FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 15th – 22nd DECEMBER 2024
I was watching a crime drama with my brother recently, in which the senior detective thought that the junior detective was just a wee bit too sure of himself. He suggested to him that what he lacked was experience, because the more experience you acquire, he said, the humbler you become. That struck me as being very true.
I was reminded of a story that I heard almost 40 years ago. Three years after I was ordained, I was asked by our Provincial to participate in a year-long Formation Ministry Programme, with the intention of taking up a role as director of our postulants at Mount Argus in Dublin. Postulancy is one of the early stages of formation in religious life. I had spent those first three years after ordination in St Mungo’s, mainly as Vocations Director for the Passionists in Scotland, but also as part of a small mission and retreat team, travelling the length and breadth of the country as itinerant preachers. I was very happy in both of those roles, and I was also very happy being based in St Mungo’s, where we had a really good community of eleven Passionists; ten priests and one brother, engaged in a variety of works, and very much enjoying each other’s company. It was also good to be back near family again.
It was a bit of a wrench, then, to uproot so soon, and to embark on this new venture. There were thirty of us on the course, twenty women and ten men, from fifteen different countries, and five different continents. They would turn out to be some of the best people I ever met, and a joy to be with. The ethos of the course was that, if we were to make a journey of discernment with young people entering religious life, then we had to be able to make that same journey within ourselves. The story I referred to earlier was told to us at the beginning of the course. It concerned a young religious who had been sent out as a foreign missionary to Africa, where they would be living and working with a more senior religious who had been there for thirty years. The junior was looking forward to learning from all those years of experience acquired by the older religious. However, it didn’t take the young religious long to discover that, far from having thirty years of experience, all the older religious had was one year of experience repeated thirty times. There had been no learning, no growth, no wisdom and, sadly, no humility. That story set the tone for how we would try to approach this privileged year of engaging in that journey of deep spiritual and personal discovery, a journey that, I hope, at the end of the day, made us all a bit humbler.
One of my favourite characters on the course was a big, gentle giant of an Irishman, sadly since deceased, who would later take on a major leadership role in his Congregation, and have to deal with some very difficult issues. For a number of years after the course, a number of us would meet up for an annual reunion, our gentle giant included, and he had emerged from our course with a catch-phrase that we all took on board, and which I think reflected that sense of humility. “I don’t always get it right”, he would say, “and that’s okay”. If experience teaches us anything, it’s that we can’t always get it right, but if we are doing the best we can then, even if we get it wrong, that’s okay. I am over 41 years ordained now, and hopefully that’s 41 years of experience, and not just one year repeated 41 times. I know I have made lots of mistakes during that time, and didn’t always get it right, but that’s okay. Something I didn’t get right recently was the date and time of our Advent Reconciliation Service in St Roch’s. Not only did I manage to clash with a big football match, but it was also a night of freezing fog. There were 8 people in the church, and four of them were Passionists. But that was okay – the mercy of God flowed in abundance, as all it takes is two or more. The log will take a wee break now until the New Year. Have a Happy and Blessed Christmas.
As ever, protect yourself, your loved ones and others, and protect Christ in your lives.
I was watching a crime drama with my brother recently, in which the senior detective thought that the junior detective was just a wee bit too sure of himself. He suggested to him that what he lacked was experience, because the more experience you acquire, he said, the humbler you become. That struck me as being very true.
I was reminded of a story that I heard almost 40 years ago. Three years after I was ordained, I was asked by our Provincial to participate in a year-long Formation Ministry Programme, with the intention of taking up a role as director of our postulants at Mount Argus in Dublin. Postulancy is one of the early stages of formation in religious life. I had spent those first three years after ordination in St Mungo’s, mainly as Vocations Director for the Passionists in Scotland, but also as part of a small mission and retreat team, travelling the length and breadth of the country as itinerant preachers. I was very happy in both of those roles, and I was also very happy being based in St Mungo’s, where we had a really good community of eleven Passionists; ten priests and one brother, engaged in a variety of works, and very much enjoying each other’s company. It was also good to be back near family again.
It was a bit of a wrench, then, to uproot so soon, and to embark on this new venture. There were thirty of us on the course, twenty women and ten men, from fifteen different countries, and five different continents. They would turn out to be some of the best people I ever met, and a joy to be with. The ethos of the course was that, if we were to make a journey of discernment with young people entering religious life, then we had to be able to make that same journey within ourselves. The story I referred to earlier was told to us at the beginning of the course. It concerned a young religious who had been sent out as a foreign missionary to Africa, where they would be living and working with a more senior religious who had been there for thirty years. The junior was looking forward to learning from all those years of experience acquired by the older religious. However, it didn’t take the young religious long to discover that, far from having thirty years of experience, all the older religious had was one year of experience repeated thirty times. There had been no learning, no growth, no wisdom and, sadly, no humility. That story set the tone for how we would try to approach this privileged year of engaging in that journey of deep spiritual and personal discovery, a journey that, I hope, at the end of the day, made us all a bit humbler.
One of my favourite characters on the course was a big, gentle giant of an Irishman, sadly since deceased, who would later take on a major leadership role in his Congregation, and have to deal with some very difficult issues. For a number of years after the course, a number of us would meet up for an annual reunion, our gentle giant included, and he had emerged from our course with a catch-phrase that we all took on board, and which I think reflected that sense of humility. “I don’t always get it right”, he would say, “and that’s okay”. If experience teaches us anything, it’s that we can’t always get it right, but if we are doing the best we can then, even if we get it wrong, that’s okay. I am over 41 years ordained now, and hopefully that’s 41 years of experience, and not just one year repeated 41 times. I know I have made lots of mistakes during that time, and didn’t always get it right, but that’s okay. Something I didn’t get right recently was the date and time of our Advent Reconciliation Service in St Roch’s. Not only did I manage to clash with a big football match, but it was also a night of freezing fog. There were 8 people in the church, and four of them were Passionists. But that was okay – the mercy of God flowed in abundance, as all it takes is two or more. The log will take a wee break now until the New Year. Have a Happy and Blessed Christmas.
As ever, protect yourself, your loved ones and others, and protect Christ in your lives.
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