Being a priest often calls you to be with people in the darkest of hours, writes Fr Martin Delaney
Priesthood has been very much on my mind recently. On July 5, I celebrated the 29th anniversary of my own ordination. Within the same week, I attended the ordination of Fr Brian Griffin, the first priest to be ordained for our diocese (Ossory) since 2001.
But it was the homily at the 25th anniversary Mass of my friend, Fr Aodhan Cannon in Dungloe, Co. Donegal that brought me into a reflective mood on what I had signed up for 29 years ago.
The homilist, Fr John McLoughlin from Liverpool, invited us to reflect on one word from the ordination rite itself. That is the word spoken by the candidate when he is called forward during the ceremony. He answered: “Present.”
As I reflect on 29 years of ministry, that one simple word sums up for me so much of what it is to be a priest, particularly a diocesan priest.
I have always felt that as priests we get privileged access to people’s lives.
That access comes in times of sorrow and in times of joy and in many other ordinary situations. The invitation is almost always one to be simply ‘present’ and somehow I suspect that ultimately we will be judged by the quality of our presence.
I wrote the preceding lines in the early days of July. I left it aside for some reason and said I would return to it later. Little did I know what lay ahead of me and how the call to be present would come into sharp perspective.
At 3.20am on the morning of Sunday, July 12, I got that dreaded call from the Gardaí asking me to come to the scene of a fatal accident just outside the town.
When I got there a few minutes later I discovered that three young people from our community had been killed and a fourth had miraculously escaped.
In the hours, days and week that followed being present to the families, the community and particularly the young people presented me with the greatest challenge of my 29 years of priesthood.
Words seemed woefully inadequate and yet there had to be words. The whole community was engulfed in darkness but as the days wore on chinks of light and hope began to slowly appear.
Those chinks were provided by the countless random acts of kindness which so many in the community did for the grieving families.
We lived those awful days in the shadow of death but we were living in the shelter of each other. We were doing the only thing we could and that was to be really present to each other.
Cultural differences
A Nigerian priest is ministering in our parish for the summer months. I enjoy hearing about some of the pastoral practices in his country and how they contrast with our own. In his diocese they are very strict about not having funerals at Sunday Masses.
However, later in the conversation he told me that it has become normal for collections to be taken up at all funerals. Now, can you just imagine if we introduced such a custom here? RTÉ’s Liveline would get a month of programmes out of it!