind throughout the week, even in my bed. One of my favourite scripture texts is from Psalm 69 – on my bed I remember you, on you I muse through the night – and so I do just that, I muse through the night, drifting in and out of sleep, while asking the grace of the Holy Spirit to help me form some thoughts that would be helpful, both to me, and to those who might listen. Sometimes the Holy Spirit acts quickly. Most times the Holy Spirit keeps me waiting, and often it’s quite late in the week when I feel I have received a word.
You might think that this is not a very good formula for having a good night’s sleep. However, I think the opposite. If I wasn’t remembering the Lord on my bed, musing through the night, or pondering on my pillow, I would no doubt be thinking of a host of other things to keep me awake. There is no shortage of issues, whether as a parish priest, a bursar, a family member, or just as a human being, to preoccupy oneself, and to create, what is sometimes referred to as a monkey-mind, random thoughts and worries, swinging from one branch to another, and going nowhere. Most times in my musing, I end up with a good night’s sleep, depending on how many times, as a 73-year-old man, I have to get up through the night. But usually, when I wake up in the morning, there is some holy and wholesome thought or idea in my mind, that wasn’t there when I first lay down, thanks to the Holy Spirit.
As ever, protect yourself, your loved ones and others, and protect Christ in your lives.
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