Notebook A ‘pregnant pause’ is supposed to be one of the best tools in the armoury of a public speaker. In my 37 years of preaching, I have used it on only one occasion — on an Easter Sunday morning. It was amazingly effective. Easter Sunday is a hard day for the preacher. In Holy…
Notebook Bernard is a beautiful name (think of St Bernard of Clairvaux, patron of beekeepers and Gibraltar and all that). But I am not called after him. Bernard is also a surname in these parts, and my mother was born Maeve Bernard – hence my Christian name. My mother had a grand-uncle who was a…
Notebook Once upon a time in the Diocese of Cork, before retirement became a ‘thing’ for Church leaders, a parish priest went to his heavenly reward, aged well over 90. The bishop prevailed upon another parish priest to take over as pastor, even though this man was in his mid-seventies. And the people of the parish…
Did you ever notice how days’ significance changes over the years? In my early years, those quiet days between Christmas and Epiphany had little character. One day was like another, merely time reserved for lolling around, eating sweets and watching television. Then one year my mother died, a couple of days after New Year’s Day.…
Notebook Once upon a time, I was a media celebrity — for about a day. An article I wrote about weddings won me a spot on ‘Liveline’, then hosted by Marion Finucane: literally my 15 minutes of fame. The article was based on an amalgam of wedding experiences from the parishes I had been in.…
Notebook I spent my first 12 years in parish ministry as a curate, seven years in a suburban parish, then five in the commuter belt. They say a curate is “a mouse training to be a rat” (!); sometimes I wonder just how scarily effective that training was. You look at the photo adorning this…
Notebook To light a candle or not to light a candle, that is the question. Or to put it more pointedly, when the HSE advises churches not to permit people to light candles, should the advice be heeded or ignored? The HSE’s most recent comprehensive statement of ‘Covid-19 Guidance for Religious Services’ were last updated…
Notebook My summer holidays in Ireland included a visit to a rural pub/restaurant, where a family function was taking place. This event, maybe a christening or possibly a quiet second marriage, was attended by a large number of children, running all over the premises and annoying hoary old celibates like me. Sensing my annoyance, one…
Notebook It can be very hard to involve young married people in the life of the parish. It’s understandable – they haven’t a minute to themselves, between driving their children to GAA training, matches, piano lessons, pony-riding, Comhaltas…you get the picture. Young parents, anxious to give their children every opportunity, seem to be forever on the…
Notebook I think I must be the luckiest priest in Ireland. Luck is the key word there, because through no fault or effort of my own, I was eight years in this parish before Covid-19 struck. This was a powerful help just now. It means I know the place and its people very well (and…